So I’ve been seeing on several blogs that there is this new website called Art Fire where artisans who make handmade items can put their products up for sale for one monthly fee. Right now for the first 5000 artisans who sign up, it will only be $7/mo for life – as long as they remain a member and their payments do not lapse. After the first 5000 I think it goes up to $20 a month.

I am kind of on the fence about this, mainly because I have very little product to sell. Right now if I were to set up a shop on Etsy, I think it is .20 per listing (for 4 months?) and something like 3.5% of the sale – if it sells. I think I figured, just based on the listing price alone, to get my money’s worth at Art Fire, I would have to list at least 35 items. Obviously this does not take into consideration the fees that are charged at Etsy, but considering I have only had two sales of my current product at my ecommerce store, I am just basing my comparison on the same lack of sales (what great confidence I have, eh?).

So for now, since I do not even have an Etsy store yet, and don’t yet have enough product to list 35 items at Art Fire to make it worth the $7, I will be carefully watching their site to observe the number of accounts remaining… if it starts to drop like wildfire I may just buck up and pay the $7 to reserve myself a spot at that price, as it is certainly better than being left in the cold and having to pay $20 a month later on if I miss the boat. But for now I will just bide my time and try to build up some inventory.

(please note this is not a sponsored post – I just wanted to pass the info along to any crafty blogger looking for another place to sell their wares)

Tags: Artisans, Blogs, Etsy, Handmade Wares, Money, New Art