Wednesday, January 28, 2009

1000 Markets

In addition to my Etsy shop, I can now also be found on the 1000Markets.com. Here's the link: www.lisaraspino.1000markets.com

1000 Markets is another online artisan venue, much smaller than Etsy (although perhaps not for long). They have a very simple fee structure: free to list items, no expiration on listings, 5.5% + 50 cents if the items sells.

Rather than accepting PayPal (I do like PayPal), 1000 Markets accepts Amazon Payments. What this means for the buyer is that if they have an Amazon.com account (and many people do), they can pay that way. As a seller, I never see the buyer's personal credit card information (the same is true with PayPal).

The downfall: right now, 1000 Markets is a U.S. only site, whereas Etsy is international. Still, I like the streamlined look of 1000 Markets. Check it out sometime.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Did You Miss Me?

Have you, three followers, been wondering where I've been lately? I'll fill you in. I've traveled to Washington, DC (great trip), stopped by Lilly's Bead Box in Knoxville, TN (cool stuff), then picked up a computer virus (GRRR).

I resisted the urge to throw my desktop p.c. out the kitchen window, and decided to wipe the hard drive instead. Thanks to the recovery disks, I was able to restore my system to where it was in 2004. Several hundred Windows updates later (okay, I'm exaggerating - only slightly), and I'm up and running. Unfortunately one of my photo backup disks was bad - I lost all of my jewelry photos, but I can retake those. My family photos (six years worth) are safe.

So my New Year's resolutions are: 1) backup my photos on a flash drive instead of CD (ditto my iTunes library), 2) take new photos of my 100+ jewelry items, 3) write descriptions for the 60 or 70 items that I still have to list on Etsy.

I hope you all have a safe and Happy New Year!