Art Fire - sign up and plant a tree!

I'm always on the lookout for new opportunities to market and sell my beads online.  I'm hearing a lot about two new sites for selling -

1000 Markets - who I believe deal with finished pieces only at the minute and that is not my strong point, so I am checking out Art Fire.

They are brand new and still in the beta stage at the minute, but look and sound very promising.  I have to say I was attracted by the name!  And reading their beta blog it transpires they have 'code monkeys' - I just hope they are well fed and cared for!



For starters, they have $7 US/month memberships at the moment, this is definitely something to consider if you are used to paying per item fees on Etsy and have a lot of things in your shop.

One of the things I've learned from Etsy is that in order to become successful you should post new items often, daily if possible. Artfire's $7/month is less than one daily listing a month on Etsy.

Unlike some online stores Artfire will not take a percentage of any sales you make, so once you've paid your monthly membership there are NO MORE FEES - except of course the Paypal thing!

There's also a free option with Artfire, that allows you to have a shop and list up to ten items in it. A pretty sweet deal for someone starting out, or who doesn't sell a lot of items. The benefits of joining for the paid version are unlimited items, more photos per item and access to areas of the site that aren't available for freebie accounts - including templates for your shop if you aren't into doing your own.

From what I have read much is still to come including Guilds, Contests and the opportunity to Mentor other members. It's going to be exciting to watch it grow.

A nice aside is that Artfire are working with Trees for the Future and for every new account they will donate one tree to be planted in an area of the world that is in ecological crisis.

I'm still exploring and have barely scraped the surface, so I'll write more when I know more!
Register on ArtFire.com