Before I went on vacation, there was a decent amount of buzz about the deal
Artfire was offering for a pro membership. If you haven't seen it, Artfire is pretty much a direct competitor to
Etsy. However, it's pretty new so it doesn't have the traffic and recognition that Etsy does.
The biggest benefit of Artfire? It uses a monthly subscription fee, not fees to list or renew items, and no percentage of sales fees. The deal that was running in September was $5.99 a month for a Pro membership (it's now
$9.95/month). Etsy's search function displays the most recently listed or renewed items first in the results, so sellers really have to constantly renew to get to the top of the searches (20 cents per renewal adds up fast).
It looks like Artfire also does a much better job of getting its shop listings at the top of Google Shopping results. Considering
my recent obsession with SEO, this totally appeals to me. More views means more sales, which means happy me. And I hear their seller support is amazing - they have people that actually answer phone calls, for heavens sake!
However, I LOVE the look of Etsy and I'm certainly not closing my shop there anytime soon. I think it's clean and polished, while Artfire kinda seems like a cheap imitator. Also, people have heard of Etsy, which counts for a lot. At the
Rocky Ripple Festival I had tons of people ask me if I have an Etsy shop.
The fees stink, no doubt about it, but with my pricing structure I can absorb some fees (and Etsy has to make money somehow). It's just REALLY tempting to try out a cheaper option.
My sticking point is the time I'd have to devote to maintaining two shops. Luckily Artfire has an importing tool that allows sellers to import all of their Etsy listings. Evidently you do have to change up your titles and listings a little bit because Google Search will ignore duplicate listings, making both listings disappear from Google search results.
I'm leaning toward trying it out through the holidays. My marketing budget is super tight, so the $30 I'm going to have to shell out really chips in to some of the things I've been planning on buying (like a pop-up tent for shows and and
a stronger sewing machine- look, isn't this one pretty?).
Here are some good forum posts if you want some more opinions.
Generally, I think Artfire shops are getting the traffic, but not necessarily the sales. Etsy is getting less traffic per shop, but more sales. I think Artfire is at a turning point now - it could potentially grow quickly due to all the sellers who want to minimize fees, but if there aren't enough buyers, it's just going to fizzle.
Any opinions? I go back and forth on this by the hour! Artfire does have a free membership, but it doesn't include the Etsy importer - should I just retype all those listings to try Artfire for free? Am I devoting too much brain power to this when I should be baking cookies or something?
