• silverwhisper said on Apr 09, 2008....

  hm. i can't say as i knew a blessed thing about either of those sites until this blog entry. :>
  
  ed

• silkfairjess said on Apr 09, 2008....

  Thanks for writing about SilkFair.com! It is true! Free to set up store and no listing fees! Read more about it here: http://www.silkfair.com/#homeq7_6 We also provide our sellers with lots of cool tools...each seller gets their own forum, blog, and the even ability to imbed video! And yes, you are so right...at SilkFair we show our self-represented artists lots of love but also see the value to both buyers and sellers in offering a diverse selection of products. We're working on creating themed sites within SilkFair.com. Check it out here: http://www.silkfair.com/forum/thread/4 Excited to have you join the SilkFair.com community, purple! Let us know what store name you decide on!

• designsbyabbi said on Apr 09, 2008....

  Love Silkfair! I moved from Etsy as well. I never felt like I was in the right place being on Etsy. But I found out about Silkfair, and I feel like I'm at home. The staff are wonderful and attentive, participate in the forums, take care of any concerns that we have, and ask for our opinion on new updates. Listing items takes a bit of time at first, but once you figure it out, it's a breeze! Anyone either starting out new into selling online, or a seasoned seller, should consider selling on Silkfair!

• FlowersbyFarha said on Apr 09, 2008....

  Hi Purple, I understand your concern and hesitation, and since I'm new to both sites, I may or may not be the best respondent, but I'll share my experience so far. I joined Etsy on Valentine's Day as one of 105,000 sellers. Within a week I noticed that increased to 112,000. Within two weeks after that--145,000. Imagine what it is now! Understandably it is experiencing both positive and negative effects of such rapid population growth. It is harder for any one seller, any one item to be seen. As you may have noticed, a seller on Etsy can no longer just sit and rely on Etsy members for sales and promoting a shop within the system, and the tactic of constantly renewing an item further congests the "just listed" front page for no better results at greater expense. There is a lot of talk in the forum about how Etsy has changes over time to include supplies/commercial and vintage, and now an influx of eBay refugees flooding Etsy's shores and the negative impact that is having on the Handmade emphasis. On the plus side, I've been able to network into a community of sellers and buyers in a positive way. I do like the look and openess of the shop and forum pages. Learning the ways of e-commerce is being an amazing process and I've barely scratched the surface. There are some limitations in some features/functions that I would like to see improved/changed, but I expect that would be the case with any site. Recognizing that, I checked out SilkFair. Since I just joined April 1 and only started listing on April 4 and haven't yet begun a promotional push, my experience is very limited re: views and sales, but I seem to be getting views at about the same rate as I'm getting at Etsy once the initial "bloom." There are features on SilkFair that give me many more options and much greater flexibility in how I structure my listings and more desirable features in the works. The support staff responsiveness and personal attention is amazing! Granted, part of that is related to the difference in seller:support staff ration, but it is also a reflection of their commitment to making SilkFair a winner for the seller and the buyer. As mentioned in silkfairjess post above, they are working on themed sites within the larger community so Handmade will get it's due and attention separate from commercial, etc. This was one reason I signed up in addition to the above. Downside? Any new system has glitches. They've been very responsive working them out and reporting the fixes. Traffic is proportionately slow, but corporate promotion is in the works, and the individual sellers are also beginning to make their push and reporting results. That brings me to another point. With any shop, whether online or a B&M, the shop owner is responsible for doing their own promotion, not relying on the "mall" owners to make their sales for them. Mall owners may work to bring traffic to the mall, but it is the individual shop owners' job to get the people into their store and make the sale. If you've not done well on Etsy within a year, and have done nothing to create/support your shop on another site, you need to look at your business, what can you do to improve traffic to your shop, increase sales. Location, location, location matters, but it is wasted if you haven't addressed internal business issues. Whether you join SilkFair and maintain your Etsy shop or close it, ony you can decide. Getting in on the ground floor is exciting. Many of the founding Etsy member are solid because they were there in the early days and had time to slowly build a solid support base. SilkFair offers that opportunity potential It's easy enough to either separate your inventory in storage: what is listed on one site here; what is listed on another site there. Or tag it with stickers: red stars for Etsy, blue stars for SilkFair, etc. Good Luck!

