Shopping is more fun when you find incredible quality at incredible prices!
Thousands Of Stores To Shop From
Are you going crazy trying to market and promote all your stores?
If you have more than one store or have multiple stores on different venues, have you noticed that the marketing and advertising for them all can get a little crazy trying to keep track of where you have promoted which store and which products. It doesn’t take long before you find yourself wondering which store to promote each day, which products to promote from which store, which store do you send casual contacts too. If you’re finding that all this is becoming overwhelming, start thinking about all the extra time you are spending. Wouldn’t it be great to condense all that marketing and promoting and at the same time still have all your other stores and of course the sales and advertising those venues themselves do? There is a way to do it.
For quite some time we here at The Hand Made Product Shopping Directory have listened to store owners who have expressed frustration with all the time and energy they have had to expend in marketing and promoting their various stores and products. When a seller has multiple stores, they have the problems mentioned above and particularly which store to send a potential customer to. It became obvious to us that what was needed was a way for store owners to be able to market and advertise all their stores and their products in one centralized location and do it extremely inexpensively. A single location a store owner can refer potential customers to that would allow that customer the ability to see every product that seller has available. Not another store in traditional sense but something like a store that provided the customer with real product information and the ability to, with one click, be in the particular store that particular product is being sold from.
This is exactly what an Arcade Store Front is. It’s like having another store without all the hassles. Each Arcade store has its own URL (example: http://YourStoreName.dmpmc.net) that you can send your potential customers to and not worry that they won’t see all your products. Arcade store owners can list as many products as they wish and from almost any existing online selling venue. There is no need for another customer payment system and all those hassles since every listed product in a particular Arcade store links to that particular product in the appropriate actual store that product is sold from.
If you wanted to you could think of an Arcade store as your main store and all your other stores as departments within that store. With an Arcade store you can list in say Etsy what sells best through Etsy, in your Artfire store, list what sells best there and in your Cafepress store what sells best there and so on. With an Arcade store you can do this without the worry that a customer won’t see your other products either.
Here is what makes Arcade stores really different. If you are tired of the product photos shoppers initially see in your store look a little crazy because most selling venues size their thumbnail photos into a standardized size throughout the selling venue, you’ll like the fact that each listing is reviewed by real people before it goes on line and each photo is sized proportionately so shoppers see your products the way they should look. Shoppers don’t just see a picture and a title, they see a real product description of the product as well as a title and photo. When a shopper clicks on the photo, they instantly go to that items sales page on what ever store the Arcade store owner normally sells that product from. There they make their purchase. Shopper confusion about Shipping and Terms of Sale are reduced because these facts are also on every page in an Arcade store owner’s store. So is a Profile and your store owners comments. All this is possible because all Arcade stores, product pictures and product descriptions are human edited prior to going online.
Think of it! No more business cards and other ads with half a dozen web addresses on them. No more having to explain to potential customers that this particular product is only sold in this or that store. No longer will you have to promote and advertise all those stores if you don’t want to. Think of all the time and energy you will save and have available for doing what you really want to do, create more products. These are the benefits of having an Arcade store.
Shopping is more fun when you find incredible quality at incredible prices!
Thousands Of Stores To Shop From
I don't think it will come as any surprise to most readers that I'm slightly partial to Country Rustic and Primitive Home Decor. I may be that I'm so old that I'm practically primitive from an age stand point that has something to do with it. That's why when I come across a new crafters store that really has some nice items in it, I like to talk about it.
Audrys Country Crafts is one that is well worth checking out if you are like me and find yourself drawn to the country side of life. You will find a variety of different items at very reasonable prices for either yourself or for use as a gift. I think the picture above gives you an idea of the quality of the items to be found in this relatively new online store. Stop by, take a look and don't walk away empty handed.
A Special Message For All Those That Create & Sell Handmade or Handcrafted Products
Unless your head has been in the sand lately, you are more than well aware of our current economic conditions in our country. It also goes without saying that things haven't been easy for most online sellers lately. Because of this, we at The Hand Made Product Directory have put together two inexpensive ways for you to help elevate your stores' exposure, particularly during this holiday season.
