Simply Shiny Life

Artfire has initiated a process that will include a review of seller accounts and the issuance of a logo representing them as “Certified Handmade” shops. This is really good news for potential buyers who would like to know for certainty that they are supporting true artisans and not resellers.

Artfire Studio owners who want to pursue this certification must meet several requirements as well as submit various types of documentation in order to support their status. You can view the full seller requirements at this link http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=forums&op=view_topic&tid=9608 on Artfire. After vetting, those Studio owners that meet the requirements are issued a special blue hand icon for their shops.

When a buyer clicks this new icon in a seller’s Studio, this message is posted to the screen

“This Certified Handmade Artifact recognizes this artisan’s commitment to exclusively offering Handmade and Fine Art work in their studio.

This artisan has been through a careful review to ensure they are the producers of the fine work you now see. When you see the Certified Handmade Artifact, you can shop with the confidence knowing that you are indeed supporting a handmade artisan.”

Having a vetting process that identifies artisan makers is nice differentiator between AF and other sites that sell handmade. Artfire’s press release about the program can be found at http://www.1888pressrelease.com/artfire-builds-artisan-recognition-program-with-the-certifie-pr-225763.html

Initiating this program is timely too. I was perusing some closed etsy threads this morning and came across this one from artist Sherry Truitt
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6574015

Read her comment on page 6 about what happened to her placement in a magazine article that had planned to showcase handcrafted etsy items
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6574015&page=6

Artfire has chosen to provide certification to artisan sellers by actively vetting shops and granting them true handmade artist status. This vetting and the subsequent icon that is granted will be a REALLY good way for buyers to know that the items they’ll be receiving are actually handmade by the artist that owns the Studio.

Kudos to you Artfire.

Once again, I find myself glued to the television on Sunday evenings. 8pm central is sacrosanct in my house. Both the hubs and the kiddo know not to disturb the Mommy while I am glued to the small screen in my bedroom.

Team Edward? No.
Team the wolf kid? Uh, no thank you.

Team Eric. Totally Team Eric.

By the way, did you hear Eric tell Lafayette “let’s go RuPaul” in last week’s episode? I laughed out loud.

Have you picked out your very own True Blood mug? Etsy’s Maid of Clay has some awesome choices.

I’m a little partial to the ‘nom nom nom’ mug. LOL

I like Google Analytics a lot. I visit and review often to check out traffic and sources to my selling venues and my blog.  One of the things that GA tracks is the search term used to bring a surfer to my site. Most of the terms are pretty self explanatory; jewelry, handmade, etc, but a few, well, are puzzling if not just down right funny.

Now that the ShinyAdornments shop is back up and running, and generating a bit of traffic, I thought I’d share the latest batch of silly search terms used to find it.

1. apron
2. black quiet ground
3. farm share
4. heather ross unicorn fat quarter
5. organic soap

6. tippy thai

Care to share your favorite search terms from last month?

I’m reposting this as the points are still relevant.  If you don’t want to read the entire post, just make note of  my tip for the day: Worcestershire sauce is a miracle cleaner for copper. Really.

Click on the blog post title to read the entire post: “How to care for sterling silver and copper jewelry”

Feedback from your prior customers can assist new customers in their decision to purchase from your shop. I almost always peruse a seller’s feedback before purchasing from them, don’t you? Yesterday, I updated my Artfire Studio footer to include comments from some of my wonderful artfire and etsy customers.

You can view the scrolling feedback footer by visiting the ShinyAdornments Artfire Studio.

