How would you like to receive a 10% discount at all Jo-Ann Stores? As part of our Common Good Partnership with Jo-Ann Stores, every member of ArtFire is eligible for the Jo-Ann VIP Card for 10% all purchases made at Jo-Ann Stores nationwide and online. The card is designed for those who sell their finished art goods, and as a seller on ArtFire you can generate the credentials you need to get your Jo-Ann VIP card. Read more about this update here.
The Certified Handmade Widget
Are you a certified handmade artisan on ArtFire? Now you can show off your certification with a new widget! This widget showcases your handmade status while linking to your studio. Some of the widget designs even include your most recently listed item. Unfortunately these widgets don’t work well on ArtFire studios, but they are perfect for off-site blogs and websites! Get the details on this new widget here. Remember if you’re not yet a certified handmade artisan, you wouldn’t be able to view these widgets. Learn how to apply here.
Submit Your Application for the Certified Handmade Artifact
To better recognize our handmade and fine art Pro members on ArtFire, we’ve opened the submission process for the Certified Handmade Artifact. This artifact will help our certified handmade and fine art members stand out, as well as let shoppers know that these individuals are dedicated to the handmade process. In the future, we may work to build in similar artifacts for our design, supply, vintage, and media sellers.
Artisans who qualify for this artifact will receive both a small version of the artifact in the Awarded Artifacts box on their studio and a larger, more visible and clickable artifact right underneath the artifact box. More information on the artifact along with a list of requirements and information on applying can be found here.
The Twelve Days of Christmas in July on ArtFire
Our artisan-organized Christmas in July Sale has been going on all week on the site. Members can take part by tagging their items for the Christmas in July Trend page, tweeting secret santa messages, and taking part in our contests for Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs, for a chance to win an up to $100 shopping spree. Remember, these sales end July 25th, so be sure to hurry to join in the fun!
The artisan-organized Christmas in July Sale on ArtFire is scheduled to take place from July 12th until July 25th on the site. All members are welcome to participate in this sale, but participation is completely voluntary. Members who do take part don’t necessarily need to have Christmas-themed items, but they do need to be offering some kind of promotional offer (free shipping, on sale, etc). Members can tag projects with “TDOCIJ” for Twelve Days of Christmas in July to be included in the Christmas in July Trend Page on ArtFire. Read the rules for participating here. ArtFire has also put together a collection of promotional badges members can use on their blogs, websites, and even on their studios to help promote the sale. We’ll also be featuring Christmas in July items the week of July 14th in our Collection of the Week email.
ArtFire is also offering three contests to help promote the sale. Remember that these contests haven’t yet started, so stay tuned for specific dates and time lines to enter.
The Christmas in July Contest on Twitter – Look for our special message about the Christmas in July sale from our @ArtFire Twitter account during the sale and retweet it for your chance to enter to win one of four $25 shopping sprees for the Christmas in July Trend Page!
The Christmas in July Contest on Facebook – Be sure to Facebook “like” our Christmas in July Trend page and you could be randomly selected to win a $50 shopping spree for the Christmas in July Trend Page!
The Christmas in July Contest for Blogs - Create a blog post off-site featuring products from the Christmas in July Trend Page and you could be randomly selected to win a $100 shopping spree for the Christmas in July Trend Page!
Again, these contests are not currently going on, this is just the general outline of the contests we’ll be running. Be sure to check back in the Staff Announcements section of the Chatterbox Forums for complete contest details, which will be posted later this week.
Partnership with the CHA | New Image Uploader | Listing in Multiple Quantities | May Day with Google
Set up Your Google Base Feed with Just a Click
We’ve added a new button in your MyArtFire control panel: the GBase feed creation button. If your feed is set to “no” just select the “yes” button and hit “save” to turn on your Google Base feed! Remember, this feed is only for Google Shopping, and will not affect normal Google search. Check out the forum announcement for full details.
Have a Handmade Weekend with Us
Join together with the ArtFire community the weekend of June 18th -20th and celebrate a Handmade Weekend! Participate in the Handmade Weekend by creating a handmade gift for someone special, a homemade meal for your family, or just supporting handmade on ArtFire! However you celebrate, share your stories and photos on the event wall, and invite your friends and family to participate too!
ArtFire Featured on Discovering Startups and Mashable
This week has been a busy one for ArtFire in the press! A review of ArtFire was posted on Discovering Startups, a blog that features new tech companies. If our review gets enough votes, we could win the Best of Discovering Startups award for June, so be sure to check out the article and vote!
Mashable.com, the social media news blog, also included a review of ArtFire in their 10 Great Websites to Buy Handmade article. Be sure to give it a read if you haven’t already!
Checkout by Amazon Integration
Our development team is currently building in Checkout by Amazon to the site, allowing seller to offer PayPhrase and 1-Click Checkout for shoppers. This gives Amazon shoppers the convenience of being able to buy from ArtFire sellers with just a click or a phrase. We’re still working on this feature, but we’ll keep you posted on updates!
