You Don't Own Your Customers on Etsy — Here's Why That Matters

I wrote a while back about why I built songdawgdesigns.com alongside Etsy, Cults3D, and Printables — mostly about content limits and creative freedom. There's a bigger reason underneath all of that I didn't get into yet: on every one of those platforms, the customer belongs to the platform. Not to me.

Every sale on a marketplace is a rental, not ownership

When someone buys from me on Etsy, Etsy has their email, their order history, their contact info — I don't. I can message them through Etsy's system while an order's active, and that's about it. If that person loves what I made and wants to hear about a new drop six months from now, I have no way to reach them directly. Etsy does. Same story on Printables and Cults3D. Every one of those customers is a platform's customer first, and mine only through their permission.

Enforcement can cut that access off without warning

Platform policies get enforced inconsistently, and not always predictably — a listing that's been fine for months can get flagged, pulled, or restricted with little explanation. When that happens, it's not just that one listing that disappears. Every customer relationship built through it goes with it. You never had their information to begin with, so there's nothing left to fall back on.

My advice if you're starting a business: build your own site from day one

You don't have to choose one or the other. I still sell on Etsy, Printables, and Cults3D, and I'm not walking away from any of them — they bring in real business and real discovery I don't get anywhere else yet. But if I were starting over, I'd build my own site on day one instead of waiting until a platform gave me a reason to. Every buyer who signs up for my newsletter is someone I can reach no matter what any platform decides tomorrow. That's the whole point — not replacing the marketplaces, just never being fully dependent on one.

If you're a maker or small shop owner reading this and you're 100% on marketplaces right now, that's fine — just don't wait for a takedown notice to start building something that's actually yours.

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