Don't Build Your Business on Borrowed Ground
You've poured your heart into building your online business. Every product listing is carefully-crafted. Every social media post is thoughtfully-created. Your followers are growing, your sales are steady and everything seems to be going well.
UNTIL, one morning, you wake up to find your account suspended. No warning. No explanation that makes sense. Just... gone.
For thousands of Etsy sellers and social media-dependent businesses, this nightmare is all too real. And it's a stark reminder of a fundamental truth: when you build your business entirely on someone else's platform, you're building on borrowed ground.
The Platform Problem
Etsy, once celebrated as a haven for independent creators and artisans, has changed dramatically. What started as a genuine marketplace for handmade and vintage items has evolved into something quite different. Sellers report:
Sudden account suspensions with little recourse (this has happened to LOTS of sellers)
Algorithm changes that tank their visibility overnight
Increased competition from mass-produced items
Rising fees that eat into already thin margins
Policies that change without meaningful seller input
The same vulnerabilities exist across social media platforms. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok as each operates by its own rules - which can shift at any moment. Your audience of thousands can vanish if your account is suspended, shadow-banned or simply deprioritised by an algorithm update.
You Don't Own Your Audience
Here's the uncomfortable truth: when your business relies solely on marketplace platforms or social media, you don't actually own your customer relationships. The platform does.
You can't export your Etsy customer list. Instagram owns the connection to your followers. If Facebook changes its algorithm tomorrow, your organic reach could plummet from thousands to dozens. You're constantly at the mercy of decisions made in distant boardrooms by people who don't know your business and frankly don't need to care about it.
Your Website: Your Foundation
This isn't about abandoning platforms like Etsy or social media entirely. They can be valuable tools for discovery and reaching new audiences. But they should be part of your strategy, not the entirety of it.
Your own website is the foundation your business actually needs. It's:
Yours to control – No one can suspend your domain or change the rules overnight
Your customer data – You own your email list and customer relationships
Your brand identity – Complete control over how you present your business
Search engine visibility – Rank for keywords that matter to your specific audience
Resilient – If one platform fails or changes, your business continues
A professional website gives you credibility that a marketplace profile or Instagram bio simply cannot match. When customers search for your business name, they find you - not just a profile on someone else's platform.
Diversify Your Digital Presence
Beyond your website, smart businesses establish their presence across multiple platforms that they can genuinely control or that serve as permanent business directories:
Google Business Profile is essential for local visibility and appears in search results and Google Maps. It's free, and unlike social media, it's designed to help customers find businesses, not to keep them scrolling on the platform.
A LinkedIn business page, which is also free, provides professional credibility and networking opportunities, particularly for service-based businesses and B2B companies while also creating a reciprocal back-link to help with your SEO.
Industry-specific directories relevant to your sector help with both discoverability and SEO.
The key is diversification. Multiple touchpoints mean that if one channel has issues, your business isn't crippled.
Take Back Control
Building your business on borrowed platforms is convenient in the short term. It's easier to set up an Etsy shop than build a website. It's simpler to rely on Instagram than manage your own email marketing.
But convenience isn't the same as security. And it certainly isn't the same as ownership.
Your business deserves a foundation you control. A digital home that can't be taken away. A direct line to your customers that doesn't depend on an algorithm's mood.
The time to build that foundation is now - before you wake up to find your borrowed ground has disappeared beneath you.
Ready to establish your own digital foundation? At Swoosh, we help businesses build websites and online strategies that put them in control. Get in touch to discuss how we can help your business thrive on ground you actually own.
