Let’s review Sellfy. Sellfy has built a reputation as small business-friendly and easy to use. But more than that, it’s made specifically for online creators. YouTubers, Instagrammers, TikTokers, photographers, videographers, designers, producers and artists.
If that’s you and you want to monetise your talents, read on. There is no shortage of ecommerce software platforms, but you probably don’t need all the bells and whistles that expensive platforms have. In this Sellfy review, we’ll review how the platform works. We’ll look closely at costs and if it’s a great fit for you.
What is Sellfy? Review Summary
Sellfy is a straightforward ecommerce platform for creating your online store. Here’s an at-a-glance summary of the main points of our review:
- Very affordable: You can get started on Sellfy for just $29 a month. Sellfy doesn’t charge transaction fees, a big point and this makes it very affordable.
- Quick test shop set up: Sellfy absolutely nailed “get started quick”. It only took me 15 minutes to get our test store up and running. And even a complete novice will have no problems building a great-looking store.
- Simple ecommerce: Sellfy covers everything creators need for simple ecommerce: store builder, templates, marketing, customer management, payments, analytics, and integrations. Don’t expect fancy.
- Creator-friendly: Sellfy is purpose-built for selling digital downloads, streaming, subscriptions, and print-on-demand merchandising. The kind of products creators and influencers want to sell.
- Add your shop anywhere: Easy to link from your social platforms, easy to embed into existing websites, blogs or as a standalone shop.
- Plenty of support. Sellfy’s customer service team is available 24/7 via email and live chat. And there’s a packed knowledge base to find your own answers.
If you want an ecommerce platform that’s low-cost and built for creators, get started here.
Sellfy’s most important features
- All product types: Sell physical products, digital downloads, print-on-demand, merchandise, subscriptions, and offer freebies.
- Store customization: Pre-made templates help you build a great-looking storefront in minutes.
- Managing customers: Keep tabs on all paying customers in the Customers section. Track details like order history, purchase dates, amount paid, subscription status and more.
- Order Tracking: Like the Customer section, Orders lists your full transaction history. Filters make it easy to narrow down and find every order.
- Marketing: Promote your online store and products within the platform. Start with email marketing, discount codes, upselling, social media ad tracking and pay-as-you-feel pricing offers. All simple, and you can
- Payment settings: Sellfy accepts secure payments through platforms PayPal and Stripe.
- Analytics: Sellfy collects store performance data to track how well your business is doing.
- Integrations: You can connect 7 external apps to extend the functionality of your store.
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Sellfy Review: Ecommerce store for Creators and Small Businesses
When you first sign up for Sellfy, the welcome dashboard walks you through creating your first store. It takes about 15 minutes.
You can imagine how Sellfy features fit together in 3 step setup:
- Add products.
- Customize your store.
- Connect a payment gateway.
And voila, you are up and running.
All of Sellfy’s other features are in the main menu on the left of the screen. It’s a very logical build, making it easy to navigate and find everything you want in the interface.
Let’s dig into what all these features do and how they work.
Create Your Online Store in Sellfy
To build your first store, you click the ‘Customize Your Store’ option in the welcome dashboard. The same options are available in the main menu via Store Settings > Customization.
When you set up your store, first you give it a name. This will appear as the URL with the domain .sellfy.store. If you already have a custom domain, you can also add it at this stage.
The Store Customizer is where you build your web store. I found the interface very user-friendly. It’s easy to navigate your way around the tools and features. All the options are listed in the left-hand menu.
Under Store Settings, you set elements and style features that appear on every page. This includes things like logos and page headers. And activating the shopping cart and search. Under Store Style, you can change visual settings for your entire custom storefront. This is also where you choose pre-made themes or templates.
Every Sellfy store comes with a default set of pre-made pages. These are listed under Built-in pages. They are:
- Home page
- Individual product page
- Product category
- Checkout
- Order confirmation.
You can add custom pages or design your own pages from scratch.
Creating and editing pages in Sellfy is brilliantly simple. Click on a page from the built-in or custom lists, and you get the same set of tools. Here’s what they look like for the Home page:
Sellfy calls page elements Modules. The editor lists all Modules in the left-hand menu. SEO settings appear as a second pop-out menu. Here you can preview and customize how every page will appear in search results. You can add a meta description and add an image for sharing on social media.
