From the article: ArtFire.com
ArtFire.com - is the free listing service the best thing since sliced bread? Has anyone taken advantage of the list 12 items free shop? If so, any feedback and are you considering converting from the Basic to the Verified service? Share Your Reason
Oil/acrylic paintings
- would like to use ArtFire for my paintings to post and sell,
- —Guest tracey
How do I get out of this!!!
- I signed up for a "free month " then was billed for a second with no email or warming at all. Just an $11.95 charge to my credit card. I can find no email or phone number (that it in service) to contact anyone to see a bill or get any info...date of first sign up. I'd like to know when I am going to be billed and have an option as to how it is paid. (pay pal or CC) The help center has no answers for me. I'd like to continue for a couple months but given that I am not finding the info I need I may just bow out. I have sold nothing here. Etsy has been much better for me. I am sent a bill each month with all the charges explained. If an Art Fire person sees this I'd love to hear from you.
- —Guest Nancy
The Pros of Artfire IMHO
- For a set price you get Google syndication which is yet to be given to everyone on Etsy. Plus you have unlimited # of items you can list for no additional charge and a site to direct jurors of local shows. It's not going to make me a lot of money but for the little time I've put into it, I have made substantially more money there than Etsy (based on time vs money). I'm giving Etsy a chance until the end of the year. Most likely I'll close there and rely on Artfire for my non-local business on January.
- —AllisontheImp
There is no longer free seller option
- Just a heads-up/update to this article; there is a free trial for the $12 pro section, but no option to have a limited style or free seller account. So you can try pro for free, but pro is your only seller option. I sell small amounts of stuff and that $12 may be a great deal if you make a lot of sales, but if you only sell a handful of things a month and they are not higher priced items, art fire may not for you since they don’t offer a per item fee based membership. It all comes down to what you are trying to do. Are you selling a lot of items a month, or are your items high dollar items? Maybe it is worth giving artfire a chance, or even just your own website for around that price. Are you selling small things with a small amount of sales? I would stick to other websites because even ebay at 10% is cheaper if you are not moving more than $120 every single month. Keep this in mind and what you expect to move before you give Art Fire your Credit Card for the free trial offer.
- —Guest Wouldn't Even Try
basic
- So far, I'm nervous of any "selling site" that you have to Pre-pay for. Somewhere in here on About.com people have said that it's $7.00 per month, $12.00 per month, and it's a lot more than that on the artfire site, and the rules and regulations on artfire are very confusing. All I know is that I spent over $150+ to sell $300 worth of items on etsy. I've never tried ebay myself, but my stepson had listed vintage items for me, and they were listed at $30 per item, but the only responses he received were $50 for all 35 items on the listings??? If I'm going to LOSE money on selling my precious items, I'd rather go to the local Flea market, pay my $10 per space and sell everything there. At least then, whomever is trying to "get something for nothing" will have to look in my face while doing it. Maybe these sites were great when they first started but they are way TOO BIG now, and I don't believe that anyone's listings get their just viewing.
- —Annielovestospinncraft
Limited Time Only: ArtFire Pro Account f
- Hello, I originally signed up with you when you were getting started and offer a flat monthly rate of $7.00/month. My company is Candace Collection. Due to a whole list of situations I only put 2 descriptions of necklaces. I have been through a computer "death" requiring a whole new computer a now secure upload of all my "stuff". I developed sever sciatica that kept me from doing much of anything for 9 months. I finally had surgery to correct my back problems but I was not able to sit at a computer of sit almost anywhere for another 6 months. I have watched you grow by leaps and bounds. You offer so many options, ways to get seen more often that I feel like I am starting form the very beginning again. Is possible for me to up grade to an ArtFire Pro Account for the slightly less charge per month? I also need instructions on geting started again. I not only make jewelry. I also work with textiles and have prints and drawings as well. I am leaving a web site that costs me
- —Guest candacecollection
Answer: ArtFire and Etsy
- One key difference between ArtFire and Etsy is our commitment to equal exposure. On ArtFire you don't have to continually relist your items to stay at the top of search results. ArtFire search results return based on best match and categories display items randomly so that all members/items receive equal exposure. As the ArtFire community grows we will split out top line categories so that instead off all handmade | vintage | supply | media | design | fine art items being grouped together, each will have a separate landing page and site presence. Our interest is in bringing the most traffic to each unique artisan and community member we possibly can and to support this strategy we optimize each listing so that our members index better for long tail SEO than most other marketplaces. In other words, members are promoted above the venue at ArtFire and our success is measured by your success, which better aligns our interests with your interests. Thanks for the question patti
- —Guest John Jacobs
artfire is great
- I have a verified account and love it. My listings show up in google, I have a shot at being on the front page because the front page is random, the search function works really well, and upload time is shorter. Since I've started I've had more sales in my artfire shop than my etsy in the same amount of time. I'm able to run sales and special and they are coming out with coupon code capability. Which will let me give my return customers a discount. Got to love that. I'm comfortableshoes on both etsy and artfire.
- —Guest lessherger
Forum link for ArtFire discussion
- I've gotten emails asking for this address so I'm providing it here as well: http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=ab-artsandcraft&tid=11318
- —maire_loughran
How is Artfire different from Etsy?
- I was hoping to see why my hand made goods would be better off on Artfire than on Etsy or Ebay. I don't anyone who uses Etsy because our items do get lost on page one thousand. I really would have appreciated the an answer as to how this exact same thing wouldn't happen on this site. Why is it better for me? I'm not sold at all.
- —patti1089
ArtFire is Tailor-made
- An excellent program for artisans who want to simplify the business of selling and maintain needed studio working time.
- —k.neff
