Selling on the Internet

Image: Filomena Scalise / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I’ve been selling my glass items on the internet for a little over two and a half years now. Selling online has its challenges starting with where to sell.

Etsy

I started with an Etsy store. Etsy is a commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items as well as art and craft supplies. On Etsy you will find a wide variety of products everything from art, photography, clothing, jewelry, edibles, bath & beauty products, quilts, toys and more. If you’ve misplaced your crocheted toilet paper cover you can get one on Etsy. And lest you snicker at this, the owner of that shop has sold more than I have. There are some very talented people selling their work on Etsy. And then there are some not so talented people selling their items. Anyone can set up a shop. There is a fee to list an item and you pay a percent of sales. The annoying thing about Etsy is that to come out on top of any searches you have to constantly relist items. At 20 cents per listing if you aren’t careful this could end up eating into profits quickly. But Etsy is still the most popular site so I stay there.

Artfire

Artfire is a site much like Etsy. The difference is sellers pay a monthly fee. No listing fees and no commissions sounds good and is the reason I started my shop there. But it gets less than half the traffic of my Etsy shop. I’ll keep my Artfire shop and give it some time to see if it catches up.

My Web Shop

I decided I needed more control and wanted to set up my own online shop. No fees, no commissions! Imagine that, me wanting control. Those of you who know me can stop laughing now. First I opened a shop using a WordPress widget called Ecwid. This integrated easily into my blog, has a clean look and it’s free. A great option, but the free option is pretty basic. I wanted more. Now I am using a program called Shopping Cart Creator. It is from a company called CoffeeCup that makes the program I use to create my website. It’s a bit more complex, but I think I’ll grow into it, and in the end it will give me the control I want over my shop.

So check out the new shop! It’s a work in progress. You know us creative types. My dear hubby will occasionally ask me with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, “Isn’t it time to change your website again?”

2 thoughts on “Selling on the Internet

    • Margot says:

      I did look at it a long time ago. For a while I used a WordPress plugin called Ecwid. I also tried SquareUp’s commerce site. Both of those were free. I also have a program that I purchased way back before WordPress became popular from a company called CoffeeCup. It creates an ecommerce site. I was trying to avoid monthly fees. The problem with all of these is you still have to drive the traffic to the site.

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