Friday, September 25, 2009




















Artfire.com is rolling out the "Holiday Free For All" promotion.
Here is a sneek peek of the Monday press release:
ArtFire Gives Away Free Unlimited Listings for the Shopping Season

Everyone gets free unlimited listings for the holidays on ArtFire.comTucson, AZ – ArtFire has just announced that they will be giving away unlimited listings completely free for all sellers during the holiday season. This means that everyone can sell and list as many items as they wish for absolutely no cost or fees. When they first launched, ArtFire revolutionized the handmade marketplace by making it completely free for users to sell online. Site members were able to list and sell up to 12 items at any point on the site, and could have unlimited listings with customizable features for the flat rate of $12/month. However, due to the current economic situation and the upcoming holiday season, ArtFire has decided to remove this 12 item limit for the shopping season, giving everyone on the site the option to list unlimited items for sale. To make things even easier for sellers, ArtFire has also launched the Etsy Importer, allowing members to import all of their Etsy listings onto ArtFire quickly and easily. To help manage these imported listings, ArtFire is allowing free access for the month of October to their Global Product Editor, which gives sellers the chance to make batch edits to hundreds of products in their inventory at once. “Regardless of marketplace or venue we’ve found that sellers who list more items have a much greater success online,” said Tony Ford, COO of ArtFire. “We want to give everyone the chance to be successful, and free unlimited listing will help our artisans obtain more sales during the fourth quarter.”“Many of our sellers are concerned about the shopping season due to economic issues, and cannot afford to promote and advertise as they had last year,” said John Jacobs, CEO of ArtFire. “This Holiday Free for All will allow them to sell more items than ever before completely free.”This Holiday Free for All Promotion is the first ever of its kind, and expected to completely change the craft marketplace.
For more information, please contact:
Tony Ford, COOArtFire Inc.
1-877-688-2323
1-877-688-2323





To quote Tony Ford COO and EVP Marketing, ArtFire.com
"For the holiday season all accounts (both Basic and Verified) will have the ability to list unlimited listings. There will be no listing fees, no final valuation fees, no commission fees, and no catches. We have decided that the economy is too tough for artisans and we believe our Verified accounts are worth $12 per month regardless of the number of listings.


As a Verified member you have access to all unique site features such as:

+1 search weighting (verified members always win a relevancy contest where the tie is with a basic member)

The Facebook Kiosk (worth $12/month all by itself by monetizing your fan page)


Coupon codes and gift certificates4) Free featured spots for every verified member on the category, trend and gift guide pages (randomly selected)


Artisan Guilds


Artifacts


Sticky Cart


Global Product Editor


Multiple quantity listings


Fully customizable colors and layouts for the Fusion Studio


The Gallery on your Fusion Studio


Larger Super banner


Advanced Artisan Bio with multiple pictures and links

Studio widgets capability for ads, video, or other html and flash widgets


10 pictures instead of 4 on items.


No advertising in your studio or items.


No promotion of other (verified) sellers items on your item listings.


Up to 99 studio categories



We have even more Verified features that will roll out throughout the 4th quarter. We will continue to make this deal even better for Verified members. But here is why we want to make listings free and the secret every other venue does not want you to know. Listings have value. The act of listing adds value and reduces costs for Artfire.com. You see the cost to host and transmit a listing is almost nothing ( a fraction of a cent). But for every 2 listings on Artfire.com we get more than one google visit per month from a buyer. We have worked hard to optimize our Google SEO and that means tht with about 400,000 listings on Artfire.com we are getting over 250,000 Google visits alone (out of nearly two million total unique visitors this month). These Google visitors are highly convertible buyers. These are people who go multiple pages deep, spend time on the site and move throughout the site (mostly landing on verified items because of the exposure bonuses mentioned above).In order to get 250,000 targeted quality buyer visits from advertising we would have to buy an additional 50,000,000 ad impressions (assuming a.5% Click through rate). The going rate for targeted ad impressions is between $5 and $10 CPM (cost per thousand impressions). That means the listings on Artfire generate monthly traffic equivalent to an advertising budget spend of $250,000 to $500,000. More items = more buyers. Every site that charges you a listing fee is asking you to pay them for the priviledge of giving them free advertising. At Artfire.com we believe Listings should be free for Artisans. We will subsidize the fraction of a cent via small ads or verified members who get exposure on the page. If it costs you time and work you should not pay us. If we save you time and effort or give you tools and features that add value to your business you should pay us. In order to test this theory. We are going to run the "Holiday Free For All" promotion. We believe we will lose some verified accounts who will downgrade. Although those folks will miss out on a lot of extra features, promotion, exposure and the new things we will continue to add for verified members. However, this will create the maximum possible chance for the most artisans to be successful for the least amount of risk.We have always said we want you to be a successful seller. Our research shows that a lot of listings is the critical key to selling. We are going to put our money where our mouth is. We are going to tell the secrets of the marketplace and start a revolution to reject the 1990's model that a seller should pay to have the privilege to give us free advertising. We are going to partner with each of you to give you fantastic tools for verified accounts and a no risk business opportunity for those getting started.


Happy Holidays Sellers - Our gift to you came early."
Go Artfire! This is the best venue around!!

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