To edit Modules, you can click on the Module name in the menu. Or you can simply click on it in the main editor window. Sellfy isn’t a drag-and-drop editor. So you can’t rearrange or drop new modules into position that way. But a repositioning tool appears whenever you click on an object in the main window.
Above you can see the editing options for the Homepage Hero module. Adding the image took me about 5 seconds. You can edit the text by clicking on the text boxes.
One great thing you can do is preview how your design looks on desktop, tablet and mobile. It helped me realise I needed to shrink the size of my header and hero modules for mobile. Here’s the difference shrinking from large to small made:
A separate View My Store option lets you check out your site in a web browser. This previews more than just how your store looks. You can test out page navigation and how different elements work together.
Store Templates in Sellfy
There are 5 pre-made store themes to choose from. These aren’t just different designs, some are geared towards different product types:
- Lumiere: The default theme for general products.
- Noir: Also a general product theme, but with a dark style.
- Savant: A theme for online academies and web courses.
- Idee: A photography template.
- Mode: A fashion-focused theme.
Especially if you’re a first-timer, the design side of creating an online store can be time-consuming. Sellfy’s themes offer a shortcut to getting a good-looking store live, fast.
Adding Products to Your Sellfy Store and Product Types
Now you already created and designed your first site. But an online store is nothing without products to sell. In Sellfy, you can upload product listings and then add them to your product pages. You do this via Products > Add new product on the main dashboard menu.
The first thing you see is a list of product types. In Sellfy, you can sell:
- Digital products: Anything your customers can download. So ebooks, podcasts and other audio files, video, graphics etc.
- Print on demand: This is a real USP for Sellfy. If you want to sell branded mugs, T-shirts, hoodies, badges or anything else, Sellfy will make and ship them for you. Print-on-demand means Sellfy makes every item to order. So you don’t risk being left with unsold stock.
- Subscriptions: For selling digital products via a membership model rather than per-item purchases. So for something like a podcast, customers set up a repeat payment so they can download every new episode.
- Physical products: Listings for any items that need to be shipped.
- Freebies: A special category for free tasters, trials or basic versions of a ‘premium’ product.
Creating product listings in any of these categories couldn’t be easier. It’s a case of little more than filling in a form.
For all products, you have to provide:
- Product name
- Product description
- Product category (helps to group products in your store)
- Price
- Product preview image
With physical products, you have to think about shipping. If you use pay-by-weight shipping, you have to include the weight of each item so shipping costs can be calculated. Shipping details are managed in Store Settings > Shipping Settings.
Print-on-demand works a little differently. Sellfy lists the products that you can customize and sell in your store. Here are the categories available:
Again, the merchandise editor is brilliantly simple. It shows you the dimensions of the item’s printable area in a graphic. You can upload images and add text. You just click and drag to rearrange or resize. It took me a couple of minutes to design a simple tote bag.
Another cool thing about Print on Demand is that Sellfy autogenerates product preview images. You get four different images to choose from. You can regenerate them at any time.
Marketing your Products with Sellfy
As a creator, you don’t always have the luxury of a full sales and marketing team. Sellfy offers built-in marketing tools to make life a little easier.
The options are found under Marketing > Marketing Features. Here’s what you can do:
Email marketing
Sellfy lets you send promotional emails to your customers. It has templates for product launches, product discounts and product updates. It’s not a huge choice and the email designs are basic text. No HTML email designs here. But on the plus side, it’s really easy to set up and add images. For a product launch email, you simply choose the product and pick your recipients. Sellfy autogenerates the email with a link to the product listing.
If you’re not happy with the look of Sellfy emails, you can use Zapier to connect Sellfy with email marketing tools. And you can request a direct integration with your email tool on the Apps page.
Coupons & Discounts
Sellfy lets you offer discounts in 2 ways: coupon or sale. You can knock down the prices of individual items. Or run a sale across your whole store. You can also create coupon codes that customers can redeem against future purchases. There are options to set a time limit, choose eligible products, and how many times a coupon code can be redeemed.
Cart Abandonment Emails
Cart abandonment sends an email whenever a customer puts items in their basket but doesn’t complete the sale. The cart abandonment email is as easy to set up as promotional emails. You can add coupons and discount codes to bump conversions. Find more email marketing campaign ideas in our ecommerce email marketing guide.
