Fisher Tech Solutions LLC is a tiny web development company located in the town of Wales, MA. Run by the couple Edward Fisher JR and Emma Johnson, who together have been building websites and helping small businesses with digital marketing work for three years, recently built and released a website for artists struggling to sell their products on e-commerce websites like Etsy and Amazon.
Emma Johnson is an artist herself, familiar with the frustrations of trying to sell her pottery and jewelry online. The main challenge for artists is the saturation of products on sites like Etsy, the high transaction fees, and the poor vendor/seller customer support offered by most platforms. Artists and Crafters need these marketplaces because the costs of running their own sites and handling their own marketing to build traffic are very high.
The site, called My Community Made, allows artists and crafters to list their products for free. The site charges no transaction fees or listing fees and instead attempts to turn a profit through subscription revenue, advertising, and professional services. The site has done well since its launch and has already attracted 1,000 registered users and has built an inventory of 697 handmade products.
The site has a few main differentiators from other sites
1. It is possible to sell on the site 100% for free, sellers can open a free account and list up to five products at a time. No transaction fees or listing fees of any kind.
2. Vendors/Sellers must be located in the US, and must produce and design their own products, with no licensedcopywritten work. The site is moderated by our team.
3. Vendors have complete control over their brand and can use our internal SEO tools to rank for specific keywords and control how their products/store appears in SERPs
Because we don’t rely on transaction fees, we are free to focus on what makes art interesting to enjoy and shop for. Rather than an algorithm that sorts products based on potential transaction volume, our site is focused on showing customers novel products regardless of price or sales volume. Our product cap of 50 products per store also prevents users from flooding the market with similar products. Each of these differences, while small, promotes a healthier marketplace, with fewer incentives for lowering prices just to appear higher in search results.
Our future goals include providing more advertising opportunities for vendors/sellers as well as expanding into additional professional services and providing advice and management services to vendors on how to continue to grow their art/crafting business.
Source: EIN News