Many students use Pinterest for finding crafts, recipes and decorating ideas, but Pinterest is also a major platform for promoting items available on Etsy.com. Etsy serves as a website for independent retailers looking to sell vintage, handmade and one-of-a-kind items. Students are taking advantage of the distinctive items offered by Etsy retailers and even using the site to start careers of their own.

Etsy seller Dani Beach, a junior majoring in business and entrepreneurship, credits Pinterest’s popularity for Etsy’s subsequent increase in success. Beach sells vintage rake heads, which she turns into jewelry hangers, a process she discovered on Pinterest.

“Once Pinterest got more popular, it really influenced what I sell,” Beach said. “It’s crazy to me that you can sell random things like that because somebody saw something on Pinterest that they want to make.”

Shoppers can find virtually everything imaginable on Etsy, from accessories for your fashion-forward cat to iPhone cases that feature images of actor Bill Murray. If users can dream it, chances are, someone sells it.

Etsy shopper Britney Howard, a sophomore majoring in criminal justice, is no stranger to finding one of-a-kind items on Etsy. Howard said the oddest thing she has ever come across is reusable hygiene products.

“It’s gross,” Howard said. “[The store] even has them in houndstooth. Roll Tide?”

Aside from its more distinctive items, Howard thinks Etsy is a good place to look for ideas to fuel her own creativity and to find unique gifts. Howard likes the personalized items Etsy sellers offer. Her favorite purchases are a monogrammed T-shirt and monogrammed infinity scarf.

“I usually shop online maybe once a month, and mostly just on Etsy because I’d rather support individuals,” she said. “Plus, I really like the idea of having something unique and the hunt when looking online.”

Some of the most popular items to buy and sell on Etsy are vintage items like clothing, jewelry and home decor. In her Etsy shop, Itch for Kitsch, Beach sells clothes, decor and gifts. Beach found out about Etsy and started her store as a way of sharing vintage pieces she had collected.

“I had been thrifting a lot my senior year of high school, and I had been accumulating a lot of fun stuff. I really wanted to share it with other people; I couldn’t keep it all to myself,” Beach said. “It’s a total vintage obsession for me.”

Etsy has helped Beach determine her potential career path. Originally an education major, Beach grew more passionate about the world of online retail as her store began to grow.

“I realized my passion was really for online retail,” she said. “I went to New College, and they were really excited to have me and were really supportive of me growing my business.”

Etsy stores are relatively easy and inexpensive to start. Starting an Etsy shop is free, and it costs only 20 cents to list an item. Once an item sells, Etsy collects a 3.5 percent fee on the sale price of the item.

Though Etsy shops are simple for starters, Beach says maintaining a store entails a lot of work.

“At first, I did it as a hobby, but the more I did it, I realized [selling] is like a full time job,” she said. “You have to promote your stuff, you have to list, you have to clean and check your stuff for damages. It’s even worse if you’re handmaking things because you actually have to make the stuff. Aside from school, it eats up a lot of my time.”

In addition to providing sellers with an outlet to market their products, for many sellers, the website serves as a launch pad for extending their business into other online markets or brick-and-mortar stores.

Beach hopes to extend her store into other online markets and has learned a great deal about online retail from fellow Etsy sellers. She said her Etsy store has now become a major part of her income.

“The community is amazing,” Beach said. “I’ve met a lot of other sellers – some of them are even in the Birmingham and Tuscaloosa area – and it’s amazing how much I can learn from them. They’ve really taken me under their wing. It’s been a really helpful community for me.”