I would be interested. I am a handquilter for hire but my business locally has dried up. So many long armers have set up shop. If I could find a place to market some of my work it would be wonderful. I am a very fast quilter and could even do custom work if I knew there was a place to sell my products.
|
Seems more than reasonable. I would love a quilt specific site.
|
I've been thinking the same thing, but with our travels, I couldn't figure out how to do that AND quilt! I'm for it -- GO for it!
BTW - there IS a way to set up the pictures so when you click on them, they pop up fast (not talking on a dial up system here). In Photoshop, you reduce the resolutions to 76. I've often wanted to notify some site builders to do this.......LOL Also -- I don't like sites where they just list the item without a small picture next to it. It's very simple to add a small picture, then you can click on it or the text to see a bigger picture. It saves me from looking at things I'm not interested in. Good luck and DO let us know when/if you do it! |
I actually created a website that has gone nowhere, I'd love to know some of these things also. The high cost is the advertising of the site, I wish I would have done a better job programming the site, but I lack experience.
|
I use my blog to show wat I have made. I started just a new one. First I want to sell by Etsy but they want a fee before you sell anything..?
best thing for me is to stay on markets. But I really wish there was a sellingsite just for quilters. |
Yeah, there's a difference between a regular HTML page versus dynamic web programming, which requires knowing a scripting language like ASP.net, Java, or PHP, as well as database programming knowledge (any major site that revolves around constantly updated content, whether by users or administrators, involves dynamic programming and a database -- this forum site, for example, is using a dynamic script).
I shifted careers about 7 years ago -- I was a librarian for a very short time period before deciding it really wasn't for me (wish I'd figured it out sooner -- all that money for a Master's down the drain!), and went back to college to become a programmer. So I get to make sites like this every day for a living :) I enjoy programming as a hobby, too, and to give back to the communities that I'm involved in; I've never done anything for the intention of making money, it's just something I do for fun. Sometimes a site takes off and does quite well (see my profile for one of my bigger sites, if you're curious), and then other sites just don't go anywhere. A lot of it has to do with getting the word out so you can build traffic, and good search engine placement. Advertising is another aspect, as well. I've decided to go ahead and do this. I've registered the domain, and will begin building the site. I'll post back in this thread in a few weeks once I'm ready for testing and feedback. Thanks everyone! |
I would love a site like this. I have had no luck selling some of my things.
|
I'm thinking that when I get to the stage where I've got 'surplus' that I would have a go at trying to sell some stuff. Would this be international rivka? I'm based in France. :D
|
I'm curious to know if you have done any kind of market research into the viability of such a venture. It just seems to me that a "quilt specific" online sales site featuring quilts by 'not yet established' makers, while being a wonderful idea for the makers, would not generate much interest at all in the buying public. Have you ever met anyone who has gone online looking for a handcrafted quilt made by an unknown artist? You have a better chance of selling through a blog where the buyer can get to "know" you before buying.
All the responses, so far, have been from quilters, replying as quilters, not as buyers. Think about it. Would you buy something, sight unseen, made by a person whose work you had never seen in person, who has no established reputation? Would you send them a check, waiting for it to clear before the merchandise is shipped, give them your name and address, all without any fear of being scammed, or worse? And if all that went well, what if what you bought was awful? How do you get your money back? Are you stuck with what you got? (Have you ever gotten a block that was poorly made in a swap? What if you had paid $250 for it?)
Originally Posted by rivka
So a seller can list the types of payments that they take, and a buyer contacts the seller to purchase something -- and all money goes between the two of them. That relieves me of the legal and monetary aspects of it.
Originally Posted by rivka
I rent my own server (that's in place for a couple of other sites that I run), and I have space and bandwidth to hold another site, easily.
Disclaimer: I am a contract accountant and it is part of my training to act as devil's advocate for whomever is paying me. That's all I am doing here, so please do not take offense. You need to consider all sides of this proposal, not just the milk and honey side. |
I understand your concerns, let me address them.
Would you buy something, sight unseen, made by a person whose work you had never seen in person, who has no established reputation? Would you send them a check, waiting for it to clear before the merchandise is shipped, give them your name and address, all without any fear of being scammed, or worse? And if all that went well, what if what you bought was awful? How do you get your money back? Are you stuck with what you got? You'd best check with an attorney because I think this is a critical misunderstanding on your part. You facilitated the arrangement, you have liability. If those other site "owners" are paying you for space and bandwidth on the server, you had best make sure your accounting records are as clear and clean as the Alaskan sky How will you protect yourself from disgruntled sellers when the server has problems? Assuming they are, it makes no sense at all for you to propose doing this at no cost to the sellers. There will be substantial investments of time and resources that you will not recoup otherwise...How will you cover utility charges when they rise due to increased useage? How will you pay for your time spent on set-up, maintenance, updates, paperwork, all that stuff? As far as investment, the only initial investment is my time. I already rent a top of the line server. It has plenty of space, and could hold a very large and traffic-busy site with no problem -- it would take a very large site to cause further charges for increased usage. And again, quilters on the whole are a good bunch, from what I've seen -- if someone sells several quilts on the site, I have no doubt that some of them will be of a generous mindset and send a donation; if I can recoup some or all of my server costs through donations, I'll consider my initial outlay of time well spent. And as I already stated, if the site grows substantially to the point where I need to increase server size or bandwidth, then I probably would change my no-fees policy. Have you ever met anyone who has gone online looking for a handcrafted quilt made by an unknown artist? It just seems to me that a "quilt specific" online sales site featuring quilts by 'not yet established' makers, while being a wonderful idea for the makers, would not generate much interest at all in the buying public. You have a better chance of selling through a blog where the buyer can get to "know" you before buying. I'm not expecting to build the next Ebay that will require hundreds of servers bound together and a staff of hundreds -- this will be a niche site that will offer another option to people looking to sell their quilts -- there's nothing preventing them from also listing their items on Ebay, Etsy, wherever as well; if it's not used and gets no traffic, who is harmed by this? Only myself by putting time and effort into it. That's all I am doing here, so please do not take offense. You need to consider all sides of this proposal, not just the milk and honey side. |
All times are GMT -8. The time now is 10:03 AM. |