The first is a reduction in the cost to store owners to have their store represented in the Holiday Shopping Pages at The Hand Made Product Directory. Originally we would be charging $10.00 for a store to be listed in these pages. We have discounted this to $7.00
The second opportunity is for stores who like to list in The Gallery at the directory. The regular listing price is $10.00 per item per month but we have put together a 2 For 1 Special for store owners. List 2 items for the price of 1. To add some additional punch to this ALL LISTINGS WILL RUN THRU 1/1/09. That's kind of like actually receiving a 4 For 1 deal.
To learn more about either of these specials, visit the directory or just Click Here.
Act Today And Save
Every day or so we will be listing some of the stores in The Hand Made Product Directory so our readers will get a little idea of the many distinctive listings and products they create and sell.
Moment in the Sun - Handknits, journals, cards, plushie/stuffies, handcrafted embellishments
Mug Revolution - High quality, hand made mugs in the studio of Owen Dearing in Bend Oregon.
murphymae - I create small narrative paintings which are based on my observations of daily life. I keep a sketchbook with me to quickly capture things around me that I find funny, awkward or beautiful. Sometimes friends, sometimes strangers, sometimes stuff right ou
Belladonna - Handcrafted jewelry made with beads, semi-precious stones, and crystals.
My Doll's Closet - Clothing and furniture for dolls of a variety of sizes.
Linda Puckett - My building was a gift from God. After my dads passing I was able to come home and start building furniture. I was really close with my dad. Dad was a carpenter. I had never had a desire or talent to do this work before. I was on a spiritual journey at t
Maple Bears - Accessorized Mohair bears and Pandas by Edith Jones.
Wendy's Wishes - Gemstone, freshwater pearl, and crystal bracelets, earrings, and necklaces. [Requires Flash]
Mystic Silks - Hello, I am a silk artist who creates Silk paintings,~Silk pillows, and ~Silk scarves.
Mytym Beads & Fine Art - Handcrafted glass jewelry and graphite drawings made by Patty Kampmann.
Eliza Hurdle Ceramics - Handmade tableware and decorative pieces including teapot, cup and saucer, platter, vase and other pieces with a mermaid theme.
Tugalot and Scruffbags - Themed miniature bears and larger bears by Diane Armer, in assorted sizes and colours.
NanjoDogz - Handmade polymer clay sculpture, pendants, tiles, beads and more with our main concentration on animals, the dog in various breeds and various critter beads. We have a variety of whimsical and unique items. All of our creations are our own original desig
DishyThicket - A mixture of off kilter, whimsical artwork from artist Natalie Ewert. Beetles, animals, people dressed as their pets and more!
Supra Monster Studio - In this shop you will find my art prints. They are all scans or photographs of my original paintings and drawings. I like painting glimpses of my inner landscapes, like if they were doors to the subconscious. Sometimes the paintings become doors to other
NestaHome - I draw, paint, weld, sculpt, photograph and have worked in the fields of graphic, interior, and Landscape Design.
Nickie Frye - Online store specializing in vintage clothing & kitsch.
Noadi's Art Shop - Fantasy sculpture and jewelry designs created in polymer clay and mixed media.
Nodin's Nest - Handcrafted Toys, Whimsical Gifts and Felt Creations
Nomad Clayworks - Nomad Clayworks offers edgy distinct ceramic home decor in a clearly modernistic vein, from sculptural aquariums and wall hangings to architectural ceramic fireplaces, lighting, planters and sculptural teapots.
Norajane - Unique pillows for children and adults, potholders, blankets.....etc.
Natural Skin Care - Natural Bath and Body treats. Experience the decadence of Milk Baths, Spa Salts packed with reviving Herbs. Exotic Body Butters & Creams. Your Skin will thank you.
