Moving From Etsy to Shopify: An Ecommerce Migration Story

In 2009, the Polder family decided to become farmers. At the time, they were living on a half-acre property in Melrose, Florida, and had no prior farming experience. They made the small space work for them, raising rabbits, making jams, and selling them both locally.

Today, the Polder family lives and works on a 115-acre farm, where they run a successful handcrafted wooden home-goods business, Old World Kitchen.

The business makes most of its sales on its Shopify store, but this wasn’t always the case.

Old World Kitchen began offline, then launched on Etsy. While the Polder family credits Etsy with helping establish the brand, it was a move to Shopify that unlocked growth. After moving platforms, conversions increased and Old World Kitchen was able to expand into resale goods and email marketing.

Here, business manager Loran Polder speaks about her family’s journey and the benefits of moving from a marketplace to an online store.

Meet Old World Kitchen

After dabbling in basket weaving, blacksmithing, and leather work, Loran’s dad, Trevor, found his stride with woodworking. The family began selling his handcarved wooden spoons at local farmers markets, garnering positive reception. The success of the spoons prompted the family to pursue the farming business in a serious way.

“We just went for it," says Loran of the family’s early days. "We certainly weren’t getting rich doing it, but it was moving in the direction of our dreams."

You just don’t see people bringing this kind of product to your doors these days.

Loran Polder

The Polder family then packed their bags and moved to a larger farm property in Tennessee, adding dairy cows and beekeeping to their scope. True to their Old World approach, their initial sales channel was also a throwback. The Polders packaged their honey and handmade goods into gift baskets, and sold them door to-door. “You just don’t see people bringing this kind of product to your door these days,” says Loran.

The Polders found surprising success with the approach, but it was time consuming and unsustainable. That’s when a neighbor suggested an Etsy store. But at the time, the family didn’t even own a home computer. “We were going to the local library to check emails,” Loran says.

“We knew nothing about marketing,” says Loran. “It just seemed to us, sheltered as we were, that you put up a website and people got to it somehow.” The main benefit of a marketplace, however, is that high-intent buyers are built in. And three days after launching, they made their first sale. “That was hugely encouraging to us,” says Loran.

Building a brand on their own terms

It was when a pop-up opportunity landed on their plate that the Polder family began investing in their brand's image, honing in on a message and vision for the company as a whole.

That effort to build a brand led to more success—until the family hit peak production capacity. That’s when they asked themselves: How do we scale?

I think that a lot of crafters have this idea that you have to be the poor struggling artist, like there’s something wrong with figuring out how to make your business profitable.

Loran Polder

The family considered investing in a CNC machine to create another line of wooden spoons at a lower price point. The move, however, would contradict the brand’s by-hand ethos. The alternative? Increase their prices. “I think that a lot of crafters have this idea that you have to be the poor struggling artist,” says Loran, “like there’s something wrong with figuring out how to make your business profitable.”

Their customers are happy to pay the higher prices for products rather than buy from other producers selling comparable products at a fraction of the cost. That’s because the family behind Old World Kitchen isn’t selling just a spoon. They’re selling a way of life, their story, and an experience.

As their brand grew, and their prices became more aligned with a luxury brand, the Polders found Etsy could no longer meet the needs of their growing business. Loran felt the typical Etsy shopper—younger and more budget conscious—was no longer their target audience.

The Polders began to grow their social channels in an effort to build a customer base outside of Etsy. In the meantime, they upgraded their camera and editing skills to improve their product photography.

When they were ready to move away from Etsy, they tried alternative marketplaces and platforms before deciding to build a store with Shopify.

The new Old World Kitchen

Moving from Etsy to a new store on Shopify was a game changer. “We were just absolutely blown away, because our conversion rate went up so much,” says Loran.

While the family needed to learn marketing on the fly, the efforts meant their visitors were high-intent. “There’s a huge amount of distraction on Etsy,” Loran says. “It’s more like strolling through a crafts fair rather than intentionally driving up to a brick-and-mortar store."

Old World Kitchen held firm with the new pricing strategy and continued to grow its following. The pricing model allowed the business to scale while staying true to its craft origins. Each year, as they hit production capacity, the family regroups to decide how they can continue to grow while maintaining brand integrity.

One of those strategies was partnering with other brands as resellers—an avenue of growth that was not possible with Etsy. Now, complementary products like cast iron cookware and tea towels are available in the store.

When (and why) to move from Etsy to Shopify

Loran credits Etsy for getting the family’s business off the ground. The platform was a good place to experiment with ecommerce, learn about online customer service, and bring their product to an existing audience.

But they quickly outgrew it. In contrast to Etsy's marketplace structure, the freedom and flexibility of running a business on Shopify let the Polder family scale their business and automate Old World Kitchen’s commerce processes—so they could focus on what they do best: making.

The right time to migrate from Etsy to Shopify and build your own ecommerce store depends on your goals, growth rate, and the features your business needs.

As a store owner, you might be ready to move your handmade business and open a new Shopify store if:

• Brand is integral to what you make. If your brand story or visual design are important to you, it’s more challenging to center these on Etsy. Port your products to a platform, like Shopify, that allows you to own your brand and customize the experience for your customer.
• You want to scale by converting your handmade production to a manufacturer. While Etsy now allows some mass-produced goods, the audience is still predominantly those looking for handmade or vintage goods. When you make this move, you may have outgrown the Etsy customer.
• Your target audience exists outside of the Etsy community. This may be the case if your brand decides to target a more luxury-focused customer. Setting up an online store lets you optimize for the search terms that are relevant to you.
• You’re interested in expanding your brand beyond products you make yourself. Etsy prohibits reselling, except in the case of vintage items. If you’re looking to partner with other brands to curate products, your own Shopify store will give you more flexibility to do so.
• You want to have control over your own marketing and customer lists. When you build on platforms like Etsy or some social channels, you often don’t own your audience or customer lists. Owning a store on Shopify lets you collect customer emails and market your business your way. Communicate directly to your loyal customers to ensure repeat business.
• You have surpassed a certain number of sales per month. Etsy’s pricing model relies on per-listing and per-transaction fees. This is ideal for new businesses, but the costs may not be worth it for large-volume stores. Once you’ve crested a certain sales threshold, Shopify’s monthly plans and lower transaction fees may be more attractive.

You can also maintain a presence on Etsy and Shopify at the same time. It’s a tactic the Polder family employs, using their Etsy store as a secondary sales channel.

A business for generations to come

Today, Loran handles all of the tasks involved with keeping the online store running, including everything from social media to email marketing. Her younger sister manages the shipping and fulfillment, while most of the family makes up the production team, with Trevor at the helm. Matriarch Angela Polder heads up quality control. “If anybody’s slacking, she makes sure they know it,” says Loran.

Old World Kitchen is a business designed to support generations to come, with room to incorporate future spouses and children into the mix.

The Polder family’s own story is one and the same with the brand. Being able to tell it on every page of their own site is critical to the success of their business and the preservation of their legacy.

Photos courtesy of Old World Kitchen