Simply Shiny Life

The development team at Artfire is nearly finished with the development of Coupons for sellers. In the next few weeks, Artfire sellers will have access to a customizable application that will enable them to set the type of discount or special offer they’d like, determine what items or categories to apply it to, set the time period of the code, and even set exactly what the code would be. Sellers will be able to specify discounts for customers such as 15% off all items in a particular studio category for the next ten days, and then name that discount code something like “10daysale” or “necklace sale” or whatever the seller desired.

Enabling sellers to set their own discounts tied to a particular calendar event, buying group or advertising campaign is going to be fabulous. I’m practically giddy with excitement.

Stay tuned to Behind the Beta for the announcement of the roll out.

I’ve blogged previously about Artfire and my experience utilizing it as a selling venue. You can check out those posts

http://shinyadornments.com/wordpress/?p=243
http://shinyadornments.com/wordpress/?p=300
http://shinyadornments.com/wordpress/?p=257
http://shinyadornments.com/wordpress/?p=263
http://shinyadornments.com/wordpress/?p=303
http://shinyadornments.com/wordpress/?p=316
http://shinyadornments.com/wordpress/?p=317

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Artfire has rolled out yet another upgrade for its seller base: customizable store fronts. Sellers are now able to choose the size of their shop banner, text colors, navigation colors, and add all sorts of plug ins to their shops in the form of widgets. Things like slide shows, live streaming video of artist’s studios, links to other venues, advertising, etc. You name it, you can probably add it.

Here is an  example of my new Studio front, with customized text colors and new, bigger, improved banner.

Here are some examples of other Artfire customized seller studios. Nice, huh?

What is Artfire? You can read more about it here

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It’s baaaaaack.. Artfire is offering it’s Free For Life FREE-RIDE program : AGAIN!!  I received notification from Artfire’s Community News that when you refer 12 new Verified $12 a month members you’ll earn a FREE-RIDE AND you can give a FREE-RIDE to someone else too. It’s a two-fer!! How cool is that?

Also, Artfire has LOCKED the $12/month Verified account rate for as long as your current or NEW ArtFire account is active. This means that when the monthly price goes up for new members, yours NEVER will.

I’ve been a pretty big fan of Artfire from the beginning.Why you ask?

1. The search functionality works well
2. My items appear in search based on the search criteria, not when an item was added to the database
3. The Admin team is accessible, listens, apoligizes for mistakes, and is focused on the things that matter to its selling base
4. I can customize my Studio look and feel, not only with my banner, but colors, links, layout, etc. Very cool
5. The traffic numbers for the site have steadily increased over the last year
6. No listing fees and no final fees due when my items sell

The Artfire president was kind enough to contribute an interview to my blog a while back too, if you are interested in reading it. Also, you can see how Artfire ranks against other sites to sell handmade.

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Artfire has announced a seller’s dream… the ability to customize their very own selling space on the venue. And, according to their latest blog post,  the first iteration should roll out this week.

What does that mean for sellers? They will be able to choose colors as well as utilize html, select a design template and organize the order of their studio categories.

I like Artfire. It’s a relatively new site, so the traffic numbers are still small, but growing. The site owners have really ramped up seller functionality in a very short time. There have been a couple communications/announcements missteps, but overall, the team is working very hard to make it’s seller base happy. If you haven’t checked them out, definitely keep the site as an addition to your repetoire in your to do list.

More Artfire news is available here

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Etsy’s historical poor search functionality has long been a point of contention with site sellers. It was confusing to buyers, results weren’t always consistent, and item results were consistently ranked higher based on when they had been added to the database instead of whether or not the result was relevant to the search terms entered.

Today, Etsy announced significant changes to search. YAY! You can find more information here.

None of the changes are earth shattering in their originality. Other sites, like Artfire, have already implemented all this functionality. But, I’m pleased to see that changes ARE occuring. Although the rate of change is frustratingly slow for such a small company, it DOES seem as though the site owners are listening. Frustrated buyers can’t be good for the bottom line…and enabling them to find items more simply and much faster only makes good business sense. Etsy collects a 20 cent per item listing fee but the revenue stream is a 3.5% fee per item that is collected when an item sells. At an average sales price point of around $15, that’s a 32.5 cent differential. More sales can only dramatically increase the revenue for the site.

