The Handmade Venue Update: ArtFire Offers Free Unlimited Listings, Folksy announces Winners for their Upcycle Christmas Contest and more
December 15, 2009 | By
Welcome to HandmadeNews’ Handmade Venue Update! Here, we summarize all the recent events for the week of the top most used craft marketplaces on the web. That way, whether you sell at one site or several, you need only stop in here to get the news you need.
The venues listed below are all arranged in alphabetical order with links to each to the news updates on each of these websites’ news blogs. If we’ve missed anything please let us know!
There have been no need updates for1000 Markets, DaWanda, Zibbet, SilkFair ShopHandmade, WinkElf, or MadeItMyself this week.
ArtFire 
ArtFire has decided to extend their Holiday-Free-For-All permanently, allowing unlimited listings for all site members, Basic or Pro. It is their opinion that since the cost of hosting a list has dramatically decreased in recent years, the cost for listing should decrease as well. By offering unlimited listings for all members, it is their goal to build a more vibrant and diverse marketplace. They will however continue to add new tools and features exclusive to Pro members, and have already set all their trend pages and gift guides to only show Pro items. Since these pages are optimized for organic traffic, they tend to be high-converting, and this switch will help Pro members receive even more traffic and sales. They also will be working on new functionality for projects in the New Year. Read more about this update here.
ArtFire is currently holding a holiday Twitter contest. Their 12 Days of Tweetmas competition started Thursday, December 10th, and will take place every weekday until Christmas Eve. During this time, Twitter users can tweet their top ArtFire picks priced $50 or less (including shipping) with the Tweetmas hash tag. One random entry will be chosen daily to win the item they tweeted as a holiday gift from ArtFire.
Etsy
Etsy is running a Last Minute Gifts Showcase this week from Monday, December 14th until Sunday, December 20th. All items in this showcase must be available for expedited shipping. Sellers can purchase a 24-hour spot in this showcase for $15 USD. A new showcase will take place from December 21st until January 3rd, and will focus on Winter Fashion and Accessories. Spots will go on sale December 17th.
Folksy
Folksy’s Featured Items for the week have been announced: The Final Countdown to Christmas, including another assortment of top Christmas gifts.
The winners have been announced for the Upcycle Christmas Contest! In total, there were four winners, one for each of the categories. You can view the winning items and runners up on Folksy’s Blog. Winners will be given the chance to showcase their work in the Sue Ryder Care Store in Camden in February 2010. The winning items were listed for bidding on eBay last week, and all proceeds went to Sue Ryder Care. The People’s Choice Contest Winner has also been announced, click here to read more.
iCraft
iCraft is currently working on a Local Shop feature, which will allow buyers to browse based on geographic location. To help this feature function properly, they’re requesting sellers who have incomplete or fake addresses to update their address so their products can be included.
iCraft has also made some layout changes to their top navigational bar and the Buy Handmade section. In the Buy Handmade section, there is now a New & Updated page, which displays items listed in the last 96 hours. There is also a new On Sale page, which will show items placed in Sales mode. All pages include a Feedback button at the right-hand size, which allows members to submit an idea, question, problem, or compliment. Read more about these changes here.
Sara Moore is the Head of the Content Department on ArtFire.com.
All rights reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached, or otherwise used, except with the prior
written permission of HandmadeNews.org.
