Posts
In this continuing series, we bring you a review of alternative selling venues, website hosting services, shopping carts, and basically anything else that you can use to sell your lovely handcrafted goods.Next up - DaWanda!
Tagline: Products with love
Company Information: DaWanda means “one of a kind” in African according to the site, which just celebrated its 2nd birthday. They boast 25,000 sellers, 200,000 buyers, and 400,000 items in over 400 categories. They recently completely revamped their category scheme based on user input. They have 2 founders plus 12 current co-workers. The site also exists in German and French, with the English version in the UK being the baby of the bunch.
Storefront: Much like Etsy, one shop among many in the venue, with your own web address, policies, favorites, etc.
Cost: No cost to list or setup, 5% commission of sale price (does not include shipping)
As of July 2008:
We guarantee that we will inform you about such fees at least 4 weeks in advance and that you can decide wether you are willing to pay such fees or not. You can thus test DaWanda without any risk until at least January 01, 2009.
When a user buys something from you, (s)he needs to settle the payment within 7 days after the purchase date. When your commission fee reaches a certain amount i.e €5, we will start sending you monthly invoices. We will send you an invoice 14 days prior to charging you commission. Comission will be charged on the 15th of the following month after an item has been sold. You have thus time to check our invoice and to notify us prior if anything is wrong. We will send you a corrected invoice before collecting the money.
Features: Timed vacation mode, organize your pinboards (favorites), participate in site wide promotions like the Advent calendar. Bulk deactivate, international venue, confirm sales so you can deny a buyer, pick your own colors to identify the item in their color picker shopping tool, basic stats, individual shop categories as well as site-wide categories, unlimited listing life, 4 images per listing.
Payment: In Euros.
Payment methods vary from seller to seller, bank transfers are one of the most common methods of payment across Europe however please be aware that sellers in certain countries (i.e. US, Thailand etc) cannot work with bank transfers and usually accept payments via PayPal. Please check carefully the accepted payment methods as described in the sellers’ shops
Community: There is a forum and a blog
Customer Service: Phone number, email, feedback form - all linked from the bottom of the pages.
Items that can be sold: Anything handmade, customized, tailored, unique. There IS a flagging system in place. You must be over the age of 18. Vintage items must apply for approval prior to listing (20 years or older is verified).
General Impressions: The pages tend to be a bit cluttered, lots of different links to click to do things, and they’re a bit redundant. This is a great alternative for UK sellers or those who want to list in languages other than English to gain customers.
13 Comments:
What the hell kind of language is "African"? There are around 2000 languages spoken in the continent!
WTH?
I've been using DaWanda for about a year now. I like it for the most part. Though I have had more non-payments there than at Etsy. Over all I'd say if you like the feel of Etsy, you'll like using DaWanda.
They might have meant Afrikaans...like I wrote, that's according to the site itself. And they're originally a German site so there is some language issue potentially.
THANK you for taking the time to write about alternatives. I have really, really enjoyed them, they are informative, and useful.
(No one seems to be thanking you for this...was kinda bothering me..this is hard work.)
... and they send out seller emails with news of promotional events they are running with a one click sign up to let the site handle the discounts of the items included .....
phew!
This is great info! I can't wait until you do a review of ArtFire..I keep hearing so much about that one.
Thanks for the reviews of the etsy alternatives!
I have a shop on Dawanda and haven't had any sales yet, though I don't know how to effectively promote there (no renewing, etc.). Interestingly, I've looked up several of my fav big-ish etsy sellers and those who have shops on Dawanda (some even live in Europe) have had very few sales at all there.
I have been on DaWanda for a few months and like it very much. Now they are asking US to submit our pinboards for the front page, which is cool. My sales have been less than etsy, but I have a specific target market on DaWanda.
I like Dawanda for several reasons, the first of which is IT IS NOT ETSY. They are very careful not to make the same mistakes of obvious favoritism, complete bias for only 10 product types, and relentless, useless blogging!
Dawanda has nifty thrify promotions that all sellers can join with just a click, they send professional, brief info-emails to their sellers, and act like business professionals, which is the exact opposite of Etsy.
For US sellers, there is a bit of a disadvantage because the site is mainly for outside US sellers and sales------which is just how it should be. Prices are in Euros, and they do have to be checked by US sellers at least once a month due to frequent currency fluctuations.
And Dawanda proves a very good point - Etsy is so US/Brooklyn biased, that Dawanda can show US sellers just how different and difficult it can be to sell in a foreign marketplace. Of course, Etsy's bias is extreme, but Etsy is pretty extreme about everything they do-------including their off-hand, crappy, spotty, and downright nasty contacts with their very own sellers. And Etsy's belief that the Storque substitutes for advertising, marketing, and only magnifies all that is wrong with Etsy.
Dawanda does NOT have a blog that takes up 75% of the sites' space and paid resources.
I think Dawanda is poised to take off in the next 2-3 years and grow in reputation as more Etsy sellers leave Etsy for other reliable venues that run a business like a business. And there are other sites that are much better alternatives for Etsy sellers who are tired of paying fees month after month after year with NO service in return and a company that openly diplays their disdain for the handmade community. While Etsy has grown in size, their perspective has dwindled to a tiny little product array that shuts out more sellers than it includes.
The new handmade sites (and most of them pre-screen now) are going to offer Etsy sellers a lot more bang for their buck AND be positive for the handmade community. Etsy has already gone big box with attitudes to match.
The biggest deterrent from these Etsy alternatives is that they don't have the "success" stories that Etsy has. And they don't have the sales. I think in order to make an impact on Etsy (shake them up and get them to realize we are not happy as sellers), we're all going to have to band together on ONE of the other alternative sites. I love Dawanda and Artfire, but right now neither of those have the powerhouse sales that Etsy does.
I'm trying it out. DaWanda. Not as fast it seems for view counts, but I'll willing to give my Europe friends an shop specially for them to buy in their own currency.
I think the language is Swahili.
Hmmmmm, I've been selling on dawanda for over a year now, but I'm rapidly getting bored with it. There are far too many far east resellers whose "profiles" are a page of payment instructions. Handmade, my arse! as my Irish granny used to say.
It's got the cutesy disease, just like etsy, which is (or should be) a turnoff for anyone old enough to drink neat gin and enjoy it.
If you don't sell cheap cutesy stuff, or have a shop in German, you probably won't do much business there.
Post a Comment