So what are the biggest changes? This functionality roll out included an addition of a simplified advanced search function as well as changes to the results layout. I was a little disappointed to see that results still default to most recently listed instead of actual relevancy, but relevancy search is still on its way, according to Stellalouella and the Storque Article mentioned in the link above. There are also some glitches like sold items appearing in search and results lists disappearing when resorted, but I expect they will be corrected shortly. Oh, and I almost forgot, Vintage items are now included in the Search All designation. That’s nice and something I’m sure the Vintage sellers will celebrate.

What do you think? Have you given it a test drive? Good or bad?

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In a previous post, I provided a list of venues for artists, artisans and artisan crafters.

This week I’m profiling another of those sites. I asked Emma, from MISI, to tell us a bit more about the venue. 

What is the site name and where can artisan sellers find you?
Our website is called MISI, which stands for Make It Sell It. It’s a website that brings together people who make hand-crafted items with people who want to buy.

Our main location is the website, www.misi.co.uk, but you can also find us at:

Blog: misiuk.blogspot.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/misi_uk
Facebook Group: http://tinyurl.com/dbdqhc
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/misimeuk

Tell us a little about your site’s history. What are its origins?
The idea for MISI started early in 2008. I have always been a keen crafter, although by profession I’m a web developer. Early in 2008 I decided to join the two sides of my life together and create a top-notch, online, craft marketplace for the UK.

There followed nine months of blood, sweat and tears because I was determined that the site had to be absolutely exceptional. It was worth it in the end because when MISI was born in September 2008, the general response was massively positive.

It fills a gap in the market and does just what the sellers and buyers need it to. And I love it!

Tell us about the site’s staff
My name is Emma Hogg. I’m the boss and techie-in-chief. I previously worked as a professional web developer so it makes sense for me to do all the geeky stuff. I’m a work-from-home mum and a keen crafter – you can find my own crafty creations for sale on MISI too!

Ian is our Marketing Manager. He masterminds our publicity machine and helps to spread the MISI word.

Linda is our Accounts Manager. She beavers away behind the scenes keeping our finances firmly in order.

I should also mention my husband who does a great job at reminding me to eat and sleep so I can continue to function on MISI!

What is your plan for the site? What are your goals?
When we were developing the site, we set ourselves the goal of becoming the UK’s leading site for buying and selling handmade. Since launch it’s taken off faster than we dared hope and I think we are very close to achieving that goal already. I think that the difficulties in the economy have helped us, plus people’s concern about issues such as product miles, sweatshops and the blandness of the corporate high street.

We’ve been lucky to recruit a good number of high quality sellers in a fairly short space of time. We were recently joined by our thousandth seller, which we’re very excited about. And there’s room for many more!

The next steps for us are (1) to keep on growing in a measured fashion, (2) to keep developing the site so it stays one step ahead of the game and (3) to keep delivering what our community of sellers and buyers wants.

MISI Front Page:

Who is your target seller audience?
All crafters are welcome at MISI. Our sellers offer a very wide range of creations – everything from jewellery, to toys, to furniture, to edible gifts. Prices start at just a couple of pounds, all the way up to a couple of thousand pounds.

MISI Gift Guide Example:

Who is your target buyer audience? How will you drive buyers to your venue?
We have a perpetual PR machine generating visitors to the site. We target our efforts at bringing in people who are likely to be interested in buying unique, good quality handmade products.

Is this an international, domestic US, Far East or European focused site?
Our main focus is on the United Kingdom and we aim our marketing at a UK-based audience. Listings are in UK pounds. We do however welcome international buyers and sellers as long as they are happy to transact in UK pounds.

What differentiates this venue from other online selling venues?
MISI is so much more than `just another place to sell’. MISI is also a social network for crafters with our lively forum at its heart – a place where you can chat with a growing community of like-minded crafty souls

Why should artisan sellers consider utilizing this site as a resource instead of other, older sites or their own sites?
A good question! Here are the ways I think MISI stands apart:

1. At MISI you are part of a friendly crafting family.
2. MISI is specifically aimed at consumers who appreciate handmade products. This means you can be sure that your products are being showcased to the right target market. This also means a community of buyers who will appreciate the value of your creations.
3. MISI offers low commission and listing fees for the crafter. It’s cheaper than listing on auction sites and you get a super-long, five-month listing.
4. MISI allows links to the crafter’s own website in the shop front and profile pages which help boost your own site traffic.

How have your structured your seller pricing?
MISI is free to join and free to set up a store. Item fees are 20p per listing (irrespective of the quantity) and 3% of sale price (when your product sells).

