there is a website for galleries and artists only . it is a
wholesale site for jewelry and other cool items. the site caters
to individual artists selling their wares so you don't see a lot
of mass produced stuff.
anyway i think it would be great to have a site that just
catered to galleries /wholesale orders. i think gallery people
It sounds like you’re describing Wholesalecrafts.com They are a
wholesale site where artists pay to put up a page of their work
with pictures and wholesale prices and links to their web pages.
Galleries sign up for free and can browse and inquire for more
on artists they like. The last statistics I saw said
they had 180 artists and 920 retailers/galleries signed up. Their
site really looks good, is well organized, and well operated. But
in reality, from my own experience, it just doesn’t work. I’ve
been on it since October 1998 and for $40/month (they charge $70
now) and so far I’ve gotten 3 inquiries, one of which was a craft
mall trying to sell me space, and NO sales. The literature the
site sends out has quotes all over it about how “great!” and
“profitable!” the site is but I have posted in several newsgroups
asking for conformation of success from artists and have received
none.
My conclusion is perhaps people in retail and galleries would
really rather see the work in person. Or perhaps jewelry isn’t
doing well on the site. I have asked repeatedly for
wholesalecrafts to show the stats on what crafts are doing well
but also have gotten no answer. So if anyone out there is also
involved in this site, please speak up, and if anyone has a
better idea of how this could be done, I’m in! Maybe a jewelry
only site would be the ticket.
I viewed the wholesalecrafts.com site. They make the application
process for retailers very lengthy and intrusive. If they allowed
for a simple application form, which required only one minute,
as well as, allowed for viewing of the site by any interested
parties, who then could pass the word on to other artists and
retailers the site would be more popular. The site is done well,
however it does have a very Controlling Unfriendly feel to it.
This is why when someone asks the site host for any information
your inquiries are ignored. They seem to want to control the
artist and the retailer, on a site which should be expressing
artistic freedom. An artist or retailer who wishes to visit and
view any www site, should be received and answered graciously,
not ignored and or interrogated Sincerely, Steph RnL
Amy, I think I posted this here once before, but just in case I
did not, here it is.
I was very interested in Wholesalecrafts.com and I contacted
them regarding such. They called me almost daily for several
months trying to get me to join. They sent me their 99 Buyer’s
Guide and I contacted 10 people that listed jewelry. Out of the
10, 6 had no luck and were not going to continue after their 6
months was up., Two had several inquiries, but again no sales.
Two were going to stay, although they had no sales yet, because
it was the only web page they had and the last two had sold a
minimal a amount and were undecided. (Had not recoverd their
expenses)
When I posted this info on one of the list I belong to, two
others contacted me that they had sold nothing and would not be
renewing, but the ones that really bothered me were the two
retailers that wrote and said they had attempted to navigate the
site and found it so frustrating that they gave up. They both
recommended that we not join.
Now on the other hand I did find a place called giftwholesale.com. They offer a one week free advertisement and
then have several packages, if you want to continue. In the first
week (free ad) we had 4 inquirers. So far we have not had any
orders, but we will continue with them just to see. The plan, we
signed up for, is we pay them $1 for each inquiry that comes
through them. If at anytime we are having more than 30 a month,
we can change over to a flat rate of $30 per month rather than
by the catalog. Pretty cheap ad, I must say. Several people I know
have tried this one and are very happy with them. Hope this
helps. You might want to at least try the free ad-can’t hurt.jb