Thread: Selling from web sites.

G'day Tea Lady,

Depending how you sell through a website it can be very costly:

• If it were a shopping card with payment bt credit card then the following apply:

1. Hosting – SSL certificate and static IP address ~$250 / year

with

Online Payment
Indicative cost over 1 year based on up to 3,000 transactions:
Option 1 : Bank + Payment Gateway provider
● Payment Gateway ~$1,200
● Bank fees. ~$600 +~1.5% comm. on transactions

2. Paypal 3% commission on all payments then an additional charge on transferring your money out of Paypal into your account. For this reason most will do one transaction when there is a nice bit of $ to transfer. But businesses can't wait to build up sufficent funds.

3. Shopping cart for all intents and purposes looks like a shopping cart, when all it does is collect the information by the customer and sends it as an email to you, you then follow up with customer to take Visa details and process payment - but you need a Visa machine; or

I suggest this for my clients where it is a small business, where you have a higher turnover then option 1., but that as you can see comes at a cost.

4. Money is deposited by the customer via a direct deposit into your account and good are shipped on receipt of money in full.

Hope this helps.

Hi TL,

It's an interesting thought. I would guess that wood craft is a very tactile type purchase - it's the picking it up and feeling the texture and weight, etc that makes you want to buy it.

I'd be really interested to hear how people go selling turnings on the web. I would imagine pens and the like would be ok.

Cheers,
Dave

I sell a little bit from my websites.

The easiest practical way is to use Paypal, that way you can accept credit card payments without any of the the hassle & expense of setting up credit card merchant accounts. Apart from actual sales fees there is also a modest withdrawal fee to transfer less than $150.00 to your bank account but every time you buy with paypal your purchases come off your paypal balance.

Paypal is much easier to track than bank deposits and also makes international sales very easy.

So if it costs you $3 for each $100 of sales that seems ok by me.
If you can't afford to get $97 out of each $100 sale then life must be very grim for the odd detractors.

It's an excellent starting point for online sales.

Hi anne-maria,
Check out this site to sell things handmade...
http://www.etsy.com/
I am considering ETSY, but am still looking and studying them.
Good luck with it; your work looks very nice to me, so maybe online sales will be a good outlet for you.
Gil

TL - can't comment on your exact question (don't have a website or sell online) but make the following observation from considerable experience and knowledge of online stuff.

Websites are a great way for artist/craftspeople to promote and support their work. Not so much for attracting new customers and making online sales, but more a case of adding value for your existing customer base. The odd sale arising through your website would be just a bonus.

Alan Stirt's website is a nice example of what I think works well.

For me, having been an Internet pioneer (started back in 1991) and done so much of that I've been happy to leave that part of my working life aside, at least for now. But would definitely recommend any serious woodturner that is regularly exhibiting and selling their work through galleries to complement their other support/promotional materials (eg tickets and catalogues) with a website.

Originally Posted by NeilS

TL - can't comment on your exact question (don't have a website or sell online) but make the following observation from considerable experience and knowledge of online stuff.

Websites are a great way for artist/craftspeople to promote and support their work. Not so much for attracting new customers and making online sales, but more a case of adding value for your existing customer base. The odd sale arising through your website would be just a bonus.

Alan Stirt's website is a nice example of what I think works well.

For me, having been an Internet pioneer (started back in 1991) and done so much of that I've been happy to leave that part of my working life aside, at least for now. But would definitely recommend any serious woodturner that is regularly exhibiting and selling their work through galleries to complement their other support/promotional materials (eg tickets and catalogues) with a website.

I think AlexS has a similar setup - gallery of his goodies and a like to request a quote, but then again he's selling to order, no selling from stock.
http://web.mac.com/alexspringall

Only flaw is that's made on a Mac, but we can over look that in light of his talent with boxes. Can't have everything

Cheers,
Dave

Originally Posted by Gil Jones

Hi anne-maria,
Check out this site to sell things handmade...
http://www.etsy.com/
I am considering ETSY, but am still looking and studying them.
Good luck with it; your work looks very nice to me, so maybe online sales will be a good outlet for you.
Gil

Have looked at Etsy, but feel that a lot of the 5hings on there are a bit "crafty"

Originally Posted by Ozkaban

I think AlexS has a similar setup - gallery of his goodies and a like to request a quote, but then again he's selling to order, no selling from stock.
http://web.mac.com/alexspringall

Only flaw is that's made on a Mac, but we can over look that in light of his talent with boxes. Can't have everything

Cheers,
Dave

Made on a Mac? I got no probs with that.

I do sell through a few galleries, so I prolly shouldn't under cut them, or cut them out. Maybe I should direct customers to the galleries if they wish to purchase something? Or maybe I should get my act together and get the galleries working for ME more.

When I set my site up, I had no interest in making sales from it at all and wanted no advertising on it whatsoever - it's just my online diary/album so-to-speak. I did suggest though that if anyone was interested in anything they saw they should contact me and one recent sale I made that way has paid the next 8 years webspace fees . The queries are few and far between but they have added dozens of species to my wooden egg collection so I can't complain
Unless you can build a secure commercial website yourself TL, I reckon you'd be better off to just include links to the galleries that hold your works and let them do the haggling for you

TL, I don't have anything constructive to add except that I have been wondering the same thing myself. Great idea for a thread , greenie sent. I'll be wathcing this one with interest.

I've been selling from one of my sites for over a decade and only I accept PayPal (I don't want the hassle of any domestic buyers paying by direct deposit and expecting to pick up or buyers calling in with cash). I make daily sales all around the world (excepting the few countries that PayPal doesn't support). I also do freelance work for a number of international clients and so far, they've all been happy to use PayPal too.

Adding a PayPal shopping cart to your site is simplicity itself and as others have said, it makes credit card payments a breeze. Some people bemoan PayPal's fees, but it's virtually foolproof and buyers these days are familiar with PayPal and trust it more than direct credit card transactions.

You should give it a go - you can get started in half an hour and there's nothing to lose.

Hi TL, my web site is my only advertising, I do not have a shop front only my workshop. People email or phone me with an enquiry and I get back to them as quickly as I can usually only a few hours at the most. My sales are larger and they either pick them up or I deliver so its either foldy money, cheque or direct deposit. I only need about 20 -30 transactions a year so I haven't done the Paypal thing but it is the one I would choose I think. I get around 50 individual visitors a day to my site. If you did have one LOML would have bought some of those beads and buttons by now.
Good luck.

Originally Posted by Woodwould

Adding a PayPal shopping cart to your site is simplicity itself and as others have said, it makes credit card payments a breeze. Some people bemoan PayPal's fees, but it's virtually foolproof and buyers these days are familiar with PayPal and trust it more than direct credit card transactions.

You should give it a go - you can get started in half an hour and there's nothing to lose.

Could be worth it. I was thinking of having a few "products" that people could purchas on line. Then for other things that are more "one of" I can send them to galleries.

Originally Posted by Claw Hama

If you did have one LOML would have bought some of those beads and buttons by now.
Good luck.

So beads and buttons should be on of the products. I know there is a whole world of people trying to do craft even though Lincraft and Spotlight keep down grading it. And all the little craft shops are struggling on.

Originally Posted by tea lady

So beads and buttons should be on of the products.

Don't forget wig stands too!