A few months ago I started selling on another website:
DaWanda.comIt's an online venue where you can buy and sell all things handmade. Clothing, hats, shoes, paintings, prints, furniture, jewellery, bags and many more things can be found on
DaWanda.
It's based in Europe, and users have a choice of viewing the site in English, German or French, so it reaches a very wide audience :-).
As a seller you can choose to list your products in just one of these languages, or two, or all three. Users can also choose whether they view other products on the site only listed in one particular language, or all the items listed in all 3 languages. There are a lot of choices, so you can customise it to suit you.
It's free, fast and easy to set up a store. There are NO listing fees. So to cover costs
DaWanda charges a small 5% commission on the product price if/when the product sells. This means you only have to pay "fees" once you've already made some money (that makes sense :-). Because it's free to set up and start selling it's great if you just want to try it out as a venue, or perhaps if you've got new items that are a little different to your regular items and you want to "test the market" so to speak, then this could be a good venue for you.
Like many other online market places,
DaWanda has an active forum, where you can connect with other sellers, ask questions about the site, running a small business, art/craft related queries, get feedback about your store or products, start a collaboration, join a group or community, seek custom items, promote your store and so on.
The forums are regularly monitored by the friendly and helpful
DaWanda staff so it's never too long before your question, query or concern is answered.
The
DaWanda front page has a great showcase of the products available on
DaWanda, and unlike other e-commerce sites where it can be pretty tricky to get your products on the front page,
DaWanda's front page is selected randomly and rotate regularly, so everyone has a good chance at making it to the front page :-)
There are many great features on the
DaWanda website, both for selling and buying :-)
The "
StyleLab" is fabulous! It's where, as a buyer you can find items that are customisable. So you can choose the colour, the pattern, the fabric, the size, the shape etc of an item then the designer makes it especially for you. And as a seller you can list items in the style lab, where you can give options for colours, fabrics, styles, shapes etc for a product that you can make to the customers specifications.
The "
Coloranda" feature is also an exciting way to shop. You can click on any colour in the rainbow spectrum "dome" and it will show you a page full of products that have that colour in them! (Great way to kill a bit of time as well :-)
You can also make a "
Pinboard" which is where you can keep track of all your favourite products on
DaWanda. You can name your
Pinboards so you know which one has which items in it etc. You can also make a themed
Pinboard, for example, Reds, or Fabulous Bags etc. It's a fun way to showcase your selection of the best of the best products on
DaWanda. It also comes in handy if you are searching for a present for someone in particular, you could make a
pinboard full of all the products that might be make suitable presents :-) You can search through other people
Pinboards, so you can see what everyone else likes as well, and a selection of
Pinboards are "featured" on the
Pinboard page, and these selections change regularly, so there is always something new and exciting to see.
There is also a "Trends" page, which shows you the products with the most fans, and the products that have been added to the most
Pinboards. You can also see the most popular sellers and best selling members on this page. This feature is good if you just want to see what's popular, but it's also a great market research tool, along with the "Recently Sold" section to the Trends page. It lets you know what kind of things are selling well and so on.
The "Search" facility on
DaWanda is great! You can search the whole site, or you can search within a particular category. You can view the search results in order of the most recently listed, the most popular or "random" which is the default order of results. This makes it very easy to narrow down your search, which can save you time and effort :-)
DaWanda are always running at least one promotion or competition that you can get involved in, which is great for getting involved, for getting your store name out there, for promoting individual stores, and
DaWanda as a whole (which is great for everyone!)
For quite a long time now I have been wanting to make gloves with fingers but have really struggled to find an easy, quick pattern that is knit on 2 needles... So I wrote my own pattern :-)
These gloves are knit sideways, in garter stitch only, on 2 straight needles, so they are dead easy! They knit up pretty fast, I can make a pair in an evening of t.v. watching. They're a good small project to take with you when you're on the go as well. I have knit a few pairs while I have been on the train or bus, and the whole lot, needles, yarn etc fits easily into my bag. You can use up all your little bits of left over yarn as well, so it makes a great stash busting project :-)
I wrote the pattern using the "trial and error" method and have also made a pattern for a 4-ply version. I made the 4 ply version in the Noro Kureyon Sock yarn and they look fabulous! I just need to get around to photographing them so I can show you :-)