Upsell
An upsell generates a pop-up message whenever a customer adds a product to their basket. The message suggests another product the customer might want to buy. You can add a discount as a sweetener. You can apply upsells to specific products. And that way link items that are commonly bought together. Or you can set upsells to appear with every product. This is a great way to promote a new item, for example.
Payment Options and Settings Sellfy
The final step to selling products through your store is setting up payments. The options are found under Store Settings > Payment Settings. Again, the first thing that hit me was how easy Sellfy makes it. There are two options. You can connect a Stripe account, use PayPal or both.
Stripe and PayPal are two of the world’s biggest digital payment platforms. So you know you are going to get fast, reliable payments and high levels of security. Stripe means your store will be able to accept Visa, Mastercard, Google Pay and Apple Pay. PayPal, meanwhile, facilitates payments from any bank account. It’s used by more than 400 million people worldwide. Account holders can pay securely without sharing their financial details.
Managing Customers in Sellfy
Once you start selling, Sellfy captures the details of every paying customer. It lists them all in the Customers section.
Customer listings are split into two:
- All Customers: This section lists everyone who makes standalone product purchases.
- Subscriptions: There’s a special section for subscribers as more details are shown. Here you can view the length of subscription, start date, status, payment history and more.
Sellfy automatically asks for customer email addresses at checkout. Downloads are sent to customers by email. Email addresses are listed on the Customers page with other details. You can use these to send marketing emails. Just be sure to set the opt-in right. You can do this in the Store Customizer on the Checkout page, as shown below:
Tracking Orders and Inventory in Sellfy
Sellfy keeps a record of all orders. You can view them in the Orders tab in the main menu. This helps you keep track of the status of every order. In the main All Orders view, the following details are shown for every order:
- Order Date
- Product purchased
- Customer email
- Payment status
- Fulfilment / Shipping Status
- Price
You can filter the list by product, price range, payment and shipping status. There is a separate tab to filter all unfulfilled orders. You have to make sure no orders slip through the net!
You can export any order data to Google Sheets.
Sellfy Analytics
Sellfy collects data to help you monitor how your store performs. It displays everything in Overview > Analytics.
Any online business needs to keep a close watch on performance. Data analytics is an amazing tool that has improved business insight. But as start-up solopreneurs, all that number-crunching can be frighteningly complicated.
Sellfy does a great job at keeping things simple. It strips back the data to the essentials. And presents it in easy-to-understand graphs.
Sellfy reports include the following analytics data:
- The number of website visits
- The number of transactions/purchases made. (Multiple products bought at the same time count as one purchase).
- Conversion rate, or the percentage of visits that turn into purchases.
- Total revenue
- The top products by revenue generated.
- Top web-traffic sources
- For international sellers, top countries. This shows data for visits, purchases, conversions and revenue by country.
For all the above, you can narrow down by date. Or view data for chosen products. It’s by no means the most comprehensive set of web store analytics you’ll ever see. But if you’re just starting or running a microbusiness, it will tell you all the key things you need to know. And make it simple to keep track of them. You can connect Google Analytics directly, SEO tools, and reporting platforms with Zapier.
Sellfy Integrations
If you do wish you could do a little more with Sellfy, no sweat. It offers direct integrations with 7 external platforms. All are in the Apps tab on the main menu.
One of the options is Google Analytics. So if you do want to take your performance tracking up a level, the option is there.
Facebook Pixel and Twitter (now X) Ads help you promote your store on social media. Facebook Live Chat provides messaging for customer service. Google Merchant Centre lets you customize how your products appear in Google results.
Being able to connect to your Patreon page is a great option for creators. It means you can sell via Sellfy directly to your Patreon followers. And Zapier is an amazing tool that lets you connect to 5000+ other apps, including email marketing tools, marketing automation platforms, CRMs, SMS marketing software, online course platforms, and SMTP servers.
Also, you can embed your Sellfy store on your other websites. There are 3 options available under Store Settings > Embed options:
- Buy Now buttons, which provide a direct link to the Sellfy checkout. This is useful for things like blogs where you mention your products.
- Single Product Pages. This displays full product listings on another website.
- All Products. Displays your full product catalogue on another site.
