My Fashion HQ: A New Auction Site

There are a lot of websites out there besides eBay which use the auction format for buying and selling items. I recently learned about a group of sites known as the Treasure Auctions Network. The sites were started by two established gemstone experts who took their business online several years ago. Over the years, they have expanded into different specialty sites, mostly focusing on gems and collectibles but now branching out into new areas, too.

As an example of this branching out, the newest of the sites in this network is My Fashion HQ. This site features a variety of subcategories of items, including accessories, handbags, scarves, and watches. The front page of the site showcases "last chance ending soon" items; when I clicked over to the site, there was a pair of opal earrings available for a bid of $2. I think there are some good deals to be had on this site as a buyer, and I think that over time, more and more buyers will want to sell here.

The Treasure Auctions Network has a system for approving verified sellers. It can take months before a seller is approved even as an interim seller, and the network's owners promise a safe and trustworthy online shopping experience because of their verified seller approval process.

I'm intrigued by the idea of specialty auction sites both as a buyer and a seller. You get a more focused shopping experience. Sometimes when I shop, I want a little of everything, but more often than not, I'm looking for something very specific. Sites like My Fashion HQ are a nice way to get more specific as a buyer--and as a seller, it's another opportunity to work on specializing in a particular niche.

The Funky Chair: An Example of Finding Your Niche

When you read about how to find success with selling online, one of the common tips is to find your niche. And I have talked with sellers who have built up their businesses on the basis of having a unique product that they know and love and want to share with buyers. I just found a great example in a story called The Funky Chair.

The site was started by Elena Travis. After working in the furniture and design business for five years, she decided to branch out into furniture imports, and she focuses her efforts on selling chairs online to customers in the UK. Her site has a particular specialization in bar stools.

It's a great example of narrowing down a niche. Furniture > chairs > bar stools. I love it. And hey, bar stools aren't just for bars (though a lot of people do set up bars in their homes or on their patios). They are great for kitchens, dining rooms, and more. They can also work well in professional settings, from restaurants to offices. Honestly I never knew there was such a variety in bar stools out there until I browsed Elena's site. Lots of colors, lots of designs--from futuristic styles to retro mid-century modern, you can find most anything.

Elena works to find fashionable chairs made from quality materials. Check out her site for a great example of successful e-commerce at work!

Introducing MyMisi, A Site for Buying and Selling Handmade

I'm always interested to learn about unique venues where people can buy and sell products online. I recently heard about MyMisi, a site where the goal is to create a marketplace for buying and selling handmade products where people also feel a sense of community.

One thing I liked about the site right away is that it's easy to navigate, with a menu across the top which links to different categories on the site. Looking at the categories, I like that there's a special category for personalized items. You can sort items in a category to narrow the results--for example, you can narrow your search to view only "made to order" items. I think these are some cool features which would allow you as a buyer to partner with an artist/craftsperson to find just the right item you want, and as a seller, you would have the chance to set up shop and do small commissions within the framework of a larger marketplace (which, let's face it, always helps in bringing in more customers!).

Here are a couple of examples of products I saw on MyMisi. First, here's a hand-carved jewelry piece that I thought was pretty impressive!

And in the baby and child section, I found a lot of very sweet knitted items. Who could resist these little bunny slippers?

I think it's great that more sites are coming on the scene to help buyers and sellers find each other online. I will be keeping an eye on MyMisi to see how it continues to grow!

The Value of Finding a Good Niche

I recently learned about a great story of an independently run online business based here in Washington state. Recently on my With Five Questions blog, I interviewed Charlotte, co-founder of Save On Tapestries. The story of her business is an inspiring one as it really demonstrates the success you can find as an entrepreneur when you find a unique niche--and when you cultivate good relationships with craftspeople and other suppliers.

Though the company is based in the US, Save On Tapestries specializes in importing tapestry work from artists in Europe. There are a variety of designs to choose from on the site.

Plus, customers feel comfortable ordering from the business as it has been operating since 1998 and is a privately-owned, family-run company.

The business owners also put a lot of emphasis on customer service, and they are very knowledgeable about their products. Anyone who is running a business can improve their own company by focusing more on these two aspects of operating a successful enterprise, big or small.

