Consider Etsy to market homemade goods

If you offer homemade or vintage items, Etsy could be an excellent outlet to advertise your business.

Mashable explains that if your store has items you would typically sell at a flea market, then they will probably perform well on Etsy. Anything made and shipped over from a foreign country need not apply here.

The news source states that items sold on the site include, for example, handmade jewelry, silk-screened t-shirts or homemade jam.

"As long as you make it, source it locally or can ensure it's one-of-a-kind, your product will fit nicely into the Etsy framework," explains the media outlet.

The site may be viewed by some as a more glamorous eBay, which is what Etsy seller Courtney Prince originally thought.

"When I discovered Etsy, my initial reaction was that it was a prettier eBay and a much better alternative to my malnourished website," Prince, creator of the label Doloris Petunia, tells the news source. "I soon discovered that it was much more than that because it allowed me to feature, promote and market my products better than any website or PR rep that I could have afforded at the time."

Essentially, Etsy can be a website for your business while you're working on the website for your business. The media outlet notes that the site acts in a similar fashion to Kickstarter, in that you can get a gauge for how well-liked your products are before you sell them on your own ecommerce website.

"A lot of the most successful Etsy sellers not only hand-make their stuff; they also make it special," seller Mu-Yin Mollie Chen tells Inc. magazine. "For example, maybe you crochet and you want to sell it. But a lot of people crochet. You have to think: 'why would customers want to buy from you?' The more special your product is, the more likely people will buy only from you."

Chen adds one bit of advice if you decide to sell on the site - avoid catalog-style photos and write detailed descriptions. Most Etsy buyers will be purchasing your handmade items without physically touching or trying them on, so post close-up shots of products and describe them in detail to reassure the consumer.

Finally, Mashable adds that the site also features a local outlet - Etsy Local - which lets users buy and sell to people in their neighborhood, cutting shipping costs and reducing their carbon footprints.