Spoonlady - Handcarved wooden spoons, utensils and kitchen items. All hand carved from exotic hardwoods for the gourmet chef or cook in the family. Visit the workshop to see process in motion.
nstitches4u - Everything in my shop is handmade with TLC by me in my Cincinnati, Ohio home. I make and sell scrap caddies, handbags, curling/flat iron covers, sock knitting project bags, aprons, etc. I am always adding new items!!
Ocelot Eyes Art" - Original Nature-inspired art, paintings, prints, photography and more!
Oh My Woodness - Decorative and functional bowls, hollow forms, beer tap handles and goblets.
Oh Petit Bebe - Oh Petit Bebe is Mom-owned and run workshop specializing in unique and custom crib bedding. All our bedding and nursery accessories are handmade using the customer\'s own fabrics. Make sure to stop by and take a look at our unique crib sets. We make cust
For the last 30 days or so our economy has been in a state of fluxed stagnation. As a result, many small business owners have gone into what they think is a survival mode when what they have really done is lay the ground work for closing their business doors. All it will take is another week or two of this thinking and they will not make it through the holiday season.
Regardless of what everyone is hearing about this so called economic “Bail Out”, Rescue or what ever you want to call it, one of the major un-told reasons for the rush to pass this bill was the current time of year. Many people don’t know that the holiday selling season will set the tone for the economy for the following year. The government didn’t want the country going into this selling season knowing the fact that it was going to be a terrible holiday selling season because their research was showing that the average person was only planning on buying less than half of what they did last year. That is unless something changed in the economy.
Now with the bill passed, the average consumer, which includes all small business owners, has seen that change and it will affect their thinking. Not as much as we all would like but it is a change none the less. We all know that the true ramifications for the average American of this bill probably will not be seen for some time to come. For now however and for this holiday selling season, some of the pressure has been lifted. This probably will not be the best selling season most of us have seen but it certainly is looking better than it did just a few weeks ago.
One of the biggest questions for many small business owners is How do we take advantage of this change? Considering that most Americans still see tough times ahead, how do we adjust our business models and what should we be doing to maximize this holiday selling season?
John Jantsch, founder of Duct Tape Marketing, recently suggested that the best thing to do in hard times is focus more and focus better. By narrowing your focus, you can concentrate on your best customers, your key market segments and the parts of your business that are most important to you. That seems like very good advice.
Still, entrepreneurs have more jitters than a freshmen on the first day of school. Discover Small Business Watch, a monthly survey from Discover Financial Services, found last month that 73 percent of small-business owners it polled believe "the U.S. economy is getting worse."
"Nearly 42 percent of business owners told us they have temporary cash-flow issues," says Ryan Scully, director of Discover's business credit card division. "We are seeing Wall Street make an impact on Main Street. Small-business owners are very independent, and they're in survival mode."
Some very negative comments by some well established sources but again, what isn’t being said is actually more important than what is. What is not being said is that successful small business will use these types of situations to strengthen their business model and actually increase their business and sales by being aggressive in their business evaluation and in their marketing and advertising efforts.
Look at some very consistent facts that have been established over the years and has been revisited just recently.
Over 33% of US shoppers recently surveyed stated they begin holiday shopping before Thanksgiving. Black Friday has been the traditional start of the holiday shopping season for many years but the numbers of people making a start on their Xmas shopping earlier seems to be on the increase. For the benefit of non-US readers, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving in the United States and usually one of the biggest grossing shopping days of the year.
In recent years, Cyber Monday has also been a big day. Cyber Monday is the the first Monday after Black Friday and marks the start of the online shopping season. The survey from Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI) of over 6400 shoppers also found Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) to be the largest single age group of early shoppers; around 38%.
A tad under thirty-six percent of those surveyed state they begin shopping between Thanksgiving and December 15th. Nearly 26% commence their shopping between December 16th and 23rd. Only around 2% don’t begin their holiday shopping until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
These facts clearly suggest that a small business whose primary business is retail related, should be reaching out now to grab as many early shoppers as possible. The problem here is that the small business owner isn’t going to be making those sales if shoppers don’t know you exist. The only way shoppers know you are there is through some form of marketing and advertising. This is true for online businesses just as it is for B&M businesses. Probably more so when you consider a B&M business usually only has competition form other businesses in it local area. On line however, the small business owner has competition from all over the world which makes their marketing and advertising even more important.
