Selling Venues Series: Searches

I have started doing the Search Feature portion of this series. I have highlighted 6 venues today with a coordinating treasury on my other blog. I did not want to go too easy, so I used Morning Coffee Soap for my search. I have noted the number of results of each search and any further searching that was needed to locate an item. Any advanced searching or filtering is also noted.

Etsy:
Search box: w/drop down menu for description, tag, title, seller name, vintage, supply…no “true” advanced search.
When you get your results, there is a filter results tip list on the sidebar
Sidebar search: by Category, Gift Guides, Showcases (at center top), Explore: Color, Treasury, Pounce, Shop Local, Time Machine, Editors Pick & at the bottom Recently Listed...and of course the hand picked Treasury on the Front Page


Input: “morning coffee soap” resulted in 1 page, 9 items
Note: they were all actual soap

Artfire:
Search box: Menu with boxes to check/uncheck for Handmade/Fine Art, Design/Media, Supplies/Vintage & Username plus an advanced search option
Sidebar Search: Browse by Category: handmade/Vintage, Design/Media, Supplies/Vintage – each with their own subcategories listed



Input: “morning coffee soap” in box with handmade checked resulted in 2 items Note: thumbnails here are larger than etsy
Advanced search: Member search; keyword box with “and” & “not; categories: the 1st 3 on simple search; price range min-max



Input: “soap” with and “coffee” not “art”…I was prompted to check a category, I chose handmade
Results: 39 items, 4 pages

Silkfair:
Search Box: shows you the number of items that will be searched…kinda cool
Sidebar Search: By color, Item browser, Categories, Top tags, Location



Input: “Morning coffee soap” in box resulted in Zero items…
Advanced/ Filter Results came up & I checked to research using title, description, tag: soap, coffee and Handmade.
note: you can reach the advanced search by clicking the downward arrow next to the original search enter/magnifying glass icon


Input: “coffee soap” resulted in zero before I realized I had to clear out the search box. Then I got 3 results.

WinkElf:
Search box: Shop by Store drop down, search word box, and drop down for Category
Sidebar Search: Shop by Trends and Shop by Category


Input: morning coffee soap in box resulted in Zero
Advanced search/Filter: Item search: keywords, item type, items listed in market &/or store, view results by, sort by; By location; By item number; By seller; By buyer; Store search (click pic to enlarge)


Input: keywords: “morning coffee soap”, included description, items listed in Market & Store resulted in Zero…until I realized you had to separate each keyword with an “&”…helps if you read the directions
Resulted in 3: one was a conditioner, one was an embroidered pillowcase and a baby blanket…hmmm…no soap, or coffee
The conditioner did technically fit into the category because one of the scents to choose from is “Chocolate Silk Frappuccino”

Crobbies:
Search box: drop down menu with Item, Description, Tag, Material, Colors, Seller. Advanced search link is right there also.
Sidebar Search: Browse by Category, By Tag, By Material, By Color (uses color chart) and By Price



Advanced search: keyword, tag, materials, color, search..along with drop down menu for where in the listing to look


Input (into simple search box): “morning coffee soap” with title, description, and tag resulted in zero
Search filter came up with narrow by category, tag, material, color or option and ability to uncheck search words

Then tried w/o the morning – resulted in zero Then only “coffee” – resulted in zero
Then only “soap” – resulted in 5 items, 2 of which were candles
Search by Bath & Body category gave 5 soaps – 2 were on last search, the other 3 were a gift basket with soaps and scrubs So…the search did work, there just are not many soaps on this venue yet
*Hint* Hint* for those who sell soaps…open market ready & waiting

Shop Handmade:
Search box: quick search for keyword with drop down menu for Everything, Handmade, Vintage or ReSupplies
Shop tab pulls up options for Colors, Craft, Audience, Galleries, New & Sale


Input: “morning coffee soap” with Everything resulted in Zero
Then “coffee soap” resulted in 6 coffee scented soap

Selling Venues Series: Tell Me More: Silkfair

The sign up was quick and easy. This is the sign up page: (click pic to enlarge)


First thing I noted after sign up was how much I liked the Start Page setup. There are tabs for My Account, My Store, Communicate, Shopping Cart, Feedback and Favorites. It is nice having everything right there. Having everything right there makes so many things so much easier to accomplish – less clicking page to page to get things done or noted for the future. (click to enlarge)



The store set up was not as quick and easy. I had troubles with setting up some default profiles (which are necessary if you want to import listings directly from Etsy, or eBay...click here to read their thread on how to do this). You can enter numerous shipping, tax & pricing profiles. I still don’t fully understand the Pricing Profile, maybe it just does not apply to the kinds of listing I have. Once I got the defaults set up (I just did a fake pricing profile) I went to import items from Etsy…but it looks like it imports ALL the items, so I skipped it. I was only interested in moving over a few items. (click pic to enlarge)


The actual listing of the item was a breeze. You only get 4 photos, but you can have 2 videos as well. It says you can upload more than one pic at a time using the ctrl-shift dialog…but I have no idea what they mean. I saved without finishing the shipping profiles, but it was an easy fix. Editing can be done right on the Listing View page…wonderful feature! I really love the pop up windows on every page when the cursor rolls over something – more information without more clicking. (click pic to enlarge)


This is what the store page looks like:


One feature I really enjoy are the "heart and gear" pull down menus available at all times. The Favorites (the heart) lets you easily mark faves as you browse around. You can favorite the entire page, the store, the items or the category. Next to it is another pull down menu for printing the page, subscribing (rss), e-mailing and inviting friends. Common tasks are also available for adding items, viewing feedback, sending a message, going to your blog or viewing your profile. This is just one more way Silkfair keeps everything at your fingertips. (click pic to enlarge)



If you are interested in signing up - please take a moment to note me as referer using this link - thank you :)

added: They now have separate areas for production types when you list: Handmade (with options for One of a Kind, Mass produced and Limited Edition), Vintage or Antique (with era choices and styles)

Selling Venues Series: Front Pages and Ranks 2

I have decided that along with screen shots of front pages, I will include graphs and ranking from Alexa, a Web Information Company.

This post will have marketplace style sites which are not handmade only, but do have a place for them: eBay, eCrater, bonanzle, and silkfair.












You can find my FAQs on these and more sites here.

Taken 01/08/2009: Graphs give date of Jan 5 & 6, 2009
Graph: X axis: time and Y axis: daily reach (percentage)
note: graphs not always available if not in top 100,000…also, y axis not always the same % point markers