Simplifying

As we come to the close of another year, I ponder what things I can do to make the new year a little easier.
One of the things I have decided to do is to let most of my on-line selling venues go. There are so many and I think to make them truly go, you have to spend a lot more time on self promotion, more time that I am willing to devote to doing them. I feel like if I just keep my two main venues, it will be much easier to manage. Nothing against the other venues, they are just smaller and newer and it's difficult as thet are not as well known.
So the ones I will continue on with will be Etsy (the one that's the most well known) and Meylah, because I REALLY like the way they are set up, and really like the folks that run the site. I feel like they genuinely have an interest in helping their sellers, they are still very new as well. Of course my website will still be going.
So have you thought about what things you are doing in the coming year to make life easier yet?

Venue Updates

So I know you're dying to know how it's going. Slowly. Artfire is still doing decently, I haven't had much going on with Shopify, Shoply or Bonanza. eBay however I have had some stuff going on, interesting huh?
The thing with eBay is that folks that do Handmade get into this thing "well it's so expensive to list yada yada" but really, if you pay attention it isn't. You can sign up for the newsletter to learn when they have one cent listings or other promotions, like the one going now; 5o free listings. Of course there are requirements to meet/restrictions, you'd expect that.
The thing I really DO like about eBay, is that 1) it's VERY visable, people know what it is and b)they have the most awesome sales reports.
I don't know if you'll decide to go that way, but I do encourage you to at least give it a look. If you're trying to "grow your brand", it's definately worth a look.

Bonanza

I found another on line venue that I'm giving a shot to. It's Bonanza, I like the way it's set up and you can have a basic Plan ($10 month value) for the first 30 days. It seems like a pretty nice friendly community and you can import from eBay Listings as well as Etsy, I like the eBay thing, that's the first one I've noticed. You can click on the widget to the right to check out my shop, have a look around at Bonanza while you're there.

Two More Venues

There are so many on-line selling venues you just wouldn't believe it! It 's amazing to me the differences in the way they do things. One of them, looked good until you read the small print: they pay you after they get their money, make you wait some time for yours, yet you were expected to send the goods to the customer right away. That's not cool! Then there was another that looked good, was supposed to be free, however they wanted your credit card before you could open a store, why? Needless to say I didn't hang around to see why!
I did find a couple that I thought were pretty good, one is Addoway (http://www.addoway.com/testimonials) and I liked the way they were organized, and the other Storenvy I REALLY liked. (http://www.storenvy.com/) I liked that they had all the bells and whistles that you normally have to pay for, and I really liked that they are Google Analytics enabled, so you can see your actual traffic.
I guess the take away from this post is knowing there are oodles of venues out there, just make sure to read all the small print first!

Shift in thinking

So I know you have to have your venues spread out, have your name out there to be found in the search engines etc. I have however decided that I really want to spend my valuable time promoting my own site rather than in Artfire, Etsy, or even Meylah. I think that if you have other channels of getting your product out there, you should explore those as much as possible, so, to that end I am going to use the next few months really pushing my own site and getting more wholesale accounts, rather than concentrating so much on the other venues. You have to figure out what works for you and this is my new thinking. I'll keep you posted! What has been working well for you?