Exactly what any given business sells is going to have some impact on when they start their holiday marketing and advertising efforts but in general and for most on line types of businesses, their holiday marketing and advertising should start as close to October 1st as possible. The primary reason for this time frame is that the average online shopper starts searching for those gifts a couple of weeks before they actually buy. If a business wants to be found in that search period, it needs to be visible and if they want the shopper to buy from them, they need to be very visible.
Many online businesses use one form of online selling venue or another and not their own web site. They mistakenly think that the selling venue will be bringing in the business for them and they don’t have to do any marketing or advertising of their own. This type of thinking mistake will doom any business. There isn’t any real selling and shopping venue that is going to be thinking of you individually when it comes to their marketing and advertising plans. The misconception or faulty thinking that “I’m paying them means they are responsible for bringing me traffic” will certainly cause a decrease in your sales.
Just like any B&M store in a mall, you may pick up some walk in traffic just because you are there but unless you are actively seeking new customers and cultivating previous customers, your sales will not be what they could be. This fact hold true no matter what you sell. Unless you hold a monopoly on some product, you better plan and doing some marketing and advertising. Both online and off.
Like I mentioned before, wise merchants have already started their holiday marketing and advertising and are probably seeing the difference in their sales already. Despite the economic situation. They are taking advantage of the 33% or so of the early shoppers and have pre-positioned themselves to maximize their November and December sales by building their internet, online, visibility early. Don’t forget it can take weeks and even months for your marketing and advertising to start showing up in search engines.
Another phenomena or trend these days is for shoppers to rely more on actual Shopping oriented sites like many shopping directories or venues. Instead of spending their time plowing through hundreds or thousands of returns provided by general search engines they shop or start their shopping from locations that have grouped together the merchants of the types of products they are seeking – Shopping Directories.
Not only do shoppers realize that this saves them time but they also feel more comfortable shopping from merchants listed in shopping directories because they feel that the shopping directory itself has certain standards or criteria for a merchant to be listed in that directory. The shopper may not know what these standards are and there may not be much criteria at all but to the shopper, they feel safer anyway.
With credit tightening and consumer confidence shaky, you know this is going to be a tough year for holiday sales. A forecast that came out this morning from Lehman Brothers (now Barclays Capital), puts "Internet sales over the upcoming holiday season growing at just 8 percent, compared to 19 percent growth last year (and 26 percent in 2006). That's still better than the one percent growth in holiday ales expected at physical department stores, but the fourth quarter is make-or-break for many e-commerce sites and the slowdown in growth is not going to help. Despite the trimmed forecasts, the Internet remains the most likely sector to see the strongest growth in both retail sales and advertising. "
If you have been hesitating beginning you holiday marketing and advertising, It’s not too late to start. You should have started already but you can still significantly increase your sales this holiday season by starting now. Just remember to keep you Niche in mind and focus your marketing and advertising efforts to those shoppers most likely to purchase your products.
This is a very blatant reprint I ran across but it was so good and so full of ideas that I thought I would pass it along to our readers
60 plus 1 Tips To Generate Website Traffic!
By Jason Green
After seeing so many posts like this in different forums I always said to myself - I can do better than that.
So today I gave it a go :)
Hope you find it useful!
1. Write something great about your niche and email other bloggers to let them know – there’s a good chance they’ll link to you
2. Have a signature link in forums that points to your site
3. Post links to your pages to social bookmarking sites.
4. Leave comments on other people’s blogs and link back to your site (tip: look in the digg upcoming section for blog posts about to get a lot of traffic).
