Craft is Art

I am always trying to find new ways to get more shoppers to my store. Over recent weeks, I have been learning about other sites like Etsy where you can build your own shops. Many of these sites offer a basic set up for no fee, or you can pay for all the bells and whistles. Although it's more work for me, I've decided to take the plunge and set up some new shops. I told everyone about my new Artfire Studio a couple weeks ago. It took a while to upload everything from Etsy into my new store, and I've only been minimally happy with the results thus far. What I like about Artfire is that they show you if someone has linked to your item from google search which is interesting. But the item views cannot compare to Etsy. However, if someone purchases an item from there, then I will not complain! :) You can upload as many items as you want, and there are no listing or selling fees.

Next I learned about Zibbet. A basic seller can upload 25 items at no cost, so I decided to give that a try. That store is still a work in progress, as I only have 11 of my 25 items uploaded. It takes a while to upload all the pictures and copy and paste my text from Etsy, so I have been a little neglectful. I have not yet figured out if there is a way to see how many views an item has or link this shop to google analytics. I have some more to do here that's for sure!

Finally, I heard about Craft is Art. A basic seller here can also upload 25 items at no cost. However, here, you can import your items (with images!) from Etsy. It still took some time to go through each item afterward and set all the labels and tags, but I started this project today around 12:30 and am already finished! You can check out my newest store here: http://www.craftisart.com/YardByYardKnits. I already have analytics set up for this shop, so I'm curious to see how it compares to Artfire.

I have no idea how these smaller sites compare to Etsy. But I think each has a following of its own, so now I have to see if a cheapo like me will be found amongst all the pro shops that can do more with their stores!