Time is Running out to Distribute your Promo Invites
All unused Friends and Family Promo Invites will be expiring June 1st, meaning you only have until next week to share them! If you have been Pro since May 15th, you have 5 Promo Invites you can give out new members looking to upgrade or sign up as Pro. Using these invites, you can help your friends and family sign up at the $12 monthly rate rather than the current $15.95 monthly rate. This rate will never increases long as the Pro account isn’t downgraded (members who downgrade and then decide to upgrade again will have to pay a new membership rate). If you know someone who has been on the fence about upgrading or signing up, be sure to give them one of your invite links! New members looking for invite links can also try asking Pro members in this thread.
Earlier this month we installed a Facebook “Like” button on the ArtFire front page, allowing users to “Like” ArtFire from their Facebook accounts without ever leaving the site or having to navigate to Facebook. Since then, we have continued our adoption of the Facebook “Like” button by placing it on every studio and item on ArtFire. So long as you are logged into Facebook, you can like any studio or item on ArtFire and let your Facebook friends know about it.
Every time you click the “Like button it has the potential to be seen by your friends and family in your Facebook updates. Because the average user on Facebook has between 150-200 friends, if just 5 people click the “Like” button on your items that could be seen by over 1000 people. So give it a try and be sure to encourage others to “Like” your products and studio!
We’ve teamed up with our Common Good partner Delphi Glass for the Ring of Fire Contest! To enter, create an art item using one or more product from Delphi’s Ring of Fire product selection (These items are available for 15% off with the code FIRE15) and submit a photo of the artwork with a description through Delphi’s online Submission Form (available here) before June 30, 2010. Winners will be selected based on criteria for specific awards, which are as follows:
AWARDS
| Delphi Awards
| Most Creative
| Artfire Awards People’s Choice ArtFire artisan
More Unique | Sponsor Awards
|
Each award winner will be eligible for prizes from the company sponsoring the award. These prizes include $50 Delphi Gift Vouchers, a product feature in Delphi’s art glass catalog, a free Pro for life account on ArtFire, a year’s Pro membership on ArtFire with a graphics package from our designer, and a grand prize of Delphi Ez-Pro Deluxe 15-6 Kiln!
You can read more about the contest here.
To celebrate our newly designed Sell Crafts page we’ve announcing the Share the Love Contest, in which you enter by sharing your favorite Pro feature on ArtFire with the world!
(Wild Card entries will be deemed invalid if they violate the Law, the Terms of Service of another site, or if the entry is a post in another marketplace's social interaction space.)
Back on Google Base
Most of our Pro items are back on Google Base, and we are working with Google support to get additional feeds for the sellers (Basic and Pro) with items not yet on Google Base. Remember that Google Base is different from organic Google traffic, which we have not had any issues with so far.
We’ve added in a new Pro feature that will help members determine why their items are rejected by Google Base. This feature will allow members to mouse over a rejected Google Base status on ArtFire and receive a message letting them know why it was rejected. Since not all products are back on Google Base, many items will appear “pending” or “rejected” right now, but once everything is back on Google Base members will be able to use this tool to know what changes they need to make to resubmit their item to Google Base.
Artisan Sales Surpass $2 Million
Our completed member sales exceeded $2 million earlier this month! Out of those $2 million items sold, 65% of them were handmade and fine art goods. Over 80% of these products were from Pro member studios.
ArtFire Items Now on TheFind.com
ArtFire items are now available on TheFind.com! TheFind is a search engine for shopping similar to Google Base. Since TheFind receives 5-8 million shoppers a month, this should provide quite a bit of additional exposure and traffic for our artisans.
We’ve lowered the price of most of our Featured Studio Spots, which current show on the right of all trend pages, gift guides, and categories. Users are able to purchase month long ads at a fraction of the original cost. These are highly targeted pages and offer an easy way for you to get more exposure and traffic to your studio. All you need is a 110 x 110 pixel image to get started!
The New Pricing Breakdown:
Top Level Categories (I.e. Handmade, Fine Art, etc): $20/ Month
Main Level Categories (categories within the top level categories, i.e. under Handmade< Accessories, Bath and Beauty, etc): $10/Month Sub Level Categories (categories within the main level categories, i.e. under Jewelry< Necklaces, Bracelets, etc): $5/Month Trend Pages (I.e. Alice in Wonderland, Steampunk, etc): $10/Month Gift Guides (I.e. Easter, Mother’s Day, etc): $10/Month However, since Jewelry has been our most popular featured ad spot on ArtFire, it has been decided that ad prices there will remain as they were before the price reduction. This means a month ad in the Jewelry main category will be $20, while all sub-categories under Jewelry are priced at $10/monthly. Jewelry is the most competitive category for ad spots, lowering the price would be unfair to artisans who have already purchased their featured spot in advance.
You can purchase Featured Studio Spots by clicking here or following an of the "Advertising Info" links on any category, trend page, or gift guide on ArtFire.com.
Last week we launched the newly re-designed ArtDaily blog. We’ve made a number of changes designed to enhance the reading experience and make ArtDaily a more useful and informative place to visit.
Check it out the new ArtDaily here.
We’ll be we having a few new writers contributing, including Kevin, our SMO Director will be posting the Social Media Chronicle, and Caleb, our SEO Director, will be posting InsideHandmade Write-ups and SEO Tips and Tricks. ArtFire’s founders, John and Tony, will also be contributing in their very From the Founders column. Even our Lead Programmer Kyle will be posting in the Tech Updates column.