5. Have the opposite opinion on everyone else on a popular topic, providing you can justify it. Everyone will get annoyed and link to you saying your wrong
6. Answer questions on Yahoo Answers - quote your website as the source.
7. Post in Yahoo and Google Groups with a link to your site in your signature
8. Make a 404 page that redirects to your homepage – no point losing visitors
9. Have an opt-in form – trade links with someone else who has an opt in form on your confirmation page
10. Review a product or company – if your review is positive email the company and ask to be featured in their press section. (this has worked really well for me)
11. Write articles and submit them to article directories
12. Write a Press Release and submit it to PRWeb (make sure it is newsworthy)
13. Use PayPerClick Traffic (e.g Adwords, MSN Adcenter, YSM)
14. Add an RSS subscribe button/link in a high profile spot on your site
15. Add a mailing list subscribe form in a high profile spot on your site
16. Add a bookmark this site link in a high profile spot on your site
17. Use a Tell A Friend Script on your site so people can email their friend about an article on your website.
18. Submit a blog to a blog directory
19. Submit you RSS feed to RSS feed directories
20. Mention your website in a post on Craigslist (don’t spam)
21. Optimize the titles of your pages for keywords people will search for
22. Buy links to your site
23. Buy reviews about your site on other people’s site
24. Buy banner space on other websites if you can get a good ROI
25. Send articles to ezine publishers with a link back to your website
26. Do a big viral push for a piece of link bait, post it in forums, social bookmarking sites like digg, email bloggers, and get a few people to vote for you on social bookmarking sites – this little push could start a viral chain reaction!
27. Have a link to your site on community sites like MySpace and FaceBook
28. Use a traffic trading system like BlogRush
29. Purchase misspellings of competitors domains and redirect your site (be careful of trademark infringement)
30. Create a freebie product to give away (ebook, software, whitepaper etc.)
31. Submit your site to the hundreds of free directories – use the viles-silencer list
32. Do a group feature where you get other website owners in your niche to participate – maybe asking them all an opinion on something.
33. Hold a competition for the Top 50 in your niche – 1 month later post the results and let everyone know who featured – watch them link back to say what there position was.
34. Pass out business cards when you go to industry events in your niche
35. If you have a product start an affiliate program and start approaching affiliates
36. Submit videos to video sharing sites like YouTube and Metacafe. Include a link in the description and within the actual video.
37. If you have a product send it to website owners to get reviewed.
38. Look at a big website within your niche and ask to write some guest posts for them
39. Create pages with links to your site on places like Squidoo and Hubpages
40. Place classified Ads on eBay with a link to your website
41. Use an autoresponder on your mailing list to keep people coming back to your site
42. Exchange links with a few related sites in your niche
43. Network! Email other site owners, phone them up, go to industry events and get yourself known. If they know your face they will likely talk about you on their site if you do something interesting.
44. Many forums have a place for you to advertise your site once – find them and do it.
45. Purchase advertising in other people’s mailing lists and newsletters
46. Create an Amazon profile and start submitting reviews
47. Create profiles on MySpace and start networking in groups that are interested in your site’s niche.
48. Conduct a survey and publish the results – make sure you let people know about it.
49. Get your hand on a load of PLR content for your niche. Add a commentary to the top, create a unique title, and post them all to your site – lots of new content and lots of new traffic.
50. Create a cartoon mascot for your site – then hold a competition for someone to create the best game for it – pay the winner a decent amount.
51. Make sure you have a memorable domain name that is short and catchy.
52. Use a well-searched for keyword within your domain name to help rank for that keyword.
53. If you sell a product ask someone else who sells a product to list your product with theirs, and you’ll do the same for them – split commissions on sales.
54. When you write a new article on your site – link to as many blogs as possible – they will likely see your site in their pingbacks, website stats, or Technorati. They will visit your site and possibly subscribe to it and link back at a later date.
55. Get your RSS feed syndicated to different sites like Zimbio and hubpages and Topix.
56. If your site is popular and has quality unique content then apply to get listed in Google’s News search.
57. Create a sitemap and submit it to Google (not great but might help)
58. Use your robots.txt file to stop Google indexing certain directories and pages on your blog (such as archives) to avoid duplicate content issues).
59. Create a couple of small 10 page sites related to your main site. Offer links on these smaller sites in return for links to your main site (this is triangular reciprocal linking).
