Hey all,

I'm often looking for nice things for in the house or as a present. Usually I don't look for art in specific. If something I see happens to be art, that's nice. Now I stumbled upon the site of Artisans Market, a site for and by artist lovers and art makers. They sell unique handcrafted art and gifts by independent artists. I saw beautiful cabinets that would fit perfectly in my scraproom (too bad I already have a really big closet for that! :) Which is beautiful by the way! I wouldn't trade it for anything else!). And how about handmade soap? With a scent? They also have paintings, beautiful bowls for use in the kitchen and much more. And it's all handmade!

Their products range from apparel and Jewelry to real art for your pets! It's really incredible and very beautiful. Shopping is fairly easy to. They have an automated shopping system, that leads you through everything step by step. You can choose from five different payment options and it's secure! I'm not sure if they deliver outside the US, though. That I can't tell from the site. Maybe they already do that, or if you ask for it. I'm not sure.

While I was browsing blogs a few days ago I saw a few people who were thinking about selling their crafts online. Well, maybe Artisans Market is something for those crafters. They are looking for people who are interested in selling their art online. I've checked it out and I think Artisans Market offers an interesting opportunity. {Too bad I don't have those art skills at all!} You can sell your art through them.
You'll get a personal gallery which you can manage yourself. You can include a description to go with your product and you can upload photos. The last part of the management is the price. You can set the price yourself! Of course you have to make sure it's reasonable price, otherwise it won't sell, but you are the one who's handling the price. That's a whole lot different than when you would sell your art to a store where they can sell it and set the price!
Artisans Market will do the marketing for you, including the actual sell and they'll handle customers service. You will be notified with an e-mail with the order and then you have to ship it. So, all you have to do is make your art and watch your e-mails! Where can you find it any easier?
On top of it all you can sell the materials you don't need anymore to other artists from Artisans Market and you can buy materials you need from the other artists. You'll also receive discount from, i.e. "Cheap Joes Art Stuff" and "The Bead Museum".
And last, but certainly not least (!), you get 80 % of your gross sales (and of course coverage for the shipping costs).
I think that's very interesting. And all of this for only $10,- to start with per month.
It is tempting......... The only downside I see here is that you don't have a personal contact with your customers. I can imagine you'd like to have contact with these people. You'd like to know where your art is going. On the other hand, you wouldn't know that either if you sell your art through a shop or an art gallery. In the end there's no difference?

I've checked out several pages of their site and I think they've done quite a good job. However the the menu links could be better. I think it's not really handy that you have to choose between two different menus. One in the top of the site (Home and miscellaneous stuff) and one in a separate piece below that (the product categories). The positive thing for all the pages is the fact that the products are displayed wonderful and have a lot of information with them. I'm glad to see that. It makes it so much easier to decide if you would like to buy that piece of art.

Well, this is all can say to you now about Artisans Market. I'll definitely keep an eye on that site!