Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Big Cartel and ArtFire experiment

Three weeks ago I set up a shop on ArtFire and Big Cartel. When I set up these two stores I told myself I would watch and see which preformed best by April 1st.

ArtFire is a community based handcraft site and BigCartel is a shopping cart for indie artist. So, one would think you would have more traffic on ArtFire. I have 31 items listed on ArtFire and have had 900 views in three weeks. BigCartel has 25 items listed and has had 1400 views.


Chunky yellow necklace

Also, tonight I made my first sale on Big Cartel. I believe the customer found me via my Facebook page. I don't promote my ArtFire shop on Facebook, just my Etsy and BigCartel shop.

So, my experiment is over. Tomorrow I will deactive my ArtFire shop and add more to BigCartel. The ArtFire owner is very friendly and the forums are helpful. It's easy to set up shop there too. I find that BigCartel visually looks better if you buy a theme to install or know how to code.

Thought I would share for those considering one of the platforms.

3 comments:

Kym Hunter Designs said...

I love your chunky yellow necklace! The yellow beads are gorgeous!

I too have been trying to decide whether to use Etsy, BigCartel or ArtFire. Your post is very helpful and I think I will be using BigCartel.

Thanks for sharing!

gypsy moon designs said...

Thanks Kym!
I love BigCartel. I really like having a stand alone site. You will have to promote it a lot!

Unknown said...

I appreciated your input. I've been juggling these thoughts in my mind for a few weeks. I put just a few things in Big Cartel "free account" to see. So far nothing, but I haven't worked very hard at that too. I love the exposure on Etsy, but I hate the relisting fees and the % cut they take. Ugh, decisions decisions.... Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

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