• FlowersbyFarha said on Apr 09, 2008....

  Sorry about such a long post...or the lack of formating.  I'm new at this .
  
  Meant to respond on Store Name.... Unless you feel a need to change the name or disassociate from your old stores, keep the same name. 
  
  For example, my website is http://www.flowersbyfarha.com
  
  My Etsy shop is http://www.flowersbyfarha.etsy.com
  
  and my SilkFair shop is http://flowersbyfarha.silkfair.com (notice no "www")
  
  Stop by and say hi!
  
  Best Wishes
  
  
  

• FlowersbyFarha said on Apr 09, 2008....

  well....shoot!  Got the links mess up in formatting some how.
  
  website =  http://www.flowersbyfarha.com
  
  Etsy = www.flowersbyfarha.etsy.com
  
  Silkfair = http://flowersbyfarha.silkfair.com
  
  Hope that works!
  

• purple said on Apr 14, 2008....

  Wow, I was surprised to not only get so many responses but also such long and thoughtful responses. And I totally agree...you have to promote your shop outside of the venue itself. Otherwise you are just preaching to the choir. That is why I blog constantly. That is why I do crafts in public and always have a business card or contact information with me. Even so, it doesn't seem to be enough. And honestly, if it takes for example 100 hours a week for self-promotion, there are others jobs that would pay so much better for hours spent. And like most artists, I'd rather spend that time making product and not doing marketing. My friend is about  the closest thing to a successful Etsy seller as I know (she's in the top 10) and even she admits that she no longer has enough hours in the day to promote and make inventory. She's either going to have to do less, or hire help.

• purple said on Apr 14, 2008....

  My shops are as follows : www.HypnoticTreasures.silkfair.com (The new shop has nothing in it yet).

  www.pigglewiggins.etsy.com

  www.hypnotic.etsy.com

  www.spankytease.etsy.com

  And I'm certainly not faulting etsy. They work like dogs to make sure the site stays up and running and on the cutting edge of the industry.  I think a lot of it has to do with the economy and rising postal rates. The price of gas is eating up the formerly 'disposable income' of most families. That is the cash people use to support the arts with.

   

• anonymous said on Apr 14, 2008....

  Joined www.silkfair.com recently. I like what Silkfair offers for niche and broader market audiences. I am not a computer savy user, but I find this site has all the tools I need, and easy to use. I was up and running with my store in just few minutes. I also find it attractive that I can set up my store and listings for free.

• FlowersbyFarha said on Apr 14, 2008....

  Hi Purple!
  
  I totally hear you about the time it takes to promote/market.  It's another full-time job!  And not one that most artists (including myself) are entirely comfortable with.
  
  I can see your concern re: shopnames.  It's hard for people to follow you around with the different names, but yet each of your etsy shops are different so I understand that.  Good that you are carrying over Hypnotic as part of your new SilkFair shop name.  That lends some consistency.
  
  BTW, your silkfair url should be http://HypnoticTreasures.silkfair.com ... if you include the www it takes people to the SilkFair site home page, not your shop directly.  Wouldn't want your people getting distracted and end up in my shop would we?  (Well.... maybe I wouldn't mind, too much, but they can come by after shopping with you first.)  :-)
  
  Let me know when you  get some things listed.  Curious to see what you put in the new SilkFair shop!
  
  Far'ha
  
  http://flowersbyfarha.silkfair.com
  

• purple said on Apr 14, 2008....

  Thanks for letting me know. When I click on it it does go to my shop, but you know how that is.

• FlowersbyFarha said on Apr 14, 2008....

  Interesting.  When I click on it, I landed on the site home page.  Same thing when I first put mine out there as www.flowersbyfarha.silkfair.com-- site home page, but when I put http://flowersbyfarha.silkfair.com, no problem, straight to my shop.
  
  Wonder if it is a browser thing?
  
  Or, just one of those cyber imponderables.
  

• anonymous said on May 04, 2008....

  Loving this site. Easy to use and have a lot of features for my store.

• FlowersbyFarha said on May 04, 2008....

  Gotta second that.  Love the features, love the support staff, love how they support, mentor, encourage the sellers, and love how they keep on rolling out improvements and new features to make the site stronger and more user-friendly day by day.

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