Matthew Hazlett/ The Towerlight

Senior speech-language pathology and audiology major Emily Waugh has been selling jewelry for over two years, not in local stores, but completely online, on Etsy.

Etsy is an e-commerce website where vendors can sell unique handcrafted jewelry, vintage clothing and custom-made home and holiday décor.

Waugh said that the website is incredibly user friendly and affordable, at around 20 cents to post an item for sale. Users can also log on to look at other’s crafts in order to find inspiration to try new things.

“I definitely go through the site all the time and ‘like’ people’s stuff, it’s kind of like social networking combined with buying and selling,” Waugh said.

Waugh’s shop is called ‘Dot Your Eye’ after her unique freckle, which is located on her eye. She specializes in creating earrings and other jewelry pieces out of everyone’s favorite childhood activity, Shrinky Dinks.

“The other option is to sell on Ebay or to create your own website, and this is just so much easier,” Waugh said. “They take care of money conversion for you and there is already an audience because people know about Etsy and they can search for something and find it in your shop so you get a wider group of people.”

Etsy can be equally as rewarding for those who use it only for buying and not selling.

Junior Jaime Hamilton has been a member of Etsy for about a year-and-a-half after discovering the website on social photo-sharing website Pinterest.

She said she has found it useful when looking for unique gifts for friends, and for online window-shopping

“I don’t [use it to sell stuff],” Hamilton said. “I’m crafty but I couldn’t do it all day. I’ve bought one thing ever and it was a mug that was blue like cookie monster with painted-on eyes. It had a place for cookies too. I got it for my boyfriend and he loved it.”

Similar to Amazon, Etsy is designed for people to find what they are looking for, however, Hamilton said she prefers it to other online shopping sites.

“I’m such a girly girl I’d imagine it’s better because the items are so unique, you wont be able to find handcrafted items on Amazon,” Hamilton said. “It caters to a market of people that want ‘new’ things they they’ve never seen before. Amazon is the exact opposite of that.”