Markets at Home - Online Trading Shop

[Trinity]

I hope this is okay to put this here - if it isn't then can admin delete it.

I have just set up a shop within Markets at Home - http://www.marketsathome.co.uk/index.php

It is free for the first year so you really have nothing to lose - they have a sliding scale of commission starting with 15% for £0-£10 to 6% for £500+. You can have a maximum of 20 items on the site.

I am going to give it a try as there is no outlay. Just thought I would pass on the details to anyone who might be interested.

[sadierhianne]

I am going to take a look, it looks a bit like that site i left details of before Xmas, the style origin one, then all of a sudden several similar style websites pop up.

Free for a year is good.

[sadierhianne]

It looks like Style Origin and now Tuggle have some competition.

[sadierhianne]

Style Origin was also offering free listings before Christmas so two good places to advertise and hopefully sell - why pay on ebay/amazon if there are some great free places.

[whirl]

Well all competition welcome really, as with any type of business - there will always be others doing similar.

I have spoken to Matt from style origin and he is a really nice bloke, I think we have different markets entirely with his having a more arts feel. I cant wait for my new site, it will be so different from any of the other sites and will be really feminine. I think that the other site looks okay, and if you can all sell on it then thats great.

I really haven't got a problem with it, Karen cheers for the PM - but you dont need to worry. x

[Trinity]

Thing is I mentioned to Jazz, there is no reason why you can't sign up for more than one of these market places? The more exposure you have will be better for you plus it will get your name on the search engines! I mean look at all the big high street shops, they are all over the place.

I have only put a few things on there at the moment just to see how it goes.

[sadierhianne]

I just had a better look - there's a commission charge but still it is reasonable, i think that i would advertsise on there - i'd sell on Style Origin too if i handcrafted - free listings with no commission on there or there was before xmas.

Yep Matt is a really lovely man - i left a post on here about his site and how he was offering free listings for people before Christmas, his idea isn't novel, there is WALMALL which is very similar to your site Jazz, it didn't used to look as pretty as your site, your site is beautiful, but must have recently had a face lift because it now looks a lot better, it also serves to work at home parents, some of my suppliers came off of there.

Matt mentioned a few other similar style sites to me and of course there is ebay although this is what i liked about Style Origin, he doesn;t want the rubbish that creeps into ebay - there are loads of lovely products being sold on ebay and they get hidden amongst the rubbish, this is why i struggle to want to sell on ebay myself - your site offers an opening to lots of fantastic little businesses, as does Matts site and this is where the principle is great.

It makes a chenge to have some variety other than just ebay but
I would imagine that all the sites like tuggle and style origin look very different and serve a different purpose but the principle is exactly the same
-
Matt asked for people who made their own products, he approached me months and months ago to see if i made anything - he is very environmentally friendly which is how i first chatted to him - so he wanted hand crafted products geared towards being environmentally friendly rather than arty.

I just know that if i was Matt that with two other business opening within a few months of him launching he must be a little peeved but business is business and lets just hope that there is enough business to go around without taking from each others businesses.

We all have to deal with a lot of competition i suppose.

Jazz your site is pretty and feminine and it is very very attractive, i love the feel of it, you have made it cosmetically wonderful and well done you for that - you have some beautiful looking stock on there - those soaps look good enough to eat and i hope that all of the people with market places can all make it work, it does seem though that an idea is catching on. I have though for a long time that the bottom may fall out of ebay - there needed to be a better place for good quality products and now it seems that there are quite a few new areas which is good for retailers up and down.

[whirl]

I too noticed that wahmall has had a facelift, I also noticed that they used stock photos that weren't paid for as the are still watermarked and I thought that looked extremely shoddy!

But I agree about eBay - I think its had its day for attracting the handcrafted goods.

[Chell]

At least with eBay everyone knows about it. There are thousands of sites on the net that get very few visitors - you've not got that problem on ebay.

[whirl]

At least with eBay everyone knows about it. There are thousands of sites on the net that get very few visitors - you've not got that problem on ebay.

