Can I make money?

Jellybaby1

Is it possible for me to make money making craft items? I've done a couple of craft fairs over the last two Christmases but each time the weather worked against me and hardly anyone turned up. I wouldn't mind but I need an income of some sort and all I do is throw money at making crafts that are just filling up the house. My crafty friends say my stuff is fab but my non-crafty friends don't appreciate the money time and effort I put in and I get despondent. I make papercrafted items and crochet items. Should I consider selling from a blog or a website? Anyone got any advice for a poverty stricken crafter?

Immaculata

You could try putting your craft work up on Etsy.

neelyohara

I'd say etsy is a good place to start but it does appear to be having some issues at the moment which is upsetting a huge portion of it's sellers.

While etsy is more well known Artfire appears to be the best option right now - plus any profit you make is 100% yours.

Jellybaby1

Thanks so much for your replies. I have heard of Etsy but never heard of Artfire, I'll check it out. I suppose my new years resolution this year is to think big and do the internet thing. What are the problems on Etsy, is it becoming expensive?

snorlax

good luck! try adverts.ie as well

Will

what's the latest issue with etsy sellers are having?

neelyohara

Will wrote: »

what's the latest issue with etsy sellers are having?

I like that you call it the 'latest' issue!

The three most recent issues can be summarized fairly easily:

1. Etsy requires you to publicly list your full name if you decide to sell. This isn't a problem for those who run businesses but for the minor sellers who use etsy as a sideline aren't pleased with it.

2. The new 'profile' page lists your favourites along with any groups you might be in. Say for example I make dolls or jewellery, I'll probably belong to other dolls or jewellery 'teams' or 'groups' that make similar items. My favourites might include similar items to those that I'm selling.... the sellers are frustrated that if a customer comes to their profile they'll see all the images of items the seller has favoured or similar items from their teams and they may bring their custom elsewhere. They pay their fees to get customers to their shops... they don't want them to arrive and then disappear because etsy forced them to display these links (or you could look at them as ads) on their profile.

3. The 'search pagination update'. Best summarised by an actual seller:

...
Browsing a category, jumping from one page to the next, is different from a buyer's perspective to inputting a search term & calling up specific results. A lot of buyers like to window shop, to browse for some serendipitous item, without a particular search term in mind. Now, when they do so, they only have access to the first 50,000 listings in each category.

Using the art category as an example again, that means of the 629,429 items currently listed there, buyers only have access to the most recently listed 8%. So the sellers who have paid 20c to list the remaining 92% - that's $115,885.80 in listing fees in the art category alone - are getting absolutely NO exposure from category browsing, only being seen if buyers specifically browse their shops, & potentially being seen if buyers sort by price, or find them through specific search terms (that need to be quite narrow to return less than 50,000 results).
...
What's worse, the toggle between recently listed & oldest listings first is now gone, so you can't even browse the last 50,000 listings in a category (which would still leave the majority of listings in the middle of a category inaccessible, but would at least give exposure to listings nearing their expiry).

As for the sort by price, searching the art category by highest price doesn't descend beyond $180 (that's the top 8%) & by lowest price cuts out at $6.99!

When you get to the end of the line - to page 1251 - you get an error message "Uh oh! You've gone too far!" Being able to browse only 8% of the art category is "too far"?
...

It really means that only the latest 50,000 items listed will show up. So if a seller wants their item to appear they'll need to keep relisting which of course costs money (I think it's 20c for 4 months per item now however your item will now disappear into a blackhole after a matter of days as everyone else updates their stores). Of course those with significant businesses can afford to 'refresh' their shop regularly meaning the small sellers will disappear and unless you put in specific search terms you won't find their item.

There are other issues too... the fact these changes take place without first notifying the sellers, that etsy recently promoted a jewellery designer who isn't even an etsy seller, it got even worse when etsy (by way of publishing this designers blog) used this as the title of the blog (and went into further detail) Declaring Coral "Too Precious to Wear"

This caused immediate anger amongst many of the sellers as coral is common in jewellery making and is harvested completely legally (and strongly regulated).

There are many, many other issues. I am currently thinking about selling online and I'd love to use etsy as it's so well known.... but I honestly don't think it is worth the fees or the fallout from the fact etsy seems to want to move towards some sort of social network instead of promoting their sellers.

Oooh. For someone who doesn't even sell I went on a bit of a rant there!

neelyohara

And just to note with Artfire the only cost is $9.95 per month. No listing fees, no insertion fees, no commission. You pay for membership and any profit you make is 100% yours.

Plus it also inserts your item into Google Base, Facebook & The Find for no cost.

As far as I'm concerned the only advantage Etsy has over Artfire is that it's well known. If I decide to sell I'll go with Artfire.

Jellybaby1

Very interesting reading. Etsy doesn't look so inviting now. Artfire may just take over if enough sellers switch, however, after a period of time it could go the same way. This has to be the best time to give Artfire a go. Thanks for all your help, much appreciated.

As an afterthought......does anyone know about Folksy?

neelyohara

I have looked at items on Folksy but I've never bought anything from there and I don't know any sellers that use it.

A lot of people are opening both Etsy and Artfire accounts and duplicating their stock across both stores. Not a bad idea, especially given the minimal cost for opening an Artfire account.

Jellybaby1

Good strategy