What else should we know?
We have regular buyer promotions based around forthcoming events such as Mothers’ Day. Check out our homepage to see what the current promotion is. Top tip – it’s a great way to make some crafty extra sales!

Thanks Emma!

Stay tuned over the next weeks as I will be profiling more artisan handmade selling  venues with interviews from the site owners. You can find this site’s traffic rank according to Alexa here

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Yep…it seems like I’ve been preaching the Artfire gospel of late. But, dang, they just keep rolling out more and more super cool functionality.

The latest: Rapid Cart. Essentially a shopping widget that verified sellers can install nearly everywhere. Rapid Cart espouses super fast check out (28 seconds!!) and the buyer doesn’t even have to be registered on Artfire.

If you’d like more info about the Rapid Cart widget, check out this post in the Artfire Forum.

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Have you heard? Handmade selling venue Artfire is enabling shopping checkout functionality that will allow a buyer to purchase an item without having to create an account on the site. According to the Artfire blog:

“Kyle has been tweaking the No Account Checkout for buyers and is pushing to have it fully functional on the site by this evening. This feature will allow new shoppers to successful purchase any item on the site without having to set up an account first. All they’ll have to do is enter in their shipping and billing address and proceed with their payment method. This is great for people who are unfamiliar with the site and don’t wish to set up an account just to make a purchase. However, members should keep in mind that since these shoppers will not be setting up an account, they will be unable to send or receive Karma and Kudos for an order. ”

FABULOUS!

Artfire is enabling shopping functionality that should make the check out process much much easier for the casual shopper. Of course, creating a shopping account on the site will give buyers more functionality (like hotlisting items and ranking sales transactions), but functionality to make the shopping process easier is a great enhancement.

Edited on 2-23/2003 to add: It’s live! Here’s a forum post about no account required check out on Artfire

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In a previous post, I provided a list of venues for artists, artisans and artisan crafters.

This week I’m profiling another of those sites. I asked Mathew, from Coriandr, to tell us a bit more about the venue.

What is the site name and where can artisan sellers find you?
The site is called Coriandr. You can find us in a few places:
http://www.coriandr.com
http://blog.coriandr.com
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38703352126
Also, I’ve recently become a twitterer so feel free to say hi! http://twitter.com/matw

Tell us a little about your site’s history. What are its origins?
What seems like a long, long time ago, I was trying to find a place to sell a range of vinyl toys I had started designing. I couldn’t find anywhere to sell them except eBay, and the idea of trying to sell something creative and handmade amongst all those second-hand electrical goods left me completely cold!
Originally, Coriandr was going to be a marketplace solely for vinyl toys, but the more time I spent developing it the more sense it made to open it up to anything handmade. It took roughly a year to build the site and get everything ready, and has been entirely self-funded to date. It’s probably the biggest thing I’ve done, so I’m incredibly excited and a little terrified all at once!

Tell us about the site’s staff.
At the moment Coriandr is just me (Mathew). I used to be a character artist for computer games so I love illustration, vinyl toys, paper art and sculpture; anything that has some character to it and a sense of fun. I’d love to say I spend most of my time drawing or coming up with paper monsters (http://www.coriandr.com/free_stuff) for Coriandr, but I actually spend most of my time programming these days. Not that I don’t enjoy that side of things too, but I have to admit that I’m more than a little sad my HB pencil is starting to get dusty!

What is your plan for the site? What are your goals?
From the start the plan has been to give crafters an easy-to-use, accessible way to sell their handmade creations to rest of the world, and build a great community in the process. I love creating and admiring other people creativity, so I can’t imagine that plan ever changing.

As for goals; the handmade movement has been enjoying a rebirth over the last few years, which is fantastic, but I think that handmade marketplaces such as Coriandr are still further from the forefront of most shopper’s minds than they deserve to be. I talk to so many people who haven’t heard of any of the handmade marketplaces, but can’t stop raving about how great buying handmade is once they see them! That’s why Coriandr’s main goal this year is to convert everyone to buying handmade and most importantly, convert people who aren’t already connected to the crafting scene.

Also, towards the middle of this year we will be launching a more community-focused craft project which will be entirely separate from Coriandr. It’s main focus will be sharing information and ideas, and basically inspiring each other, but there are some significant (and fun) additions that should make it a really great site to use!

Who is your target seller audience?
Anyone who likes what we’re doing, can make something beautiful, owns a camera, and can access the internet! There is definitely a female bias in the crafting world, but I didn’t want to build a “seller profile” then aim Coriandr at that profile in the traditional marketing sense. I think the most important thing to do is to build a good service and a develop a strong relationship with a community; the sellers you end up with as a result are your target audience!

