Etsy Alternative #10 - Coriandr

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 - Coriandr.

Tagline: No tagline

Company information: An ecommerce site from Mookle Studios Limited, developed in September 2008 as competition for Etsy. They have a blog.

Storefront: Has an RSS feed, upload your banner and av, add your announcement and categories, your items are in gallery view. The Coriandr toolbar always on top. Prices of listings are in British pounds.

Cost: 20p listing fee plus 2.5% commission on sales (plus Paypal fees if you use that), billed every month, but there is no credit card on file to be a seller.

Features: Blog widget called “Coriandr seedlings (just add website to grow)”, no expiration of listings, like other sites you get your own shop address. They’re currently working on item comments, front page curation by members, and faster search.
They just added order communication via a convo system and email provided after purchase. Drag and drop shop arrangement. You can search within categories.

Payment: Fully integrated with Paypal, but you can offer other options.

Community: Forum, purchase feedback system, favorite items or sellers

Customer service: Forum, Feedback form with bug report linked at the bottom of the pages.

Items that can be sold: Anything handmade and creative (i.e. art supplies), but only these things.

General impressions: It’s a lot like Etsy with the grassroots approach and “promote us!”, but they’re more lenient about the use of their brand.

The front page is unattractive and the design has much to be desired. There is also a limited amount of company information provided, there is no information about the administration, developers, or designers, making it faceless, and there’s no contact email.

It is also a relatively new site, but the basic ecommerce components (like communication between buyer and seller) are slow to be introduced. It says that shops are customizable, but they aren’t. Every store looks like the Coriandr front page, just with their own banner and avatar on white.

Has anyone used the site as a seller or buyer? What did you think?