Recently, I’ve had a number of conversations about supporting small businesses this holiday season. Rather than funnelling more money into Amazon, I encourage people to use Etsy, an online platform for buying and selling unique, creative products. You can find everything there, from handcrafted jewelry to vintage homeware.

The younger generation takes for granted how quickly we can adopt new technology. But, I realize that not everybody knows how to get started on a new website. That’s why I created this guide to using Etsy for online shopping this holiday season.

When you get to the homepage of www.etsy.com you will see a search bar at the top (where it says “Search for anything”) click that and type in what you’re looking for. Since I’ve shopped on Etsy before, I get a list of suggested items based off of my past searches and purchases.

Let’s say you’re looking for a homemade vanilla candle. Enter: “hand poured vanilla candle”.

Note: some of my favourite things to find buy on Etsy are customizable necklaces and notebooks, dainty stacking rings, pressed floral art, minimal art prints, enamel earrings, macrame wall hangings, and hand knit toques.

You can also hover over the menu bar to get inspiration from the product categories they have listed.

Already I’m getting some beautiful suggestions. I mean, are the customizable and flower petal candles cute or what? If you want to customize your search click the button under the categories that says “All Filters”.

This tool is really helpful to ensure that you find the right product that will arrive on time or get free shipping. It’s also helpful if you are looking for a gift for someone living in another place. Scroll down the filters bar until you see “Shop location”. Here you can search for sellers in the region of the person you’re getting the gift for.

I refined my search to shops in Canada with an arrival before December 15th and found these all-natural soy candles that would be a perfect gift for someone who likes eco-friendly, natural homeware.

Once you select your customizations (a lot of products on this site have customizable options, if you scroll down to the product description you can find more information on each one), you can proceed to checkout.

If I’m getting a gift for someone who lives in another city, I will get the seller to ship it directly to them. To ensure that the person receiving knows the gift is from me, I will click “this order is a gift” and also leave a note to to the shop. Type something like: “Can you please leave in a note in the package that says: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I wish we could be together in person but you will alway be in my heart. With love from Marisa.”

Since most shops on Etsy are run by individuals, they are normally really helpful when it comes to adding special touches to your order.

Once you’ve added all the necessary instructions, you can choose your payment method and click checkout. There, you can enter the shipping address (either your own if you want to gift it in person or you can enter the address of the person you’re gifting it to if you want it to ship directly to them.

I hope this guide was helpful to people navigating new forms of e-commerce this year! We’re going to be following up this weekend with a list of specific small businesses that are making unique gifts locally. Comment any questions you have down below.