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How Much Does Sellfy Cost? Pricing and Discount 💎
Sellfy pricing has 2 big advantages. It’s cheap and it’s simple. Starting at $29 a month, it’s $3 cheaper per month than Shopify Basic. This doesn’t include the transaction fees you’ll pay in Shopify. And you don’t get the complex add-ons of platforms like WooCommerce.
But the biggest plus of all is that Sellfy doesn’t take any cut of sales. Unlike other ecommerce platforms, Sellfy doesn’t charge transaction fees.
The Starter tier is for businesses turning over less than $10k a year. You can sell unlimited products. Once your revenue goes over $10k, you unlock extra features on the Business and Premium plans.
We talked with the Sellfy team and our readers get a 45% discount on the Starter Yearly Plan if you sign up here and use this coupon code at checkout: EVS
There’s a 14-day free trial with all features for you to try before you put your store live.
Sellfy Customer Support
Sellfy’s support options lean heavily towards self-help. Its Help Center is well-stocked with support articles. They are split into two categories. ‘Store owner questions’, or things account holders need to know for running their store. And ‘Buyer questions’, or things store owners might need to know to help their customers.
There is a Help button on many of the feature pages. This gives you access to the knowledge base as you use the platform. What’s cool about it is that it shows articles based on what page you are on. So it speeds up finding what you are looking for.
You can also contact Sellfy’s customer support team via email ticket. User reviews speak very highly of the support experience. Responses typically come in just a few hours. On higher plans, you get priority customer support and a faster response.
Example Stores Built with Sellfy
So that’s everything you can do with Sellfy. But what about putting it all together to build an actual, real-life web store? Here are 5 great examples of Sellfy sites built by creators.
Think Make Push
Think Make Push is the web business of David Killingworth. David is a film production enthusiast who turned his hobby into a career. He works full-time in video production for a TV station.
Thanks to Sellfy, he has also set up a successful side hustle making and selling film overlays. These are digital files that manipulate how videos look. David has an audience of close to 30k YouTube followers he sells to. And has even worked with Netflix producers!
David’s favourite feature is upselling:
“I’ve been using [the upselling feature] a lot,” said David. “I had no background in marketing, so the upselling feature was the first time I ever heard of upselling. So, when I looked into it and tried it out, I was like, “Wow, this is great.”
Efikzara
Zara is a multi-talented creative influencer. She is a professional violinist, composer and experienced cinematographer. She has 105K+ followers on Instagram and 171K+ subscribers on YouTube.
She’s also passionate about natural hair care. Efikzara is the store where she has turned that passion into a business. The site sells Zara’s natural hair care recipes and resources as digital downloads. There is also bright, funky branded merchandise courtesy of Print on Demand.
For Zara, the big win of using Sellfy is how user-friendly it is. A lot more so than other platforms she has used in the past.
“I used to have a Shopify store, but it’s not as user-friendly as Sellfy,” said Zara. “When you’re selling something like digital products, I think it should be straightforward so that your customers can get what they need. I think Sellfy does a really great job with making the purchasing process straightforward. The user experience is so effortless that it’s easy to get a high conversion rate.”
Eumicakes
Eumicakes is the business website of palette knife artist Eunice Arreza. A former teacher and now full-time mum, Eunice is also a talented cake decorator. And she has turned that talent into a business.
Eunice specializes in a technique called palette knife painting. She makes floral arrangements in icing and buttercream. And shares all her projects with her 30k Instagram followers. Through the Eumicakes store, she sells courses and tutorials showing others how to do it.
Eunice started selling her first courses via Facebook. When she decided it was time to set up a proper web store, she looked around at the different platforms. And decided Sellfy was the best fit for a new starter like her.
“I compared different eCommerce platforms by weighing the pros and cons,” Eunice explains. “And, Sellfy’s Starter plan for selling digital products seemed like the best option for me – it was what I needed. Also, I like that Sellfy is more than just an online store – it’s a fully functional website that doesn’t require any coding skills, which makes it very beginner-friendly.”
LindaSkuja.com
Linda Skuja is a textile designer and solopreneur. She is widely respected in the crochet industry and runs her own apparel brand, Eleven Hand Made. But as a self-taught crocheter, Linda is also keen on helping others learn the art. On her online store LindaSkuja.com, she sells downloadable crochet patterns.
