I've been through this before, got nowhere with it, but had to try again. I'm talking about having an Artfire shop. I keep hearing about how bad Etsy is and how you should go somewhere else like Artfire. When I tried before, everyone said you have got to have a Pro shop in order to get some recognition. Now that they have reduced to price I figured what could I lose but ten bucks. So here I am, one week later and not much is happening. No, I didn't really expect any sales, but a little traffic would be nice. I followed all the suggestions, fixed up my shop, posted in the forums, tweeted, and today I have even started creating collections.
I have seen my viewership and sales steadily increase at Etsy and have had tons of positive feedback. At Artfire I still remain unnoticed, even though I think my items are superior to my competition. I'll give it another month or two and see what happens.
Any feedback would be appreciated.
5 comments:
When I went to artfire and put 'fabric postcards' in the search you didn't even come up.
I have no words of advice, but I feel your pain. I join Art Fire over 2 years ago, and I was making steady sales. Granted, I was advertising, tweeting, etc. but all of a sudden, my Etsy shop just took off, and it's been that way ever since. My last sale on Art Fire was back in November (I think). It's gotten so bad there that I don't even list new items because I know not much will happen. I get way more traffic on Etsy and my own independent site than Art Fire, but I'm afraid to give up the $5.95 a month deal because I'm thinking just one day, things may start to pick up. I'm not loyal to any venue except my own on Big Cartel. But Etsy has a choke-hold on the handmade market...
I've, personally, never heard of Artfire, but am well acquainted with your Etsy acct. Guess that's where your posts have sent me. Do you just have "ladybugs" on Artfire? Not sure just how to access your shop there.....
I am most intrigued by this information you have been given because as far as I am aware Etsy is by far more popular than Art Fire! Are you in the UK? as we have Folksy (.com) which is the UK version of Etsy. I have had a couple of sales on folksy and dawanda (EU site) but none as yet on etsy, art fire or my other shop Zibbet, My friend who had her own business for 9 years up to last year had sales on both etsy and folksy but none on art fire! I hope this helps.
Another tip is to not list all your items at once but to spread them out so you get people coming back and of course doing things like tweeting and facebooking new listings and doing collections are good ideas but I'm not entirely sure how much traffic they actually produce.
Hope this helps
love Teri xxx
Thanks for sharing your experience. I have heard of Artfire, but never tried it. I will not say I have made a fortune on Etsy, but 29 sales is not bad. Of course I would love more.
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