60. Get yourself known as an expert and get featured in offline magazines, TV and radio stations.
61. Use an auto-translator service to translate your site into other languages – put it in a subdirectory and watch foreign traffic come in.
Knowing what the age range of shoppers can be important to a merchant. Since the use of social networking has taken on so much importance these days, I thought our readers might like to know what the usage age ranges are for some of the most popular social networking sites. I will help you when your planning your promotional endeavors in the future. Here is the link to the figures.
Knowing what is being said about your “Brand” (company name or whatever) is pretty important as a business owner. You can always spend hours searching the internet or you can do it the easy way. For those who know me, it’s pretty well known that I’m not all that big a fan of most large search engines. I will and do use them even though I think they have far too much control over the internet on the whole to begin with. I learned a long time ago not to cut off my nose to spite my face, as my dad used to say.
Within Google and some other large search engines are free features that are very useful for store owners. Sure, these search engines are gathering information from these free services and features that they use for only God knows what purposes but we might as well use them. If you haven’t heard of Google Alerts, you should start using it. It can save you a whole lot of time in the area of keeping track of your “Brand” on line. It will literally let you know (as often as you want) what actions or comments are taking place on line.
Setting up Google Alerts is very easy so I will not go into how to do it here. The instructions are on line and easy to follow. If you don’t have a Google Account, of course you will need to set one up and then sign up for Google Alerts. Give it a try.
Shopping is more fun when you find incredible quality at incredible prices! Thousands Of Stores To Shop From
There is a terminology heard often around most institutions of higher learning, “Publish or Perish”. This hold true also in the field of business. Particularly for those of us who sell primarily on line. No one would deny that having a well written article published in a popular magazine will certainly help your business. Most people however don’t really know how much.
But I cant write worth a darn you say. Writing good articles is just like learning to create what you create. It takes practice and you have to be willing to lean techniques and skills to create those great items. The same holds true with writing.
You can always pay to have your articles printed but why bother when there are so many magazines that are actively seeking good articles. I know for a fact that loads of craft magazines would LOVE to hear from the likes of you crafty people (many of which are far more talented in their field than I am). When people like you and me approach magazines with well written articles we are actually making their lives easier.
Submitting articles to magazines isn’t like hunting with a shotgun. You don’t just throw out an article to hundreds of magazines and hope one hits. You need to be well versed with the magazine that you want to submit to. It’s a good idea to read through some back issues so you understand the flavor of the magazine. What you want to find out is what sort of articles do they already feature? Consider the age of the readers that the articles appear to be written for. Can you submit an article that is in keeping with the other articles or can you provide something fitting and yet be different?
You will want to find out what the guidelines for submitting articles are for each magazine and you can usually find them either within the magazine itself or often on their web site. Also don’t forget that most magazines are planning issues months in advance and it may take months before your article is printed. Assuming it is accepted.
When you write or email to the magazines submission editor, keep it business like. Polite, to the point and confident. When you describe the article, don’t give away all the details. It’s somewhat like fishing. You want to provide enough information as to be a tempting bait. If you have the right bait, they will strike, want to print your article. Just make sure you provide enough information so whoever is reading your email knows not only what you are talking about but also that you know what you are talking about.
How to write – This is going to depend a great deal on your own writing style and personality as well as the subject you are writing about. Knowing your reading audience will help you here also. You will need to decide if your article is to be a Tutorial, a Product Review, a Tips & Tricks type of article or just what. This you should decide before writing the article.
Using Graphics – If the magazine allows you to submit graphics (pictures, charts or whatever) make sure they are of the very best quality. Poor pictures will at best just be deleted and at worse can cause them to discard your entire article. Unless it’s absolutely necessary for the article, I usually try to refrain from graphics simply because many magazines are so particular.
Will you get published? The only way to find out is to try. After all, the worst they can say is NO which means you need to do more preparation and work.
The purpose of this blog is to impart information about The Hand Made Product Directory and the stores listed in the directory that sell Handmade and Hand Crafted products by reviewing various stores and their products.
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