Go ahead and look at all the fees you paid out to Etsy over the course of a year. When I had my shop, I maintained an average of 15 listings and over the course of one year I paid $2200 in fees for a gross income of $9700. So I paid them 22.68%! That’s crazy!
Now let’s look at what it costs to have your own website.
Domain (url): $15 per year
Hosting Service $75 per year
Merchant fees: Both Stripe and Paypal are currently 2.9% plus .30 per transaction
I think the math speaks for itself. With a little education and strategic changes you can actually get off that Etsy Yo-Yo and keep the money you have earned. This is what I call working smarter not harder.