Is Selling On Redbubble Worth It?

It's worth it, for now, for these reasons:

• I can see my designs on products that I will most likely never produce.
• It's free to list.
• I'm not required to upload a certain of designs in any time frame.
• I can be as absent or as active uploading designs as I want to be.
• I always retain the copyright for all of my design. 
  
• There is no contract and I can leave the site whenever I want.
  

These features are generally for any POD venue. I just happen to be at RedBubble.

I also do other things with my designs. I create printables and digitals for my own shop. Diversification is key for me. If I was designing and only selling at RB, I don't think that I'd be successful enough because of the volume of sellers. I also abhor designing for trends and popularity. I want to design what I want. What makes me happy. I am trying harder, though, to occasionally incorporate some trending ideas and motifs into my work. 

If you regularly study trending ideas, motifs and designs and cleverly incorporate them into your work, it will help increase your sales. 

Sources For Graphic Design Ideas

Check out Google Trends for ideas. 

The 12 Most Inspiring Graphic Design Trends for 2023 

Graphic Design Trends 2023: From Anti-Branding to Vivid Minimalism - Envato 10 Design Trends That Will Shift the Vibes in 2023 

 2023 Graphic Design Trends Report | Dribbble

Payhip Upgrades Their Memberships Selling Feature

Payhip upgraded their membership selling feature and have this to say:

It’s been entirely rebuilt from scratch to help you sell any type of membership to your customers. With memberships you can now add “Posts” which let you share content with your members in a flexible & interactive way. Of course you’ll also be able to upload any files you’d like with each membership post. You can also allow your members to comment on posts, building up a community around your membership...

 This link leads to their announcement about their upgraded system for selling memberships.

Payhip is a great place to sell your memberships, courses, music, digitals, physical products, subscriptions, etc. You can join for free and open a free shop or use their selling links feature to sell your products from your website or blog. When are you going to take advantage of this remarkable selling venue?

Payhip was started by 2 brothers, Abs and Kahin Farah, who live in England. Payhip is a profitable company that is doing very well. I'm happy to say that I don't expect them to fold like so many selling venues have done over the past several years. Check out this site, which if full of features for sellers and totally free to join and open a shop or use their selling links.

Where To Sell Online

You can get started selling your digitals, courses, physical products and more on Payhip for free. In this video, Payhip shows you how quick and easy it is to start your online business using their platform.

Payhip provides the easiest way to sell any digital products such as digital downloads, online courses, coaching, memberships, and physical products. Join over 130,000 sellers who have successfully launched their online businesses with Payhip.

Payhip is a great place to sell your creative products because:

• there are no listing fees,
• FVF is fair,
• you can list free products,
• sell digitals, printables, software, music, ebooks, subscriptions, courses, workbooks, fonts, presets, templates, etc.,
  
• no storage limit,
  
• physical product selling now available,
• owners are responsive and attentive,
• you can sell using embed buttons at your sites/blogs,
• build a shop using their robust shop builder,
• offer Paypal and/or Stripe,
  
• marketing and affiliate tools,
• and more!

Payhip is based in London and owned by Abs and Kahin Farah. They created it in 2011 and it is a profitable company. I was glad to learn this because that means that the site won't be going away any time soon. I've been through so many listing sites closing.  

I love being at Payhip! Why don't you give it a try?

Payhip Website How To Get Started

My Domain Shop Through Payhip

POD Can Be Good Passive Income

I reopened my Society6 shop so they can sell physical prints of my artwork and greeting cards. Of course, they sell designs on many other products. I will be primarily promoting my wall/framed art and greeting cards from this shop, though my designs will be available on many of their products.

I don't sell maker and handmades products anymore and am glad that I don't have to do packing and shipping anymore. I only sell my digital and printable graphic products from my own shop, Printaphoria. 

While artists don't receive a lot of money through POD, it's a great way to set up a passive income stream.

Set up your shop. Upload your designs. Write your product descriptions and add your keywords/search terms. Post your listing and move on to something else. 

 

There is, however, consistent promoting that you should do because competition is very stiff at all POD sites. I doubt if very many artists generate income by doing nothing, despite the great site traffic. Adding designs regularly will also help.

I used to be on Zazzle and Curioos but left a couple yrs ago. I was also at Society6 previously, which was the easiest POD site to leave. No problems. No headaches. No drama in closing my account. I'm glad to be back!

 

Visit my shop here:

 

https://society6.com/artsycrafterydesignstudio

Payhip Video Tutorial: How To Set Up Cross-Selling

Payhip is a great place to sell digitals, physical products, courses, subscriptions and other products.

From Payhip:

Payhip is an e-commerce platform that enables anyone to sell digital products or memberships directly to their fans and followers. You can embed Payhip directly into your website or you can use our storefront to sell your work. Payhip takes care of everything. We're an all-in-one ecommerce solution for creators.

