I have shops in a lot of online venues-after a bit of a start on Ebay (YUCK!) I moved to Etsy and then on from there to places like SilkFair, Zibbet, MISI and more. Although Etsy still remains my top selling site, ArtFire is in a firm 2nd place and quickly catching up!
There are many reasons why Thyme2dream ArtFire is my personal favorite site and the one I promote the most:
1. COST- While I often recommend Etsy as the best place for brand new handmade sellers to start because of visibility and the low .20 listing fee, once you are an established seller, the fees become pretty crazy- I pay over $100 per month there with Final Value Fees and re-listing.
The $5.95 deal on Artfire will ALWAYS be $5.95 as long as you keep your shop open-it may take awhile for your shop to catch on, but once you are established and selling $500-$1000 and more per month-as I am now on ArtFire- you will really appreciate that the cost never went up;).
2. COUPON CODES- If I were to name one single feature I love the most, its coupon codes!! I do monthly giveaways on Thyme2dream Facebook and I sell Thyme2dream gift certificates year round, so this feature is absolutely wonderful! Its easy to set up, create your code and send it and ArtFire automagically figures everything out when the customer uses the code- saves a LOT of time and confusion for me!!
3. PERSONAL TOUCH -I used to hate eBay and their android answerbots-when there was a problem sellers had no easy way to get it resolved, and never a live person to deal with at all. Etsy has always been much better about this, but to be honest they are starting to get that way a bit as well. ArtFire has been growing by leaps and bounds, but they still seem to be able to keep it friendly and I appreciate this immensely!
4. CROSS PROMOTION A few months ago I got a generic "warning" email from Etsy saying that I couldnt link from my shop to any place that included items I was selling on another handmade site. I was very confused- I didnt have any of my other shops listed, no links to items on other sites- what was the problem then? Well, I really never got an answer as to what the exact problem was, but from what I can tell it was my blog and/or twitter- both of which I was using to heavily promote my Etsy shop at the time, but also other shops from time to time. That was when I decided to quite promoting Etsy from the "outside" and switch to promoting ArtFire instead!
ArtFire not only lets you list other places you are on the web- but they include a link to your Etsy shop as well if you like!! The ArtFire Market Hub feature is a handy way to list all of your homes on the web right in one place! (They also have a time saving Etsy Importer that allows you to import items from your current Etsy shop straight on to ArtFire;)
There are many other features I love as well, ArtFire does a great job of making online selling efficient and productive AND fun;)!
If you have been thinking about getting a pro account there, now is the time to do so! THIS OFFER ENDS FRIDAY OCTOBER 1st 2010!!
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