I never thought of ordering a wall tapestry before I visited Save On Tapestries, but the site has opened my mind to tapestries as a unique way to furnish a home or office. They would make really neat gifts, especially as there are tapestries to fit many different themes, from religious imagery to nautical imagery, from Pre-Rafaelite style art to Art Nouveau.

Customers benefit from the experience of the people behind Save On Tapestries: you can find the products you want at reasonable prices.

Introducing Gail Rodgers of Moonwishes Sewing

Suzanne and I have been wanting to feature profiles of successful online sellers on our blog, and we're pleased to introduce our first special guest, Gail Rodgers. I happened upon Gail's ecrater shop, Moonwishes Sewing and Crafts, and I was curious to know more about her experiences selling online, particularly because of the way she has turned her personal interest in sewing and crafts into a niche market for her online business. Read on to learn more about this busy and creative seller.

Many thanks to Gail for taking the time to write the post which follows!

My name is Gail Rodgers and I go by Moonwishes online. I was a nurse by trade and had to keep changing jobs as my knees got worse and worse. Then one day about three weeks after marring my husband, I got so sick that we didn't know what was wrong. Three weeks after that I left my office, never to go back to paid labor again. Over the course of the next year I was diagnosed with arthritis. I have been on disability for around 10 years now and consider my selling online to be my occupational therapy.

It started out when I initially got sick and thought I was dying. So rather than leave my new hubby with bunches of books to sort through, little by little I put them up for sale on Half.com. Back at the beginning, Half.com when you signed up sent you a packet of packing materials, etc. It was a fun place to sell. That went by the wayside fast! So I found every morning no matter how lousy I felt I would drag myself out of bed to see if anything had sold. As things started to sell more frequently, when we could, hubby would take me out to yard sales and book sales to buy books. We sold pretty much exclusively books for our first four to five years selling online.

Then in my reading of my sewing magazines I kept seeing the same complaints about projects that people had seen featured in the magazine: the readers couldn't find the patterns to buy as they had been discontinued. After seeing that happen about three times, I started selling all new, uncut sewing patterns that I could find. We were fortunate enough to have several stores go out of business in our area, and we picked up their pattern stock to resell. We were now in the pattern business. I also divested us of most of the books for sale as they were getting heavier and heavier for me to hold, package, carry to the mail, etc. We still sell some sewing-related books, needlework magazines, and craft booklets, but in general no other books.

Over the years we have sold on Half.com, Alibris, eBay, Amazon and ecrater. We currently sell on Amazon and ecrater. Our store selling name on both sites is Moonwishes Sewing and Crafts; we are located at http://MoonwishesStore.ecrater.com and on Amazon and we are Amazon Featured merchants, http://www.amazon.com/shops/moonwishes. No matter where you go on the net, if you see Moonwishes Sewing, that is us. We have been working hard to get our brand out there.

For a long time we sold on eBay and had a store there until eBay started making significant changes and became less and less user-friendly. I didn't like the stress or the huge fees they were sucking out of us. While Amazon has some fees after a sale, there are no listing fees, nor does ecrater charge listing fees which makes for much easier finances for online sellers. We choose these sites because they were cheaper to list on. Also, Amazon has great prominence in the marketplace, and ecrater was not sending rules down the line constantly of things we had to do and not do, and up until this year there were no fees. Ecrater now charges a small fee if something is purchased through their marketplace, but if a buyer comes and buys directly from our stores, we have no fee to pay. Much nicer than the huge amounts we used to fork over. I also liked the fact that with ecrater, our success depended highly on how hard we worked to promote our store. I like seeing the results of my work.

We sell in what is called a niche. We don't sell patterns, toothbrushes, old shoes, and china teacups. Everything is needlework-related that we sell. My husband knits and crochets. I sew most of my clothing and have since junior high school. I make quilts and do hand and machine embroidery. I am fascinated by all the needlecrafts, and nothing comforts me more that a new magazine or book, especially on a day I'm not feeling well, to read and lose myself in the pages. I have read many books and magazines on sewing, quilting, and embroidery techniques, so when a customer asks a question concerning a pattern or book that they are buying, I can answer them.