Who is your target buyer audience?How will you drive buyers to your venue?
Everyone! It sounds a little cheesy I know, but I really think that everyone can find something in a site like Coriandr. I’m a big believer in inbound marketing; attracting buyers (and sellers) by blogging, getting involved in the larger crafting community, and utilising the ever-popular social media sites (Digg, Technorati, etc). Doing things this way means that momentum builds more slowly compared to traditional advertising / marketing methods, but it builds a stronger community and most importantly is much more productive in the long-run.

Is this an international, domestic US, Far East or European focused site?
Coriandr is an international site, but English language only. There are plans to open things up across different languages, but that’s more of a long term aim due to the tremendous customer support issues that would create.

What differentiates this venue from other online selling venues?Why should artisan sellers consider utilizing this site as a resource instead of other, older sites or their own sites?
For buyers we’ve got an secure, quick checkout process, and what is probably the most flexible item search of any handmade marketplace. Most marketplaces only let you browse categories or search for keywords within a chosen category. With Coriandr you can search price bands, shipping destinations, seller locations, keywords and payment methods at the same time, all whilst moving back and forth across categories. For sellers we’ve got drag-n-drop shop management features, Paypal bill payment and a one page listing process. One seller (http://alibalijewellery.coriandr.com) managed to list 32 items in one sitting!Because buying handmade is all about a personal touch and the connection between the buyer and the creator, I would always encourage sellers to run their own site (such as a blog) in tandem with a service like Coriandr. Even those sellers who have their own ecommerce site can use Coriandr because we have a bigger presence than an individual shop, and every time we promote ourselves, we are promoting our sellers (or should that be the other way around!)

How have your structured your seller pricing?
We’ve kept Coriandr away from complicated fee structures found on other marketplaces. It simply costs 20p for each quantity of one listed, and a 2.5% commission when a sale is made.

Thanks Mathew!

Stay tuned over the next weeks as I will be profiling more artisan handmade selling  venues with interviews from the site owners. You can find this site’s traffic rank according to Alexa here

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In a previous post, I provided a list of venues for artists, artisans and artisan crafters.

This week I’m profiling another of those sites. Artfire is relatively new to the online handmade selling venue catalog, but their growth has been phenomenal over the last few months. (See the graph from Quantcast below).

Alexa ranks them at 87,085 overall, but take note of the more recent traffic ranking numbers from the last week or so below.

I asked John Jacobs, the President of Artfire, to tell us a bit more about the venue.

What is the site name and where can artisan sellers find you?
ArtFire can be found at http://www.ArtFire.com

We maintain a social media presence and can be found on Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and Myspace. We are also developing features to help our members manage their social footprint using these sites as well.

Tell us a little about your site’s history. What are its origins?
Our parent companies have an e-commerce background and we have been in the trenches and abused by huge online market places and venues for years as sellers and business owners. The ArtFire site was born out of a need to offer a better alternative for sellers of handmade to represent themselves in a fair and equitable manner. Many of us over the years have been challenged with the ever changing environment of the Internet frontier and have very little time after performing our core business functions, to build a web site, market and advertise our wares, and keep up with the changing social media landscape.

Up until this point sites like EBay were able to prey on small businesses and artisans and charge incredible fees for their venue and traffic. In fact some calculations put the actual server and bandwidth cost of a listing on eBay as low as just .02 cents and falling! So after years of abuse, and repression, we decided that we would not take it anymore. So we built a better community with a focus on supporting its members and a spirit of service. We think that the future of the internet is aggregation of micro segments and we want to help support this movement while nourishing a unique market segment that is close to our hearts, and that often lacks adequate respect; the artist community.

Tell us about the site’s staff.
I don’t code, and can barely even spell PHP ;o) , but I do know a couple guys that can! Here are the people we owe our success to: The Team:  Kyle, Matt, and Aaron are some of the best programmers I have ever met. That is important, but you know what’s really impressive? Their attitude, drive, and dogged commitment to making the community better! These guys never stop, they never sleep, and they are always innovating and adapting!

I am not sure how we were lucky enough to find such a talented team, and this really rings true in the case of our lead site designer Jen. I am certain we would not be where we are today without her insight and holistic understanding of not just aesthetic design, but function and User Interface.

