If I guessed correctly you are an Etsy Shop owner who looks into either upgrading your Etsy subscription or is thinking about opening your small business website. You also probably have heard about Pattern by Etsy websites, if you are doing your research on this topic. Luckily for you, I tested how easy is creating a website with Pattern by Etsy, so you can drive your own conclusions based on my experience and save some time trying to decide if Pattern by Etsy is worth it.

Setting Up a Website with Pattern by Etsy

Setting up your own website with Pattern by Etsy is fairly easy. You will have to fill out some basic information and choose your own domain. I would recommend getting a domain name regardless if you will end up purchasing a Pattern by Etsy subscription. You can easily connect your domain name with service of your choosing later on. It also help you build brand recognition online and might come in handy when you least expect it.

You get a free domain name with Pattern in format: YourShopName.patternbyetsy.com, which is even longer than generic Etsy Shop address. It’s better to own your own .com domain. If you don’t have it yet, I’d go to one of bigger registrars on the market and get it there, for couple reasons.

First reason is, if you want to switch your domain name registrar, you can usually transfer your domain somewhere else. I’m not sure how it works with domains purchased through Pattern by Etsy and I would be careful. Second reason is, you probably will outgrow the Pattern by Etsy website pretty quickly and want to switch to some other service provider, even if you’re a newbie to website building.

Pattern by Etsy Is Very Limited

As I said before, you will probably outgrow your Pattern by Etsy website pretty quickly, even if you lack webmaster experience. Entire process of setting up your own website is very automated. All of your Etsy listings can show up on your site with a click of a mouse. Which is handy, if you think about having to add them manually or importing them from Etsy to different platform and having to check them all for errors.

Your About page is also copy-paste from your About section on Etsy. You may want to change it a little bit in order to avoid duplication.

Google search engine algorithms don’t like duplicated content, so you also have to edit all of your listings to avoid penalties from Google or other search engines. You can do this in Etsy Shop Manager, the same way you’d edit your listings for Etsy.

So even though automated process of setting up a website with Pattern by Etsy sounds nice, quick and easy, it requires a little bit more work than you’d think.

Limited options to customize your own website with Pattern by Etsy are the biggest con of creating your site with them. You don’t have an option to organize your listings the way you would like to, you get very limited amount of pages you can add to your website and even then you have to stick to generic layout for those pages.

Before I started my free trial with Pattern by Etsy I knew I would like to start a blog about my creations and being a handmade maker in general. Pattern by Etsy offers an option to create a blog but, just like the rest of the pages, it’s very limited. You cannot even set up different categories for different types of posts.

As a reader, I would click off the blog page as soon as I realized that I have to endlessly scroll to get to the topics I am interested in. In my opinion it does not look professional in this day and age.

Pattern by Etsy – Not Secure Warning

My first impression was that Pattern by Etsy was underwhelming but I connected my custom domain to it anyways. When DNS change propagated, I had an unpleasant surprise – I couldn’t open my website, because every browser I tried showed ‘This site is not secure’ warning. I Googled this problem specifically for Pattern by Etsy and this situation is ongoing for years.

It ‘fixed’ itself after an hour or so but from what I could see on different forums and Reddit, this warning can come back out of the blue and scare potential customers off. If my browser tell me this website is a scam, I’m not going to make a purchase…

It’s disheartening that Etsy is not able to solve this issue for so long. I feel like Pattern by Etsy is an abandoned project. No new themes were created since 2016. No new options to customize websites were added since then. And SSL certificate problem that can make you lose customers is not addressed properly since it first started appearing.

Does Pattern by Etsy Have Any Pros Then?

In my opinion it has a pro that is also a con at the same time. You don’t need to set up a new payment method for your Pattern by Etsy website, because checkout on your site leads to checkout on Etsy. It may confuse some of your customers, if they haven’t noticed that your website is part of Etsy. It also means that shop, even on your own website, is very dependent on Etsy, their very common glitches and your good standing with Etsy itself. If your account gets suspended for any reason, your own website will suffer from it. Which brings me to another point.

Don’t Put All of Your Eggs In One Basket

For the reasons mentioned above, it is better to build your small business website outside of Etsy. It can cost you more or less than Pattern by Etsy subscription, which currently is $15 per month (excluding your domain name), but you get more control over your business site. And this is what having your own website is all about in the first place.

You have to remember that Etsy doesn’t promote or drive any traffic to websites created with Pattern. So you have to do it yourself. Aside from marketing efforts, you as an Etsy Maker know how important SEO is.

In this case you compete with millions of other people, Etsy and yourself on Etsy for a good spot in search. It’s better to try to do it on a website that you have more control over. I don’t say it’s easy but it’s better to less to none control.

Is Pattern by Etsy Worth It? My Conclusions

In short: no. I would advise you to look into other options to build your small business website, even if it seems like it will take more effort than simply setting up a site with automated Pattern by Etsy systems. Most of service providers have fool proof website building tools and even as a newbie you’re better off using those tools. Some aspects might require you to do some Googling, but in the end satisfaction of having your own place in this Internet space pays off.

If you have any experience building your own websites or blogs, you probably will scream with frustration about limited Pattern by Etsy options.

Pattern by Etsy – Free Trial

On the other hand, if you feel like trying out Pattern by Etsy, they offer a free trial of 30 days. You can cancel it anytime during those 30 days in your dashboard, so if you don’t want to pay $15 per month for subscription, you can easily opt out.

Have you already tried Pattern by Etsy? Are you thinking about opening your own small business website? Let me know!