Creative Cafe Salesrooms: The Future

[Jill]

Hi

I feel quite stupid writing this because I spent ages persuading many of you to sign up and list your lovely works for sale in Creative Cafe Salesrooms
Now that you have and we have some great art and handmade crafts for sale I have been going round persuading people to visit the site and become buyers. I thought this would be the same as promoting Creative Cafe and persuading you to sign up but it seems to be much harder. Increasing the traffic and visitor numbers isn't so hard its getting people to stop long enough to register and become buyers that is harder.

I have had free and cheap adverts up, we have now got £30 a month on Google adwords, we have been on Stumble on and I have joined a business network called Ecademy hoping to find customers. I have the name of the site in my signature and have sent bulletins on My Space. In many ways the salesrooms is having more publicity than Creative Cafe members ever has and yet I don't see results in people registering to buy. We have a few regular customers but even when new people sign up they are not buying much.

What can be done on a low budget that I am not doing already? Is it worth keep promoting the Salesrooms when there are other sites like Etsy which are well known and have the customers? I have a limited amount of time I can work on this each day and don't really want to waste the time on a lost cause. Or am I being defeatist and will the buyers soon come flocking in!

Would love to know what you think and any suggestions to improve the current situation.

Bye for Now
Jill

[WILMA (aka Julia)]

Hi Jill,

Hmmmm what to do!!!

Have only been a member here for a short while BUT I for one loved the idea and concept of this whole site....Im still finding my way around the site but thats just me being me, once it clicks i will be a whizz at it......

The Salesrooms.......It sort of struck me as a type of ebay outlet only with not as much stuff for sale.....I think it is def a good idea in general and would def keep going with it a while longer but I have a suggestion.....what about having a 'swap shop' sort of theme too?
I know its not going to necessarily sell lots BUT although a lot of us here spend time making gorgeous hand crafted items, some folk just arnt willing to pay for them if they are slightly higher in price than they think they should be paying and so maybe amongst ourselves if we see something that we like which has been made by someone else and they maybe like something of ours then maybe we could swap some items.....might get a bit more traffic through I dont now just a suggestion???
I certainly wouldnt like to see the sales room go just yet Ive only just got used to getting signed into here so need to have a good brows around the shop too.....its very early days yet and I certainly would maybe think about giving it a bit longer before you pull the plug?

Thanks for allowing us the input too its great that you want us the members to have some say in the decisions that are made on here!!

Julia xx

[Jill]

Hi Julia

No we are not going to close the Salesrooms up now! I am just finding them harder to promote than I thought it would be. Well harder compared to recruiting members for this Creative Cafe site and persuading people to put their work up for sale (which also took some persuading!)

I think some of it is my problem in that selling does not come naturally to me. Have you heard that saying
" He can sell ice to Iceland" which indicates someone who is a good seller and that just isn't me at all! Apart from that it is just a bit boring going round sticking up signatures and messages about the Salesrooms and then finding people don't register very often. But I admit I have not given it much time at all yet and have only recently been keen on increasing sales in there since we got more things for sale.

I think the idea of a swap shop is good and think that would have to be done via the classified ads format probably. At the moment classified ads are set to charge a fee which nothing else on the site is so I could take the fee off for a while and see what happens. If anyone else is interested in swaps going on on the site I'd be glad to hear about it.

Yes certainly we want our members to have a say in what goes on and any suggestions are welcome.

Bye for Now
Jill

[markaplan]

i tried to register to become a seller and kept going around in a loop and found it difficult so i just gave up......

[Jill]

Hi Mark

I have just looked in the Salesrooms admin and you are registered. If you have not receieved your verification code which allows you to log the first time then I can message it to you. I had this with someone else recently and I think sometimes the code goes into peoples spam filters so they don't see the email.

Sorry you found it difficult to sign up. It is easy enough to list your work once you are on the site I think.
I will send you a message anyway.

Bye for Now
Jill

[WILMA (aka Julia)]

Ive just signed up and found it ok and Im looking forward to listing some of my crafts on there over the nexr few days!!

