Build Your Own Etsy Alternative

Why sellers are leaving Etsy (0:00)

Etsy takes a high commission on every sale, and on top of that there are listing fees, payment fees, and constant policy changes. A lot of sellers are frustrated. But what most people don't realize is that this frustration creates an opportunity - because in today's world, you don't need a team of developers to build an Etsy alternative. You can create one yourself without writing a single line of code. In this video I'll show you exactly what I mean.

Here's why more and more sellers are looking for an alternative. Rising fees: Etsy currently takes 6.5% per sale, plus 20 cents per listing, plus payment processing fees on top. Competition: sellers compete with millions of other shops, so even with great products, it's hard to get noticed. No control: Etsy decides the rules, the policies, and the visibility - sellers just have to react. Algorithm changes: one small tweak to the algorithm can wipe out a shop's income overnight.

The opportunity for niche Etsy alternatives (0:27)

The key insight is this: sellers don't need another Etsy. They need a better home. That's where niche marketplaces come in. The most successful Etsy alternatives aren't massive platforms - they're focused. Handmade ceramics, vintage watches, indie stationery, local artisans. When you build for one specific group, you can offer lower fees, better visibility, and a real sense of community. The only problem used to be the tech - and that problem is now solved. Let me show you how to build one of these live.

Building a marketplace with AI (1:39)

I'm on Prometora, my marketplace builder. You can choose from one of four templates, or use Custom with AI, which is what I'm picking now. The prompt asks what will be sold on your marketplace - I want to make a marketplace for handmade ceramic artists. Let's call it Ceramics. I click next, pick a fun and playful theme, and it starts generating.

This takes a couple of seconds. You can see it's building the homepage first, then the about page, then a contact page. This is the first draft - everything is adjustable afterwards. The hero says "Discover handcrafted ceramics made with soul." Then there's a "Why choose Ceramics" section, and a small CTA at the bottom: "Ready to find your perfect ceramic piece?" with a button I can wire up to the all-listings page. That's a good start - and it took two or three seconds.

Customizing your marketplace (3:30)

I'll click on the navigation. I don't need a link to the front page, but I want links to the all-listings page, the about page, and the contact page. Done. I don't want the tagline either, so I'll remove it. I don't have a logo or favicon yet, but I could upload them here. Let's keep it simple for now.

For the hero, let's pick a different image - I have one that fits a ceramics marketplace better. Now the layout looks better. Text color stays white, maybe a bit bigger, and let's make the background black. Better. Let's remove the quick searches. Publish the changes. Quick preview - that's a solid start.

Now the "Why choose Ceramics" section. I'll edit the three benefit texts one by one. Then change the background to black, with white text and matching dark icons. Publish. Let me check what it looks like on mobile. The burger menu is up top. Scroll down - looks good. Could be better, but it's a solid start.

The CTA section below - same dark background, button in black, link wired to the all-listings page. The "Meet the artisans" section is a great idea - you could have a page where every seller introduces themselves - but I'll hide it for now. The about page and contact page I'll leave as they are. The contact form is already there. You'd want to polish them later.

By the way, you can also use the AI features inline. If I want to add a border somewhere, I can write "add a red border" and it applies one. "Make it thicker" - done. Publish, and the border appears in the live page. You can also create full components from the create panel.

Adding different listing types and creating the all-listings page (10:04)

Now to the store settings, then the listing form - this is important. Here you configure what kinds of listings sellers can create. You can have one type or multiple. We're going to use multiple. I did some research and there are three types of clay-based ceramics: earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. Let's add all three. I'll edit each one with its name and description.

The pricing model is fixed-price one-time purchase, which is correct for this marketplace. I won't allow free listings. No calendar needed. The default fields are title, description, and price. I won't enable inventory tracking - these are unique handmade products, always one of each. I'll add a custom field for color: a multi-select with green, yellow, red, and white. In a real setup, you'd add more colors. You can see the live preview on the right - sellers will be able to pick multiple colors. Currency stays USD. Save the changes.

Let me sign up as a seller to make a listing. I'll change the theme color first - let's go with black. Sign up form: name, email. I'll skip phone. Click "send magic link." The email arrives - currently sent from prometora.com, but if you'd added a custom domain like ceramics.com, it would send from there. Click the sign-in link. I'm in the seller dashboard.

Create listing. The three types are there - earthenware, stoneware, porcelain. I'll pick earthenware because that's the one with the color field. Title: "Selling my earthenware vase." Description: same. Price: $50. Color: white and yellow. Upload an image - done. Skip video. Publish.

Listing's live. Browse to the all-listings page - there's the listing. Click into it - gallery view shows the colors. A couple of things to fix. We don't need the "All" tab - just the three type pills. Go to the all-listings page settings, scroll down, disable the category filter, enable type-specific filters. For earthenware, also enable the color filter. Save. Back on the all-listings page: when I'm on earthenware, I see the type-specific filters including color. On stoneware and porcelain, just the price filter (because I didn't add color there). Empty for now since we don't have listings in those categories yet. That's how easy it is to set up the all-listings page - which matters because this is where buyers will land and filter your inventory.

Setting up payments & commission and making the first test purchase (17:43)

We're nearly at the first version. Let me show you the payment setup. You can use regular Stripe or Stripe Connect. Most marketplaces use Stripe Connect - with regular Stripe, all the money goes to the marketplace owner's account, which is fine for single-seller stores. Stripe Connect handles multiple sellers, which is what marketplaces need. You add your publishable key and secret key. Always start with test keys from Stripe so you can test everything end-to-end. I'm in Stripe, on a test account. Developers → Overview. Copy the publishable key, copy the secret key, paste both into Prometora. Save. You can also set up a custom domain here - ceramics.com or whatever you'd buy.

Now I can do a test purchase. But I'm logged in as the seller, so it'll tell me I can't buy my own listing. Let me sign out and sign up as a buyer - same magic-link flow. A buyer account is just like a seller account except they can't create listings. You can also convert a buyer account into a seller account later. Signed in as a buyer. Click buy. The checkout shows the marketplace fee - $5. Let me adjust that. Back to the payment settings, the commission is currently 10%. Let me change it to 5% - more competitive than Etsy. You could go higher or lower depending on your strategy.

Back to checkout - the marketplace fee is now $2.50. That's the money I earn as the marketplace owner. Test card: 4242 4242 4242 4242 (Stripe's test card). Pay. Order confirmed. Order details show. Order confirmation email arrives - currently from prometora.com, but with your custom domain it would send from there. The seller also gets a "you made a sale" email with the platform fee shown.

Outro (24:36)

We've covered most of it: a working homepage, the all-listings page with three listing types, a listing created, and a test sale completed. The one thing we didn't set up here is shipping. A new marketplace can also just start by letting the buyer and seller message each other directly - the seller sends the tracking number once shipped. You can implement a proper shipping flow later when the marketplace is established.

If this sparked an idea, that's exactly why I built Prometora. Go ahead and test it out. If you have any questions, send me an email or drop a comment - I read all of them. See you in the next one.