Heading up the holiday season, Etsy, the online store for a wide variety of handmade and small business items, has now made gift cards available for its customers. The cards can be purchased here, and range from $25 USD to $250 USD.

Recipients redeem their gift cards on the site, enabling them to purchase a wide variety of homemade items, including jewelry, dresses, shoes, creatively designed backpacks for kids, decorative pillows, books, music, mobile phone gadgets, paintings, and lots more. But not all merchants are accepting the gift cards, so Etsy has set up a way for customers to click a button and filter out sellers who are not accepting cards.

Etsy says its gift cards do not expire or decrease in value over time. Purchasers of Gift Cards can send them by email, or print them to give to a recipient. You can cancel a purchased Etsy Gift Card, if not redeemed, up to 30 days after the date you have purchased it.

For those unfamiliar with the site, Etsy is made up of individual sellers, including artists, collectors, entrepreneurs, and the like, who set up an online shop and post their items for sale. The only requirement for being a merchant on Etsy is that you register with a valid credit card. There are no membership fees, but it does cost $0.20 to list an item for 4 months, or until it sells. Once an item sells, Etsy collects a 3.5% fee of the sale amount for each item sold. Merchants can sell handmade goods, vintage items, and arts and crafts supplies.

Source: TechCrunch