[Margaret Hamilton of Slackstitches]

It's difficult Jill. I get the impression that a lot of us find the promotional side difficult. There is a market out there but people only have so much time to browse around on these computers. I know I keep meaning to mention this site in forums but I keep forgetting as too much to do and so little time therefore the forums are usually bottom of the list.
Perhaps the members here could regularly mention Creative Cafe Salesroom whenever they remember.
Also remember that the likes of Etsy has now been around quite a while. When I first dicovered them they were quite small, now they have left me way behind, too many time consuming gadgets.
I have noticed the hand made community is growing in the UK and that must mean the market is there. Could I suggest ( at the risk of repeating what others have said) that all members try the following.

Mention Creative Cafe Salesroom at EVERY opportunity, particularly online.

Link to Creative Cafe Salesroom on any website you or your friends/family are involved in.

For those who sell here, make promotional cards on your own computer with Creative Cafe Salesroom address, along with other places you sell, to put in with sold items, place on sales tables at craft fairs etc.

I am sure that there are other ideas out there that members would like to share with us. SHOUT OUT.

Margaret

[Jill]

Hi

I must say it would help if members could do those things and we will get known by word of mouth like that which they say is one of the best ways of promoting a site.
I also cheered myself up last night by applying for a quite expensive advert (at $6.50 a day it is expensive on our kind of budget!) but it is on a craft site which gets 400000 visits a day as well. I thought maybe some exposure of that kind for a short time could help. I am just waiting to see if the site owner approves our ad.
To be honest I have no idea what will work and what won't until I try it!
One thing that does increase traffic (although not necessarily people signing up) is a site called Stumble On where people browse websites and give them a thumbs up or down. I have tried this and when we get thumbs up the visitors increase. So if anyone wants to join up on Stumble and give us some thumbs up that would be great. But don't get too carried away looking at websites. I found I wasted quite a bit of time on there browsing away!

Anyway I hope this will be an ongoing discussion and you will also all be patient while I try to get more buyers in the Salesrooms for your lovely works.

Bye for Now
Jill

[Katherine Haynes]

Er I don't seem to be able to sign up to sell, said username/password was wrong. Does this mean I've already done it. Tried the forgot your password thing but it didn't recognise my email address - HELP!

[Jill]

Hi Katherine

I can't see you in the user list at least not under the name of Katherine Haynes so you havn't already done it yet.

Looks like you will need to register and get a verification code sent in your email. (check your spam filter if this doesn't go in your mail) My advice is whatever you have done so far has not registered you so refresh and start again with the registration process. Let me know how you get on. It is usually pretty easy to get registered.

Bye for now
Jill

[Margaret Hamilton of Slackstitches]

Have made a start on blogging about the salesroom. This one I put into the arts&craft co-operative blog at blogspot as I thought it would get more hits than my blog which has been neglected of late.
http://artandcraftcooperative.blogspot.com it's kind of short but to the point. Maybe someone with more flowery, selling talk could advise us on the kind of thing to say. Any ex sales people out there?

[Jill]

Aw that is really nice Margaret. Thanks for doing that.

I have some 'hot' provisional news in that we may be getting a project manager for the Salesrooms who is willing to work on a 'payment by results' (eg a % of the site fees when we have any and a % of any classified ads fees), has a lot of experience, lots of ideas, enthusiasm, and a disabled daughter of her own. I say 'may' because it isn't signed and sealed yet but I should know more by next Wednesday.

I must say I don't think I am the right person to be promoting the Salesrooms because selling just doesn't come naturally to me and there are some people who are brilliant at it. If we can have a project manager like this I will feel a lot less pressured, will be able to concentrate more on this site and think the Salesrooms will generally have a better chance of getting established better.

Anyway like I say it is still provisional at the moment so I am not counting any chickens until they have hatched!

Bye for Now
Jill

[Margaret Hamilton of Slackstitches]

Fingers, and toes, crossed then.