New General Listing Site: Vangoe.com

Vangoe.com has extensive categories for handmades listings.

EcommerceBytes' newsletter shared a sponsor that is a new listing site called Vangoe: the art of online selling. It's not a site dedicated to handmades, but open to all products, even cars and trucks. They claim to feature a fair feedback system, free re-listing of up to 52 items (above that there must be a fee to relist), and a whopping 14 payment methods.

Click the BUY button and be served a plethora of categories, including 36 under Arts & Crafts. That is really great, and encourages me to list there. There is also a separate Arts category, as well as Aviation, Bulk Items and eBay Imported Items. Interesting! The FVF is 5%, except for a small number of categories, which have a higher fee and/or a flat listing fee.

Going to bookmark this site for consideration.

LTC

ArtYah ~Vs~ Aftcra

Looking forward to opening a new shop, Paper Nirvana, at ArtYah. Been looking at another handmades venue, Aftcra, for a couple of years now, but it does not have a community forum. ArtYah has one at G+. This is a great feature that I always appreciate.  It's one of the reasons that I like Bonanza.com​ so much.

Aftcra has a feature to fav and wishlist products, and ArtYah allows watching a product. Neither offer faving/connecting to shops though. Etsy and Artfire still offer this fast-disappearing venue feature.

Searching For Norma's Shop: First I typed in Norma's and another shop, Natural something, came up. Then I searched Normas and this came up: http://www.artyah.com/Browse?FullTextQuery=normas. From there I went to her shop.

I like that shop policies at ArtYah open in a popup window. One thing I don't like is that from the product page it seems a little difficult to find the shop/gallery name to click on to see all of a shop's products (unless I'm missing something). From product page I don't see the shop banner/avatar anywhere. Instead, there is a colored tab beside the "Listing Details" tab.

Visitors are used to seeing at least the shop avatar on each product page. Makes it easy to click to go to shop home, and it's an obvious reminder of which shop you are browsing. This is an important branding feature. Also, the shop name on the tab is all run in together AND in lowercase, such as with Norma's gallery, normasbathandbody's Gallery. When I went to review Norma's feedback, there was no link on the page to return to her shop home. I had to use the browser back arrow. These little annoyances won't stop me from opening shop though. I DO need to send them as suggestions to admin.

***Note***
Don't forget that all products listed at Aftcra must be priced at $10 or higher. This venue inspires developing product packs versus single-product listings; especially for paper-crafted handmades.

LTC

Estrina: New Selling Venue Requires Euro Pricing

This new handmades selling venue, Estrina.com, reminds me somewhat of Ezebee. On the marketplace page you see mostly products from overseas, with prices in euros (EUR). Unlike Ezebee's set up though, Estrina, based out of Barcelona, Spain, requires that all text be in English, but all prices must be in euros. The euro is the 2nd most traded currency in the world, after the U.S. dollar.

LTC

Making Sales Happen: More Crucial Than Ever

Sales seem to be down at all listing venues.

I just left MadeItMyself's community, where there is a continually-growing thread asking does anyone ever sell anything on here? While it's a valid question for a listing venue with rare sales, an aged interface and little if any marketing presence, I've been hearing this gripe for at least a year now at other venues that usually do better. Except for the ebb and flow of sales around holidays and events, will sales ever pick up again to the levels that were enjoyed years ago?

I for one am not sure that this is likely.

 One reason is that the surge of makers entering the marketplace increases monthly, as more strive to supplement their income by plying their wares. As I have observed this trend over the past few years, it has somewhat alarmed me, but not enough to deter me from ecommerce, or any other type of commerce. I am a designer, maker and seller, for the long haul. It's who I am, not what I do, so there's no jumping ship for me when it comes to marketing my handmades, graphics, artwork, retro/vintage, supplies and creative services. Instead, there is only the motivation to make things happen, or sales that is.

Except for Etsy and eBay, and maybe a couple more venues, the seller has to work hard to drive customers to the listing site.

Many sellers don't want to do this, or don't know how. Sellers who have experience at the top 2-3 sites with automatic traffic don't want to work to generate sales at other venues. But even Etsy, with its massive traffic, is not a success for many people. More so now, the competition is crushing, where it was just overwhelming before.  Without a unique product and attention to marketing and promotion, It's easy to get lost among the sea of other sellers.

It doesn't matter if what I share next is true or not, because I am going to make a universal point.

I read that it is required (or at one time was) for sellers to participate in the selling teams at Etsy. While this is certainly a useful and desirable method of marketing, it is useless for those who need to adopt other promotion methods. If committing to a selling team does not resonate with a member, sales will still suffer. I am not picking on Etsy, but referring to any site where the crafter may be required to participate in promotion that may be successful for some, but that is not compatible for all. Time and effort is wasted and the sales are still not generated for those who are struggling at a site that may be top notch for successful listing.

It's becoming more obvious as the months wear on that no matter where we list, to realize sales we will have to find our own ways to make things happen. 

While some creatives can list on highly successful venues, sit back and do nothing except create and order pull, that is not the reality for the majority of online handmades sellers. In addition to creating products, we have to find ways to and become adept at creating sales, not wait for them and gripe.

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Image from Pixabay Free Images.

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