Those of you that track us on Twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/ArtFire have met Sara, one of our super fast, multi-tasking, gen-Y cyber editors who is an all around riot to have on our team, and Twitters circles around me! In fact she is ranked in the top 250 “Tweeters” on the internet! She also reminds us to have fun and laugh at ourselves, which is refreshing after a long 14 hour day!

And then, there’s Tony Ford. When Tony and I were in our Master’s Degree program together we always challenged each other to perform better and eventually found that when we tackled projects together we reached even further and could not be beaten. Tony Ford is perhaps one of the brightest marketing guru’s that the Internet has ever seen. During the development of ArtFire, we brought in consultants, SEO, SEM, development, and marketing companies. You know, we fired every one of them, and do everything our selves now. Tony is always right there on the front lines, not just pushing the proverbial ArtFire cart, but pulling it, and the rest us, up the hill along with it!

What is your plan for the site? What are your goals?
Our mission is to support artists and their businesses. We approach this goal in a little different manner however as compared to other sites. We don’t worry about what venue an artist sells their item on, we offer tools to increase success in general and even on sites that some may see as our competitor. Take for example the new Market Hub feature (see image below) that displays an artist’s full social footprint for a potential buyer to explore. This tool allows a buyer to fully understand, discover, sample the depth and efforts an artist employs to sell their wares.

Who is your target seller audience?
ArtFire supports handmade artists. We also have additional categories to list supplies, vintage, and media items. Our site is designed with small business in mind and aims to reduce the time spent by designers in establishing and growing their business on line.

Who is your target buyer audience? How will you drive buyers to your venue?
There are many affinity groups that purchase handmade, from the environmentally conscious to those who desire unique quality items crafted with meaning. We run an extensive traditional and online media and viral marketing campaign that adapts to successes in near real time; changes to suit the shifting market almost constantly; and employs emerging techniques and strategies that maximize reach. You will see us in national publications and hear us on small town radio stations around the US. But our marketing extends beyond traditional and even new media to viral, community driven promotion of the handmade ethic. We understand that a market place must bring buyers and invest substantial resources in growing a robust buyer base. We want to bring not just bulk traffic to the site, but qualified individuals that appreciate the values that make handmade items so unique.

Is this an international, domestic US, Far East or European focused site?
Our market is global, though most members are creating from the US. We always keep an eye out for better ways in which we can support international transactions, buyers, and members. We built the site with a currency converter on every page and offer extended support for non-US based members. As we grow we will remember that the US may have borders but artists and great art do not.

What differentiates this venue from other online selling venues?Why should artisan sellers consider utilizing this site as a resource instead of other, older sites or their own sites?
We coined a concept we call Community Directed Development (CDD) which puts the community in the driver’s seat of site direction and features. This requires us to move very quickly, put our leaders on the front line of service, and this allows us to adapt to the needs of our members in real time. For example on Christmas eve we decided to roll out Google Analytics and within 120 minutes of sitting down to discuss rolling out of GA, we were up and fully functional, site wide. This feature and many others are absolutely free to the community, including instant and automatic submission to Google Shopping (Google Base).

We encourage and offer tools to increase your social footprint, teach members to promote their business and their personal brand, and challenge sellers to manage as many channels as they comfortably or effectively can. You never know which channel will bring in the most buyers and we believe that members should embrace an ArtFire AND ETSY approach to selling handmade items, not an ArtFire OR ETSY position.

How have you structured your seller pricing?
After many years of paying insertion fees and final valuation fees, we chose a simple straight forward plan that puts the member (seller) first. List 10 items at a time, when several sell, put more up in their place, absolutely free. If you would like access to enhanced features, and want to list UNLIMITED ITEMS, it will only cost you $20.00 a month! We are currently offering the next several thousand members a $7.00/month upgraded “Verified” account, which will never increase in price, ever. (Note from the editor:  Right now, as a reward to join and help work out all the bugs in the beta version of the site, you pay $7 a month. That’s it. No additional listing fees, no final value fees, no sales commissions. Ever. And it’s $7 per month. As long as you own your shop. And, if you refer 10 individuals to the site that open Verified accounts, your shop fees will be waived FOREVER. Very cool! More information here )

What else should we know?
We roll out new features constantly, adapt quickly, interact in our own forums, and I can be contacted directly on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/ArtFireJohn

Thank you John!

Author’s note: I posted when I opened my Artfire shop here. If this sounds like a venue you might want to utilize to sell your handmade items, click here to join.

Stay tuned over the next weeks as I will be profiling more artisan handmade selling  venues with interviews from the site owners. You can find this site’s traffic rank according to Compete.com  here

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