Etsy can be a very powerful tool for selling to people who value the handmade community. First off- don't worry about making the distinction of selling to non-crafters. I say that because the Etsy community of crafters/sellers is easily its largest community of buyers, as well. Think about it- you're there, you're doing research, maybe, on what's selling or not selling, what you like and what you don't like, and you see something cute. Small, maybe inexpensive, not even what you're researching. before you know it, yu've checked out through Paypal and the item is on its way to you.
Here are the strengths I've found in Etsy:
1) It's almost certainly the largest handmade community most people are aware of and that drives traffic you might not see otherwise.
2) Etsy has an excellent interface for buyers- you can heavily customize the way you want to search for your item or you can be as general as you want and you still have results.
3) It's inexpensive to start selling on Etsy. If you are starting out, building a website from scratch AND updating it AND marketing yourself can be daunting. Etsy has a small listing fee, small sold item fee and then you end up paying Paypal a bit to receive your payment. Etsy also has flexible, inexpensive advertising slots you can purchase for extra "foot" traffic and visibility.
4) If you want to analyze your shop traffic, Etsy and Google analytics work really well together. When you factor in the tags you put on your Etsy listings, this collaboration allows you to see what's working and drawing people and what is failing.
Etsy weaknesses, in my opinion:
1) It's huge. This is both a strength and a weakness, because you can list an awesome, unique item, and the sheer volume of item traffic will bury it pages deep in a short amount of time.
2) It is Paypal-dependent for all intents and purposes. Great if you like Paypal, difficult if you detest it.
3) If you are selling something high-volume, a must-have item, and everyone is trying to buy it at once, it is always first-come, first-serve; a customer can not put the item in their cart and have it saved there- it can be purchased out from under them in a matter of split-seconds.
I hope this helps! Etsy is a great tool for selling your wares- you just have to figure out a way to market yourself.
Infinity.etsy.com (closed to restock at the moment)