Selling On Artfire

This is the first of several articles I will be doing on online selling. I wanted to start with Artfire as it is the most unique selling venue I have worked with. I have sold/listed items on eBay, Amazon, Overstock, eCrater, Etsy, Bonanzle and my own site.

What I like about Artfire is the CDD (Community Directed Development). There is a lot more I like as well, but let's start with this. The CDD is basically the community getting involved in almost every area of the development of the company. I just did not see that anywhere else. Some of the ideas provided to management I have seen implemented in less than 24 hours, while others, of course, may take substantially longer.

Signing up for Artfire is easy and you do not have to be a paid member to list. You can also get unlimited listings for being a "Basic" (non-paid) member". My suggestion is if you like the site, list some items so you get familiar with it and hit the discussion boards for tips on studio (store) set up, order processing, running sales or offering coupons to your buyers and many other things. If you sell on Etsy, there is a way for you to import your items.

Another great thing from a buyer's perspective is you can purchase without registering. Many sellers report as high as 70% buying this way.

Most other sites do not want you to leave their site and while I am sure Artfire does not as well, they live in the real world. When you go to an item being sold on Artfire, sellers have the option where you can click through to other places they sell or social network. They will even let you click through to their biggest competitor Etsy.

I like the tools on Artfire as well. From store design to creation of items, I like the flow. I wish there would have been a .csv upload but you cannot get everything at one site. The Artfire team is very dedicated to SEO and are continually building features related to SEO and integrating them throughout the system.

As of this writing, Artfire has about 1 million listings compared to about 5.5 million for Etsy.

Visit Minor Details on artfire.