If you are a Pro seller on Artfire, and you’d like to add a similar footer to your own shop, the widget code (highlighted in green) I used is pasted below. You will just need to substitute your actual etsy or artfire feedback by copying and pasting it into the “Feedback goes here” sections of the template below.  Make sure you start each feedback comment line with <p><br>

<marquee  behavior=scroll direction=up scrollamount=1 height=100 width=630>

<p><br>Feedback comment goes here
<p><br>Feedback comment goes here
<p><br>Feedback comment goes here
<p><br>Feedback comment goes here
<p><br>Feedback comment goes here
<p><br>Feedback comment goes here
<p><br>Feedback comment goes here
<p><br>Feedback comment goes here
<p><br>Feedback comment goes here
<p><br>Feedback comment goes here

</marquee><br />

I received an emailed request from someone I don’t know to ‘review’ my products. Of course, the review involved me sending her something. For free. So she could ‘review’ it for her audience of 500 ish followers. Do you get these unsolicited requests too?

I would definitely consider participating in a product review if I thought it was going to benefit me. But a blog or channel with 500 non-target audience followers? Probably not a good ROI.

How do you determine which requests might benefit your line of business? Apart from determining a blog’s followers, I find out what kind of traffic the site receives and use this data to decide whether I want to advertise. There are several good places to review this info online. I’ve listed a few below for you to begin your research.

Compete.com: Choose Site Profile, then enter the site’s name. For instance, I entered one of my very, very favorite blogs, the Cake Wrecks site http://www.cakewrecks.com/ Compete.com ranks it at 31,996 with 69k unique visitors per month. That rank means that its traffic ranks it at about 32k of ALL the sites on the interwebs. (Pretty good!!) In comparison, Ebay ranks about number 5 and receives nearly 81 million unique visitors per month.

Alexa.com: enter the site name, and then choose the Details button. For Cakewrecks again, Alexa ranks them at about 44k. Alexa ranks Ebay as 25.

Google Reader: pull up the blog or site that you are following in your reader. In the upper right hand corner of the reader, click the link called ‘show details’. Cakewrecks has nearly 50,000 subscribers. Wow. These subscriber views may not appear in the metrics above from Compete and Alexa as these readers don’t necessarily visit the site to read the content. They may read the blog posts via their Google Reader and never visit the site directly.

After reviewing the data and the site itself, then decide if the traffic warrants your cost to submit an item or pay for advertising.

What other methods do you use to decide? (And if you haven’t done so already, visit the cake wrecks blog. Guaranteed a giggle)

I’m offering 40% off all existing inventory in my Artfire shop until next Friday, July 16th. You don’t need a special code and you don’t have to wait for your refund from Paypal as I’ve already marked everything down.

This offer is ONLY for my Artfire studio and ONLY for existing inventory.

Thank you to all my fabulous customers.

I’m feeling cranky today. I can tell when my mood is changing for the worse. Things that normally don’t bother me rub me the wrong way. My blood pressure feels like it is rising and I have a definitive need to call everyone around me idiot. Is there a pill for that?

On the plus side, I usually recognize when I’ve become a crank monster and try to stay away from humanity.  This pleases my spouse and my coworkers. At least I think it does, because I’ve sequestered myself, so I don’t actually know for sure.

As I try to determine what’s caused this foul mood, I realize that there isn’t really any one thing in particular. And I don’t get it. I mean, what’s the point of being moody and irritable? It doesn’t serve any useful purpose and I don’t gain anything from the status.

My normal mode is to try to take each day as it comes and hope for the best. There are lots of folks with bigger issues and gripes than I have so, seriously, I need to adjust the attitude and get on with it.  Spending some quality time hammering the crap out of some stock nearly always puts me in a better mood, so perhaps that’s where I should head this evening after work.

What do you do when you find yourself harboring a crank monster?

My friend Brandi’s blog has been a WEALTH of information of late. She’s recently published a free Etsy Tips download. You can check it out here: Free Ebook: Etsy Tips

And while you are visiting her blog, check out her e-class:

Thanks B!

I’m offering 40% off all existing inventory in my Artfire shop until next Friday, July 16th. You don’t need a special code and you don’t have to wait for your refund from Paypal as I’ve already marked everything down.

This offer is ONLY for my Artfire studio and ONLY for existing inventory.

Thank you to all my fabulous customers.