Linda is another store owner who recommends Sellfy for its ease of use. “My personal experience with other platforms is that they tend to be more complex,” she said. “For example, putting up product listings was so hard that I had to look up answers in the help center. With Sellfy, everything is smooth. It only took 30 minutes to set up my listings.”
Beyond that, Linda loves that Sellfy is flexible enough to act as a personal website and store in one. “I wanted my eCommerce platform to be a personal website as well as an online store. I love that I have a beautiful storefront now that represents my brand, and that I can use my Sellfy site to pitch new collaborations with magazines and publishing houses. I’ve received great feedback about my site from both editors and customers. I feel like my business is in good hands with Sellfy.”
Megan Hein Photography
Megan Hein is a professional photographer with more than a decade’s experience. Through her Sellfy store, Megan sells customized editing presets to download. She also sells a range of print-on-demand merchandise.
When decided to launch a store in 2020, Meghan wanted a simple service she could move fast with. “I needed a quick and easy setup so I could start selling presets,” she explained. “I came across Sellfy because another photographer recommended it to me. I had done a lot of research and I was struggling to find something that was easy to use.
One of the things Meghan loves about Sellfy is how much is taken care of for you. “I love being able to create a coupon code or host sales where I can put a start date and an end date, especially around the holidays. I don’t have to remember to launch and end the sale myself.
“Sellfy has given me a way to earn passive income—I don’t have to be on my computer all day to send digital files or invoices.”
Build your store with Sellfy here
Final Conclusion: Is Sellfy the best ecommerce store for creators?
So now you’ve read my Sellfy review, what do you think? Does it sound like the ideal ecommerce platform for creators?
From what I’ve learned about Sellfy, I have to say it is. Three things stand out. One, it’s just so easy to use. Two, it focuses on digital products. Three, it’s great value.
My conclusion: Sellfy is the perfect fit for digital creatives and influencers looking to monetise their talent. Or launch a side hustle.
- Design Options: 3.5
- Ease of use: 5
- Features: 3.5
- Integrations: 3
- Support: 4
- Value: 5
Total: 4.0
Sellfy Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Is Sellfy free?
Can you make money on Sellfy?
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Is Sellfy a legit site?
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Is Sellfy only for creators?
Get started and build your store with Sellfy
What does Sellfy cost?
Does Sellfy take a percentage?
When do Sellfy users get paid?
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How do you get sales on Sellfy?
Sellfy is a great fit for anyone with a good social media presence. It’s easy to direct followers to your store. Sellfy offers built-in marketing features. You can send out marketing emails to promote your products. Or offer discounts and upsell pop-ups to encourage more sales.
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What’s an email credit in Sellfy?
What does migration mean in Sellfy?
- Email migration: You can import existing email contacts into Sellfy on all plans.
- Product migration: On the Business plan and above, you can import product listings from other platforms.
- Store design migration: The Sellfy team will customize your storefront based on your own website design. This is available on the Business plan and above.
Sellfy Alternatives
Sellfy vs. Shopify
The main difference between Sellfy and Shopify is simplicity. Shopify is the world’s biggest ecommerce website builder. It’s packed full of features. The options for customizing your store reach way beyond what Sellfy offers. And you can sell 100s of types of products.
But for new starters and micro businesses, much of what Shopify offers isn’t relevant. And the huge feature list makes it harder to get to grips with. Sellfy is the opposite. It strips everything back to the basics of what you need. And focuses on ease of use. It’s also primarily set up to sell digital products. Sellfy is also cheaper. Pricing starts at $29/month and they don’t charge any transaction fees.
Check out our review of the best ecommerce platforms
Sellfy vs. Payhip
Sellfy and Payhip are both ecommerce platforms focused on selling digital products. The main difference is the range of features offered. Sellfy includes several features Payhip doesn’t. It comes with built-in marketing tools. The marketing features include email templates for product promotions and up-sell pop-ups. Sellfy also offers a print-on-demand and shipping service for branded merchandise. And it has a mobile app for managing your store on the move.
Payhip doesn’t have any of these. But it does offer a free plan. The catch is that all transactions carry a 5% fee. Sellfy doesn’t take any percentage of your sales.
Read our review of the best ecommerce platforms for small businesses