Tonka Park » small business

7 Reasons to use BigCartel.com

Matt — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:17:02 +0000

Trying to figure out where to setup shop is a difficult task. Many individuals, bands, retailers, crafters, artists and photographers search for the perfect place to sell their creations and products. With the online marketplace options growing in number by the months sometimes it is hard to choose where to setup shop.

Let’s take a look at why BigCartel.com is the right place for you to sell your products online.

Inexpensive Hosted Solution

For a hosted shopping cart Big Cartel is inexpensive. Starting with a free option, basically allowing you to kick the tires, then going to $9.99/mo and up. Compared to Shopify.com the price is a no-brainer for a hosted solution. Basically $9.99/mo is the cost of web hosting at most places.

Custom Domain Name

Want to brand your site, make it unique with a memorable name. Big Cartel, like other hosted solutions allows you to use your very own domain name, such as myshop-name.com.

Paypal integration, no listing fees

Big Cartel keeps things simple and has the setup in place to integrate with PayPal for collecting payments. If you haven’t used PayPal before it is perfect for accepting payments online and getting the money into your account for a small transaction fee. At Big Cartel there are no transaction fees except from PayPal to accept payments. So unlike Etsy you will not have to pay a listing fee per item.

Customizable Templates

Are you a designer or an artist thats feels like the boring grid or identical site to others is cramping your style? Don’t worry Big Cartel allows the css to be modified for all plans and for the paid plans allows full customization of the design. Do it yourself or hire a designer to give you a truly unique shop that will make for a memorable shopping experience.

Simple Interface

Adding products, viewing inventory, editing content pages are all a breeze with Big Cartel’s admin interface. We had no problem learning the system without ever reading the help documents. The forms to create products and upload photos was intuitive and simple. Your store will be setup in no time.

SEO Opportunities

Since you will have your own domain name and control of the templates and content pages you can build out pages and other special keyword changes to help improve the probability your site will be better ranked in the search engines such as google.

Get in the Store Directory

Similar to Etsy, Big Cartel offers a store directory where the stores are categorized. The directory isn’t nearly as powerful as Etsy but here the sellers are much more varied and the shopping carts aren’t shared. So each store is unique but you have the opportunity to be listed and also you have the chance to be featured on the Big Cartel blog as a feature store.

So those are the 7 reasons I would choose to use Big Cartel. BigCartel.com is a great hosted shopping cart solution for shops with less than 100 products looking to have customizable and simple to setup online shop.

7 Reasons to use Etsy.com

Matt — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:08:08 +0000

Trying to figure out where to setup shop is a difficult task. Many individual crafters, artists and photographers search for the perfect place to sell their creations. With the online marketplace options growing in number by the months sometimes it is hard to choose where to setup shop.

Let’s take a look at why Etsy.com is the right place for you as an creative handmade artist.

The Community

Of course the biggest reason to use Etsy is the vibrant community they are so proud of creating. With thousands of buyers and sellers on the site at all hours of the day, forums and rotating feature products it is a great place for an artist to start.

I create things

If your products are handmade then Etsy.com is definitely the best place to start. Etsy is a community of buyers and sellers of handmade goods. If you want to instantly fit into a marketplace then this is where you want to start.

I sell vintage items

Do you love vintage items? Have you been collecting them for years and now find yourself in the perfect position to start selling vintage clothing and other items? The Etsy community loves vintage items. The artists and buyers are always looking for new vintage finds and Etsy provides great tools for your shop products to be searched by all buyers.

I sell crafting supplies

If you are selling supplies that are used exclusively in the craft and artisan creations then again Etsy will help expose those supplies to thousands of artists.

No web designer needed

With Etsy there is no technical knowledge required other than following forms and directions. If you can run the digital camera and upload your photos and fill out some forms online then you should be all set. No HTML, no custom designs, no web designer needed.

Payment Gateway and Security

When you sell with Etsy you inherit their chosen payment options and security. The buyers have the same payment choices on all shops within Etsy and are comfortable with it.

Complimentary products and shared carts

One thing that is often overlooked is that the shopping carts carry from store to store on Etsy. So someone can shop for handmade cards and also get a necklace from two separate shops in the same transaction. This can allow partnerships or simply a better shopping experience for buyers.

So those are the 7 reasons I would choose to use Etsy. Etsy.com is a great resource for those making handmade products or selling vintage items. The community is the greatest benefit along with taking out some of the technical challenges of other options.

Big Cartel Shop Startup – An interview with Original Bros

Matt — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:27:19 +0000

Original Bros, a t-shirt company based out in Rhode Island, joins us to talk some about starting a new business and how Big Cartel has helped them get up and running.

1. What is your business?

OriginalBros.com is a startup t-shirt line geared toward college-aged guys, our shirts are and will continue to be a mix of party worthy novelty and humor as well as some design based work.

2. How long have you been open?

We have been open on Big Cartel for just about 5 months.

3. Why did you choose big cartel over the other online services such as Shopify, Etsy and others?

We chose Big Cartel because of the shopping cart feature but the selling point was inventory tracking so that we do not oversell product. The Big Cartel shop is also pretty inexpensive for a self-funded project.

4. What was the second option if big cartel didn’t work?

If Big Cartel didn’t work out we were looking at integrating Google’s cart into a custom site, using x-cart or having someone build us our site. This would’ve taken a while and cost us too much.

5. What was the most difficult part of setting up a site on Big Cartel?

The most difficult part of setting up on Big Cartel was the learning curve of the code, we are not great at coding but know the basic language structures. It wasn’t till we ran across the css style page for our theme, which was hidden online, that we could really start to tweak our site’s design and make it closer to what we had envisioned in the first place.

6. What advice would you share with someone else trying to start up an online store?

Do your research. Make sure you are ready to commit your time and energy. Create a following or fan base that is not online as well, marketing is very important and getting people to be aware of your site in the first place is the hardest part. Have fun with it because it is fun and addicting.

Go buy some of their shirts.

If you would like your internet business to be featured on our blog please contact us at hello@tonkapark.