There is a robust store builder and new features are always being added. Maybe you should open a shop there. Visit the Help Center for more info.

Artfire Gone And Etsy Raising Fees

Found out today that ArtFire shut down in December. They explain why here. I'm shocked, like I was when Dwanda shut down, but then again, I'm not. Things on the handmades and maker venues front began to collapse over a decade ago. I used to keep track as one listing site after another folded. I've now lost count. Even Cargoh is offline, showing an announcement page with a vague promise. 

Aftcra is just a facade, a ghost for a long, long time. No one answering, no one responding. The homepage still loads as if they are flourishing, except it displays the same 2017 and before product pics, just like at their Facebook page. Walk around at the majority of the blank sellers pages and hear crickets...

Etsy really is the lone handmades venue of some size and they've opened up to so many micro manufacturers that competition is grossly unfair. They also recently announced that they are increasing fees, again, from 3.5 to 5% starting on July 16. Sellers are again in an uproar. For some time they have regularly been in an uproar. 

Can handmades ecommerce continue to sustain these frequent fees increases? It would be devastating if Etsy shut down. I hope they don't have to. I closed my shop there months ago in favor of a Payhip shop with my own domain. I sometimes miss Etsy but with the upcoming fee increase, I admit that I'm glad I'm gone. So many categories of fees and frequent changes was exhausting, really. I like visiting and looking at certain types of products and I sometimes buy graphics and digitals.

I think Etsy would expand even further to include mid-manufacturers before they would fold. Unfortunately, that might cause the marketplace to look more like an American Aliexpress than it already does. It seems like the majority of craft supplies sellers are reselling rather than de-stashing, which was the original meaning of selling craft supplies. It's a fine but ugly line that Etsy has overlooked and will overlook more to remain online.   

Payhip Tools Increase Sales

One of the best features of the Payhip Store Builder is the ability to add listings to more than 1 category. I have never run across this tool in my years of online selling. Etsy does not even have it. I can't recall if eCrater or eBlueJay does. I know that I was always wishing that the feature was available when I was selling on various venues.

This multiple-listing-category tool is valuable in that it puts products in view of visitors who might not otherwise see them. They may visit one category not realizing that what they are seeking is in another one. Sometimes they look around, sometimes they don't. They may go to one category and leave. Many of my listings can be added to up to three related categories. This tool can certainly increase sales.

Always something good to discover at Payhip.

See the design of my Printaphoria shop. I have a domain name so my shop address does not use the Payhip sub-domain name anymore. I use shop.printaphoria.com Payhip added the ability to connect our shops to our domains in 2021.

See Payhip FAQs. 

Payhip Blog has a great articles on how to sell and increase sales.

Payhip

Payhip is trusted by over 130,000 sellers from across the world and is a successful venture.

Start selling your digitals, physicals, memberships/subscriptions and coaching services at Payhip today!

How To Write Ebooks That Sell

If you want to begin writing and selling successful ebooks or improve the success rate of your current ones, you need to read this well-written article. It's from Abs Farah at Payhip and is an easily-readible length. Packed with essential info on how to choose ebook subjects, it will guide you on writing ebooks that are in demand and that will sell.

Top Ebook Topic Ideas in 2021: What do readers want?

Some key points are:

Successful ebooks have a narrow focus. For the reader there’s a clear promise about what they’ll learn or how they’ll benefit. 

If there’s something you know a lot about there are almost certainly people out there looking to learn.

Bloggers, it could be that you have a lot of existing material that you’ve published on your blog. Pull all of this together, organise and edit it so that it has a very specific focus, give it a snappy title

No matter what you learn and what you decide to publish, remember the most important tip that Farah shares:

If your ebook lives up to the promise you’ll get great reviews, recommendations from your readers and more sales.

Abs Farah is one of the owners of Payhip, an online venue where creatives can sell ebooks, memberships, software, design assets, music or any type of digital products. This can be done directly to customers via individual links or their store builder.

Read the article, improve your publishing skills and open your Payhip account. Start selling from the best digital platform for e-commerce.

News: Baroqoo

 

 

 

Went to visit Baroqoo today and found out they shut down last year. I found this post by an Etsy seller dated 6/20:

 

I have just been in contact with the team at Baroqoo today after noticing that my monthly payment was not removed by PayPal. I was told that while Baroqoo is closing at the end of June, they did not feel comfortable taking payments for June. They said they did not have the success they had hoped for and that having public venues to get the Baroqoo name know came to a halt with Covid-19.

No new handmades selling sites seem to be able to make it anymore. While money can be a major issue and COVID threw a monkey wrench into the mix, I wonder if it's something else? I remember more failures before the virus hit. Many massively-successful enterprises in other industries made it through the most astounding odds. There just seems to have been a slump in handmades selling support during the past 10 yrs from which the cottage industry never recovered.

What do you think is the most significant cause(s) for the failure of new handmades selling venues?