When you think of digital trade resources, Etsy might not be at the top of your list. While the e-commerce platform was certainly not built specifically for interior designers, it has become an increasingly popular destination to find craftspeople. Home to thousands of makers of all types, you can just as easily order a custom-to-the-centimeter banquette or made-to-order pillows in designer fabrics as you can a handmade necklace or personalized cutting board.

Designers who use the platform cite its combination of specificity and simplicity as the biggest draws. Seattle-based designer Brian Paquette recently used the platform to order a custom walnut tray from a maker in Wyoming. “I had this massive ottoman and the tray needed to be four feet wide,” he says. “This maker was able to customize it to the inch.” For an item like that, Etsy can take a lot of the initial work out of placing a custom order. Instead of finding a local woodworker, reaching out to share his needs and going back and forth to agree on a rate and lead time, all it took for Paquette was a quick search for “custom wooden trays” to find someone who could make exactly what he needed.

Etsy is well positioned to serve designers for that reason: It has become a platform where sellers can really lean into a niche. Take Carey Trudeau, a Woodstock, Connecticut–based decorator and maker whose Etsy shop PoshPlay specializes in French-style tufted cushions, or Lisa Carpenter of Cruel Mountain Designs in Glendale Springs, North Carolina, who makes lampshades by hand in designer fabrics. Vendors like these are able to home in on what they do well (and what sells), then tailor their production to meet the market’s demands. They also benefit from the way the site’s search functionality facilitates discovery and rewards specificity. When a designer searches for something like a “Les Indiennes fabric lampshade,” they quickly find the Cruel Mountain Designs Etsy shop and can place an order almost instantly.

It’s not just custom items designers are looking to the site for either. Mark and Mikal Eckstrom of Omaha, Nebraska–based Studio Eckstrom have often turned to Etsy to source accessories and fabrics that can be hard to find regionally. “The amount of vintage and antique textiles on Etsy should truly not be missed,” says Mikal. “We’ve found so many one-of-a-kind fabrics that aren’t in production anymore for one reason or another. It [the uniqueness] is such an amazing extra touch to add to a room.” Beyond that, there are now hundreds of vintage resellers and antiques dealers utilizing the platform, selling everything from accessories and deadstock fabrics to case goods and furniture, making Etsy a viable alternative to other e-commerce platforms even in categories like larger furniture and antiques.

In addition to the platform’s convenience, designers say that the costs for custom orders are often a fraction of what they might be quoted at a local workroom or a more mainstream trade brand. Francoise Murphy, a designer in Louisville, Kentucky, found an Etsy seller who made a custom brass semi-flush-mount light fixture that was half the price of a comparable piece from popular trade brands. “I’ve found really unique lighting designs on Etsy at competitive prices, which pleases my clients on both counts,” she says.

Shopping on Etsy can cut costs in other ways too. Paquette first began using Etsy for projects more than a decade ago as a way to bypass fabric minimums. “I didn’t want to buy five yards of a particular fabric to make one or two pillows, but I would go on Etsy and I was able to find sellers who will make you a single pillow out of beautiful designer fabrics that they stock themselves,” he says. “It’s still a $250 or more pillow, but not having to buy yards and yards of fabric that I’m then going to have to store and figure out how to use again—that’s a massive savings.” Paquette has recently begun making bigger purchases on the site as well. “I placed an order for a custom marble sink for a client’s powder room. It’s made out of Viola marble—which could cost $8,000 to $10,000 to have it made locally—and I got it for $1,200 and only paid $150 for shipping,” he says.

There’s always some risk when using a new vendor, particularly when the transaction and communication are entirely digital. Some designers have had experiences in which Etsy sellers ghosted them after an order was placed; others cited situations where the quality didn’t line up with their expectations. That’s where vetting can make a world of difference. Latisea Calton, a designer based in Jacksonville, Florida, always reaches out to sellers before placing any custom orders. “As a small business owner, I love supporting other small businesses, but you do have to be smart,” she says. “I read reviews and I ask them if they’ve done custom work before or if they work with designers often. I’ve even asked for references and examples of work that’s close to what I’m looking for. There’s something really nice about knowing that you’re talking to, usually, the maker themselves. They have more time to form a relationship and more investment in making sure the order is perfect.”

From the seller’s perspective, Etsy is generally appreciated for the consistent lead generation and ease of use on both the front and back end. Rachel Kalman, the owner of Westbrook, Connecticut–based upholstery studio The ReBorn House, has found Etsy much easier to sell on than its online competitors. “Etsy has quickly become my favorite—their margins are fair and the turnaround from submitting a listing to having it live on my shop page is much faster than on Chairish,” she says. “I’ve had instances where, by the time a listing posts on Chairish, it’s been two weeks and I’ve already sold [the piece] on another platform. Etsy is the easiest format I’ve come across and we’ve met some of our most creative clients through it—people with interesting projects and unique scopes of work. There’s a fascinating clientele on Etsy.” About 80 percent of the orders Kalman is processing are from homeowners; the remaining 20 percent are from designers.

While Kalman also operates a retail store and three workrooms in Connecticut, a lot of sellers on the site are e-commerce only. For Carpenter, Etsy has given her a way to scale her business that wouldn’t necessarily be an option locally. “I live in a remote area and if it weren’t for e-commerce, I wouldn’t be able to do this line of work,” she says. “I’m able to operate the business, complete with a trade program, with my daughter, who lives in Pittsburgh, and do it all remotely and work out of our homes.”

Eliminating geographical challenges works on the designer side too. While Murphy uses a local workroom for bespoke pieces, the lead times can be difficult to navigate and Etsy vendors often offer a tighter turnaround. “I’m in Kentucky and my local vendor is great but also very busy,” she says. “Sometimes they’re looking at eight to 12 weeks; they can get really backed up.”

Trudeau has had a more fickle relationship with the platform. She once listed one of her cushions as a “mattress” and Etsy removed the listing and suspended her account for a week—something that perhaps could have been avoided on competing sites that have a little more oversight baked into their listing approval process. “I guess there are legalities around selling mattresses, so I violated a rule and lost a week of work,” she says. Having been on the platform as a seller since 2012, she’s also seen the fees increase continually. She’s not alone in feeling the sting of the price hikes: In 2022, thousands of sellers banned together to strike in response to Etsy raising its transaction fee from 5 percent to 6.5 percent, effectively boycotting the site temporarily by setting their shops to “vacation mode.” Despite the strike, which an estimated 5,000 sellers participated in, the fee remains at the higher rate.

While the fees have increased, sellers say that the quality of the customer service on the backend has decreased, to the point where it’s hard to get in touch with anyone if a seller runs into an issue. Trudeau once had a situation in which a client wanted to change her shipping address after a label had already been issued and printed—in that case, getting Etsy’s customer service to reissue the shipping label and reimburse her shipping fees took weeks. Despite those drawbacks, Trudeau still says she’s loyal to the platform and makes sales on it daily.

Some sellers and designers take their transactions off the platform if projects are greater in scale. Trudeau, for example, had a repeat designer client reach out to her directly about doing window treatments and upholstery for an entire bedroom, something that’s a bit outside the scope of an individual Etsy item listing. But for the most part, both parties tend to appreciate the ease and formality of keeping things on the site. “I like that there’s a thread there in your messages to refer back to,” says Murphy, who recently ordered a custom upholstered daybed on the site. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, let me go back and find that vendor’s email…’. I can just pull up my account and say, ‘I’ve got another order for you,’ and we can get a piece started right away and keep a project moving forward.”