Surprisingly, I do have an experience with this. To me fursuits are really expensive and not worth the money for how often I would wear it. Not to mention I get hot really fast, and I like to have a lot of movement freedom and clear vision. So, instead of a fursuit I ordered myself a furry hoodie. Last DFC I also saw a few others who chose for "fursuit alternatives", but those people were wearing kigu... Kig... Those Japanese-ish onesie pyjama costumes. If you're on a low budget and find wearing fursuits uncomfortable, you can also look into things like those.
Now as for buying on Etsy... Yes, I have ordered my hoodie at a creator on Etsy. Before finding them, I did do some searching around on Google and asked a few other furs who would be up to making a hoodie, and it did help a lot. Don't be afraid to ask furries with fursuits you like where they got their fursuit from. You can even check some furry YouTubers to see where they got theirs from. Still, after all that I found the creator I wanted to order my hoodie from on DeviantArt before finding their Etsy page, and many others found it the same way. That allowed me to look around DeviantArt at what I could expect and how reliable the creator was relatively easily, especially for a creator that's not very well-known inside the fandom. Keep in mind that you cannot say that for everyone on Etsy! Like all sites, it has people on there you can't trust. If you found a creator on Etsy you like, you can try googling their username to see if they also pop up in other places.