Mid-Week Mutterings of a Different Sort

No jewelry (of my design, at least) in this post. Thought I'd pass along a few bits of information I've received recently that I hope will be of interest.

First, ArtFire - they've recently done two really wonderful things for their sellers.

I got this press release in the mail the other day:

I thought you might be interested to know that we’ve recently launched free unlimited listings for all members during the holiday season as part of our Holiday Free-for-All. Below you’ll find the press release for this new promotion.

ArtFire Gives Away Free Unlimited Listings for the Shopping Season

Everyone gets free unlimited listings for the holidays on ArtFire.com

Tucson, AZ – ArtFire has just announced that they will be giving away unlimited listings completely free for all sellers during the holiday season. This means that everyone can sell and list as many items as they wish for absolutely no cost or fees.

When they first launched, ArtFire revolutionized the handmade marketplace by making it completely free for users to sell online. Site members were able to list and sell up to 12 items at any point on the site, and could have unlimited listings with customizable features for the flat rate of $12/month. However, due to the current economic situation and the upcoming holiday season, ArtFire has decided to remove this 12 item limit for the shopping season, giving everyone on the site the option to list unlimited items for sale.

To make things even easier for sellers, ArtFire has also launched the their Global Product Editor, which gives sellers the chance to make batch edits to hundreds of products in their inventory at once. Although this feature is normally reserved for pro members, ArtFire is opening this tool up so that all members on the site can make use of it.

“Regardless of marketplace or venue we’ve found that sellers who list more items have a much greater success online,” said Tony Ford, COO of ArtFire. “We want to give everyone the chance to be successful, and free unlimited listing will help our artisans obtain more sales during the fourth quarter.”

“Many of our sellers are concerned about the shopping season due to economic issues, and cannot afford to promote and advertise as they had last year,” said John Jacobs, CEO of ArtFire. “This Holiday Free for All will allow them to sell more items than ever before completely free.”

This Holiday Free for All Promotion is the first ever of its kind, and expected to completely change the craft marketplace.

For more information, please contact:

Tony Ford, COO

ArtFire Inc.

1-877-688-2323

http://www.artfire.com

Then today on Twitter, from John Jacobs (you may remember my interview of him, he's the CEO) I saw this:

Etsy Importer is LIVE on ArtFire | http://bit.ly/QWcyY | list your Etsy items automatically & never pay listing fees!

So, I went to ArtFire via the link, followed the simple instructions and voila! My Etsy items (my lanyards) are all listed on ArtFire now.

There are a couple good reasons why I did this. First of all is that I'm disappointed in how little Etsy seems to care about their sellers. Recent changes and revealed information about their SEO policies, etc., lead me to believe they're more interested in promoting themselves to make a lot of money while providing very little in the way of real innovation that supports the sellers. This is the second reason, innovation is the one area where I believe ArtFire is well ahead of all of their competition - their feature set and amazing promotional tools are really superb.

If you're interested in becoming an ArtFire seller, please consider clicking the link at the top of the page (right under my banner) and join ArtFire through my referral link. I'd be grateful, and I know you'll love ArtFire.

(permission to use these photos comes via the 'embed this picture' code on PicApp.com. Click on the picture to navigate to original site)

Next, have you seen the news about the Staffordshire Hoard? Largest find of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found. It's also a trove of design inspiration - the pictures above are just a sample from PicApp.com - go here for 500 more photos on the official website.

So that's it for me today. See you tomorrow!

PS - Mid-Week Mutterings picture credit: Portrait of an elderly lady with her daughter by Anne Vallayer-Coster (1744-1818). This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.