True,

But if you are selling something handmade, geared for a specific market you may find that
a) you are not reaching your market
b) you can not acheive the price that you feel your product warrants
c) that eBay fees make it nearly impossible to make enough profit.

hhmmmmm, I started selling my Tuggle blankets on eBay and found that it ate into all my profits and forced me to lower my prices so maybe I am just a bit bitter!

[whirl]

having a closer look at the markets at home site, which has some good stuff on I see that they calculate their prices by adding their commission on top of the price you select, so as a customer I already know that I am paying more than I would if I bought from you directly.

Given that you are also allowed to link directly to your site on the condition that you give a link back why would I not just click straight through to your site and buy it at a cheaper price?

So as a seller its great exposure but I think a big weakness in the commission structure of the site. Possibly.

[Chell]

Great for the seller then if it costs them nothing.

[sadierhianne]

I don't look at errors on people's sites and haven't considered WALMALL to be shoddy, they have been a great support to WAP for a long time and better than anything they have always had great ethics.

hmmmm maybe they missed that point - great place to advertise until they realise. hmm see i'd have sold stuff at the same price as on my website - taking the comission into account - a loss of £1.50 versus paypal fees works out pretty much the same - i'd be seeling for cheaper.

is that right?

[sadierhianne]

Actually that's a lie i do see errors on peoples sites and have been known to mail them but only so i hope that they come and point out all the spelling errors on my site:hysterica

I don't see errors as a criticism just a mistake.

[whirl]

i dont think its an error though, when you own the stock photo that watermark isn't there, so doesnt it just mean that they have not 'bought' the photo. They have just downloaded it?

[Trinity]

True,

But if you are selling something handmade, geared for a specific market you may find that
a) you are not reaching your market
b) you can not acheive the price that you feel your product warrants
c) that eBay fees make it nearly impossible to make enough profit.

hhmmmmm, I started selling my Tuggle blankets on eBay and found that it ate into all my profits and forced me to lower my prices so maybe I am just a bit bitter!


I agree, I have put a few things on e-bay and got nothing - people want a bargain and don't take into account the time & effort put in and because there is so much crap on there, then people tend to think that your stuff isn't worth that amount anyway.

Plus I didn't realise that until I sold something that e-bay also take a %age of your selling amount! Greedy buggers!

[sadierhianne]

Oooo i don't know - what would that mean they are doing? I will go and take a look - do you have to buy photos?

Judging by the photos properties they are owned by WAHMALL but i see what you mean - i doubt that anyone is bothered, that site which appears to have changed again since i last looked at it - although i could have this confused with yet another Work at home parent orientated website which i don't rememeber the name of, i get emails through from one, i never read them - anyway WAHMALL has been open so long and has loads of members and seems to be getting bigger and bigger despite having a few dodgy photos.

I know that it appears to be really important that people have thse fantastic looking websites but there are people who don't have fantastic looking sites who still manage to make it happen - there are lot of contributory factors that make up a fantastic business and not just the cosmetics.

A lot of the businesses on there are well known big business now.

As a starter business, despite what you think about the look of a certain website you have to be in awe of what that site has managed to do for work at home parents, comsetically you are very different but it appears that your aims are the same - you will target a different market i am sure possibly because of the cosmetic feel of your site.

I have to agree with something that Chell has said about ebay but i am not sure how ebay has managed to stand up for so long - they are a really well known place and lots of people don't realise that they can get the same stuff cheper elsewhere - quite often the customer doesn't know what sort of rubbish he will get ( from some dealers) - i agree with what you have said about losing money 'cause you have to reduce prices to compete with the crap - this is why Matt at Style Origin set up, your ideas mimic exactly his own - those who have a good and decent product can not sell at a good price on ebay BUT ebay can rip people off - i have seen products sold on there for a lot higher that RRP - people think that they are getting a good deal on ebay so keep on going back - as daft as it sounds that's the only way i can see that ebay has managed to survive because people trust it and keep on going back for more and more.

hmmm it's all quite difficult to decide really why ebay is so popular.