Anyone here have their own webpage they sell their laser projects or designs on? I currently have one through Shopify but if I am being honest with myself it is costing to much monthly. I am thinking about shutting it down and going back to Etsy only. Before I do that I was curious if anyone had ideas if there are good cheaper alternatives that allows digital item sales.
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My friend has a couple…i can’t remember the one she uses the most…I’d have to ask, but she also uses wordpress. It seems like a yearly fee of around 100-ish dollars, and you add a plug-in for the shop or something.
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I don’t sell through mine, but 100% WordPress can build (for free) a site with full functional sales plugins designed for digital media. I host through Tigertech.net and they only charge for storage (not upload/download fees) and it’s ~$144/year and that includes email, and domain registration, etc.
WordPress designed a sales plugin called WooCommerce that is free to start - and only costs if you want to do specializations that usually come into play when you’re making larger sales.
The advantage of being on something like Etsy is that they do a lot of the marketing for you - a personal site you’re responsible to get people there as well as convincing them to click buy.
If you want to go that method, I’d be happy to walk you through the setup (I design websites in my spare time).
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When I was selling, I just used the free version of Square. They sent a free card reader (they have various styles), I was able to create a website, and it was fairly easy for me, so it should be really easy for you. Customers can even order directly on your website. And like I said, even the free version is really good, although they also have a more “professional” version available.
I don’t know why it wouldn’t work for your digital designs as well.
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I have set up several shops with WordPress and WooCommerce. +1 for @deirdrebeth ’s analysis. There is a little more to setting it up and running it than something like Shopify or Etsy but, you also don’t get abused as much.
If you go the WordPress route: remember to install updates regularly and, set up a backup system. Unpatched WordPress sites get hacked.
Spending a little bit on plugins (often as a subscription, alas) can make some things a lot easier (e.g., calculating shipping cost). There are free plugins for most payment services you might want to use (including Square and PayPal).
I am not really marketing stuff I have up on these sites. It’s mostly stuff I put up in response to people asking me if they could buy one. I have been running the Pop Up Card shop, mainly selling work by friends, since before WordPress existed. WordPress was a huge improvement over what was available before. If you want to check my shops out for research:
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QFT
Running a WP site properly takes some skill and effort. I think everyone in the web world knows a few people who bought a WP hosting bundle and got in over their heads.
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This. One of the advantages of Tigertech.net is they run backups every 24 hours, so I set my site to automatically update everything and if for some reason (it hasn’t happened yet) a patch breaks my site, I reach out to Tigertech and have them revert to yesterday’s. It’s a lovely combo 
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@deirdrebeth @evermorian WordPress and WooCommerce, that’s what I was trying to think of. And I think WooCommerce pays out through Stripe? When my friend did my site for me, so told me I needed a Stripe account, and I was like, oh nice, I already had one. But I gave up, I didn’t have the time to keep up with a site when I was so busy with other things.
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I have used so many over the years, although not Wordpress. Square raised their minimum eCommerce site to $29, so I left to ECWID, who also recently raised their prices, but still have a 5-item free tier. Big Cartel also has a 5-item free plan, or bump it to 50 items for $15/mo. Currently I am using Simple Shop (referral link for $7 in credits to you, $12 in credits to me)*, $14/mo, unlimited items, but no support forum or online support in any way. They do have digital file delivery, which is likely the one thing you are really looking for. They also have discount codes at that rate, and pay out through Stripe.
Weebly is also a good option, $13/mo for digital goods, free if you don’t need that option. Also pay out through Stripe, but know that Square owns Weebly and that makes things a bit of a mess, since they never completed a full roll over to Square.
Here is my Simpleshop site if you want to see what is possible: https://3catmax.simpleshop.com/puzzles
I could reroute the address to a custom domain name, but I don’t feel like it 
My main website is a Google site,(those don’t do eCommerce), which has all the “Get to know the Artist” type of information. I figured if I kept changing the eCommerce side, it would be easier to just point to a new shop site instead of redoing my entire site in a new website builder platform every year.
All of these options have website builders that are simple and easy to use. ECWID is Canadian, and Simpleshop is from the UK.
*slap my hand if referral links aren’t allowed (i.e. message me) I simply can’t remember after all these years, and couldn’t find the forum rules 
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WordPress has a plugin system. There are plugins that support most of the major payment processors.
WooCommerce also offers their own payment processing service that they try to get you to use but, it is not required.
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Years ago I tried to keep up with my Wordpress websites, but failed. I had one host company threaten to toss me as a customer since I was being hacked so hard 
WordPress Security Plugin | Wordfence is a security addon that I got for my sites, but ultimately moved to html and now redirect to Amazon and Etsy It has been a long time since I used WordFence, so I don’t know what might have changed.
I am an author and sell physical books, not digital items, but I wanted to share WordFence with you as an option.
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Think you have more than enough information in the post and time on the boards to be considered non-spammy. 
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Thanks everyone. It all seems over my head. I might be reaching out to some of you if I have more questions but I think it might be time to hang up the hat on the Shopify site and go back to Etsy only. Too many spam emails from scammers and not enough sales from the Shopify side of things to justify the monthly cost anymore and with over 400 items it sounds like to much of a headache to move over to a new site from what I’m gathering here.
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I ran across this post on Mastodon talking about things you can do while still on Etsy/Shopify/etc. to grow an audience for your own site, and I thought some folks on here might appreciate it.
(It’s a direct link to a post in the middle of a long thread)
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