New ACEO/ATC Auction Site

[laurali]

New auction site for art cards (just opened today):

www.art-cards.org/auction/

Listings are free for January. After that, they will be .20.

You can also list other art.

I have one up so far but several more to list.

One thing I learned is that it takes both manual returns and HTML commands, which is why there is so much blank space on mine. I will tighten it up on the next one. I was in the middle of editing my listing when eliza bid on mine :-).

You never know with these new sites but I've found that, worse case, you get a little more visibility.

Laura

[ElizaLeahy]

Thanks for mentioning this here Laura :)

I've listed a box of 11 aceo's there at the moment

I hope people make use of this and get off ebay - save on fees!

[Bertoni]

Laura and Eliza:
It looks like it's going to be a really fine site for ACEO/ATCs!
Good luck with it! Hope it flies high!!!:clap: :clap: :clap:

[Lady Rando]

Nice site. My only nit is that there are no thumbnails of the art and I have to click on each auction to see what the art looks like. That is a killer for an auction site.

[laurali]

I'd like thumbnails too but perhaps they will be a future enhancement.

I put together a little composite for my listings that shows a number of the ones I have running (so people can decide if it's worth it to click it ;-)).

The hits are very good so far. People always say it's mostly other artists but, in this case, they are often the ones that bid.

I have one more to list. I'd hoped to get some painting done today but I had lots of errands & housework :(.

Thank you for doing this, Eliza. I can't even conceive of what a boatload of work it must be. I hope lots of people try it out.

Laura

[ElizaLeahy]

I've been busy too, wanted to put up my reef this morning but the internet was down.

There are no thumbnails because frankly the program cost me $25. They might bring that out in the next update. I wasn't really willing to spend more on the site - it's not an income maker for me, it's just a hobby. If people want to save eBay fees and use it they can. Most of the people on it both buy and sell, and I've told my buyers about it as well. I'm not doing mega marketing - I'm not paying for magazine marketing - I'm not putting hopes into this being a huge success. It's a playground for people to use if they like.

[darlingart]

Thing is Eliza, if everyone starts using it and telling their customers that is where to find their auctions then you won't have to advertise the site, it will do that itself...and maybe artists will be a bit better compensated for their work than if they sold on greedbay.

Michelle

[ElizaLeahy]

That was my hope. As Laura says most of the people buying ACEO's are other ACEO members - they have over 2000 in the eBay group. But pulling people away from eBay is like getting someone who addicted to gambling to stop. eBay is exactly like a casino - they have the bright lights, the pretty pictures, the putting money down on the chance you might win. And like building an addiction to gambling it works the same way - occasional small pay offs with the very occasional larger one giving hope of maybe winning the jackpot one day.

[laurali]

The new site came along when I was sick to death of paying ebay fees so I clutched on to it like a life preserver.

ebay isn't giving the ACEO community anything in return for those fees. In other areas, ebay's vastness might bring in new buyers but the ACEO community is different.

A lot of people feel like they'll hold back to see if a site is successful, not realizing that it's their involvement that will make it so.

Re: the gallery pics, the developers might be willing to push it up in priority and release a patch for it. Sometimes, the engineers don't know what the priorities are in the field (I live in Silicon Valley and am surrounded by engineers). If this is a beta release or under development, they might be flexible, especially if they see how it's being used.

Laura

[oziskin]

Thank you! It's an amazing idea, people who buy ACEOs on ebay probably know about the site...hopefully, that way they'll be directed there. Is it allowed to put the link in ABout Me pages? I listed one card there today.

[laurali]

You can put a link on your ebay About Me page (just not in the listing).

Laura

[ElizaLeahy]

We might have thumbnails in the browse section soon - fingers crossed. I get so nervous I get sick, which is silly because I've backed it up so the worst that can happen is that we are back where we started from...

[inkcat]

Hi
I am very interested in your site,but have some questions,um will there be like a paypal set up,I live in Australia and most of my buyers are from overseas but I can only use paypal because to cash an overseas money order is more expensive than the money orders,what would the fees be and when I tried to register it wouldnt accept my pass word,look forward to hearing from you,I think irts great that you are doing this,Cheers Kim.

[laurali]

Paypal is not integrated but all you have to do is go into your paypal account & click Request Money after the auction ends. They have a invoicing tool you can use. You fill in the buyer's email address, amount, description, etc. I do it all the time for my artbyus auctions. I just copy & paste from the email they send me when an auction ends.

Laura