I have had several letters to the editors published in several major sewing magazines. I immerse myself in sewing. I have a Pinterest page and help to immerse my followers there as well. I have boards for different pattern categories, quilting, embroidery, crochet, other types of needlecrafts, sewing blogs, and tips on how to decorate and set up your sewing room. So my page is a great resource for anyone wanting to see some inspirational ideas and links to how to make what they are seeing. Selling within a niche and being somewhat of an expert in my field shows in my listings as I know what a buyer needs to see to buy. I have seen some sellers list patterns without indicating a size or say that it is cut but again don't bother to say what the pattern is cut to. I've seen sellers describe a pattern envelope in minute detail, and then they don't say a thing about what is inside of it. I have seen sellers state that they don't know anything about patterns so basically take your chances! Who would you like to buy from? Someone that knows their product or someone who doesn't?

Whatever niche you sell in, know your products. It will help you write coherent descriptions of your products. You will be able to answer questions with knowledge. You will be able to promote your products better. Since sewing is my passion, I also spend time on sewing sites online, so it is easy to promote my store.

One of the difficulties I see with those selling in the craft niches is underpricing themselves. For homemade articles they don't charge enough to pay for the products to make the item. For selling supplies they sell at prices so low as to make barely a dollar profit. If you are only making a $1 per item sold, you might want to consider either raising your prices or finding a different way to make money online. One of the things I had great difficulties with was setting prices. My husband, however, who has been self-employed most of his adult life along with the rest of his family, didn't seem to have that problem with pricing and greatly encouraged me to sell for a decent price. The first book I ever sold for over $50 I had to literally close my eyes when entering its price. It sold!

In my head I have imagined my type of customer. A woman who loves to sew, maybe doesn't have time to get to a store to look at the patterns, or in this day with many fabric stores closing there isn't one close enough to her, or she prefers to pop the kids in bed before checking out my patterns. Then she can spend her time and find what she wants. My patterns sell all over the world with speedy service and all orders go out in less than 24 hours from a paid order. My customers are happy, and I'm happy, and we make enough to make it worth our while. While I seem to be the one running the business, hubby is right there backing me up and helping every step of the way. Physically I couldn't do it without him.

We sell sewing patterns of all kinds, sizes, and styles. At particular times of the year we sell certain types depending on the season coming up, such as costumes in August, September, and early October for Halloween. While some of our patterns may be old and have shabby envelopes, we only sell uncut, unused patterns. I sew myself, and I know I don't want to mess with someone else's messy pattern. On very rare occasions, and generally only for a Vogue pattern, we will sell a cut pattern if it is by a particular designer and might still have complete but uncut garments pattern pieces in the envelope. But that is extremely rare.

When it comes to selling online, as I have time, I'm trying to write an ebook on the first steps you need to take before opening your online store anywhere. One of the things that I think is most important is take your time to figure out what you want to do and why. Why do you want to sell online? What do you want to sell? Where will you get your inventory from? How will you keep your records? When someone decides to open a brick and mortar store, they don't decide and then start digging ground five minutes later. No, they make plans, get permits, and research what they are doing, being sure that the business (customers) are there. I've seen many first-time sellers (newbies) open a store and then go to the forum of a selling venue and start asking what should they sell and where can they get it. I even saw once someone ask if ecrater would ship the product that they sold! If you don't know what you want to sell, don't open a store.

Likewise, f you don't have any clue what the selling venue will do for you, don't sign up. Wait until you can answer those questions. Most venue forums have friendly, helpful people but don't expect them to do your prep work for you. They have their own businesses to run. Spend some good quality time planning and preparing, and don't be afraid to take a couple of months to figure things out ahead of time. Each selling venue is somewhat different, and you need to really research each of them prior to signing up for one.

I know that at this point most people have heard of eBay as THE place to sell online. Many of us sellers have left eBay with no intentions of ever returning. The fees are exorbitant, the rules are ridiculous, and although technically the sellers are eBay's actual customers, they treat sellers like bugs to be squashed. I do know that some are still making good money there, but others are dying on the vine. Use eBay at your own risk and actually use any venue at your own risk. This is why it is so important to do your research and dip your toes in the water instead of jumping into the deep end before remembering you don't know how to swim.

In addition to posting it on my Pinterest page and my ecrater store, when I finish my ebook, you will see it announced on my Facebook page and my blog, http://sipandsew.blogspot.com/.

Thanks again, Gail, and we will be keeping an eye out for your ebook!