Why Artfire kind of puts me off.

Ok, so first of all, this is not a bash on anyone who uses Artfire.  I tinkered around on it and liked it for the most part.  This is just my personal thoughts and feelings on why I couldn’t get into it.

So I got an email from Artfire today that just kind of put me off.  If you have a basic account I’m sure you got “the email” too.  It’s topic was along the lines of “Hey, wanna know why you as a basic member are not making any sales?  Click to find out.”  So I clicked.  And basically it read along the lines of “Yeah, we cater everything to Pro accounts so basically if you really want to start your business you need to just get a Pro account otherwise we aren’t going to help you any and your store will not succeed because we hide you away like the unwanted stepchild.  So upgrade today!  "  Umm, ok, so you are basically emailing me to tell me that there is really no  point in using your service unless I upgrade because you have basically washed your hands of me.  So umm…yeah, about that.  No thanks then.

I mean don’t get me wrong, Artfire is interesting and it’s building, but I don’t like how exclusive it is.  You are cut off from mostly everything unless you buy a membership.  This is the reason I like Etsy more because while some things are exclusive for active shop owners, for the most part if you have an account you can partake in the fun there.  They don’t make you feel second rate because maybe you don’t have he money to fund a shop right now but you still want to stay up on what’s going on and take part in things there.  Now there are some things Artfire has for their shops that I would really like on Etsy, but Etsy seems to be slowly getting those things so that’s a positive thing.  Both sites have pros and cons, which I feel is more personal opinion than anything, but as I’ve told other people before in my mind Artfire is like Myspace and Etsy is like Facebook.  You do the math on that one.  I’ll still keep my shop at Artfire and maybe I will try opening a shop with a Pro account one day if it takes off more, but for now I think I will focus on an Etsy shop and see how that goes.

One thing I hope Etsy never gets though is music in the shops.  Artfire allows that and I hate it.  I think some of the features on Artfire allow for to much tack in the shops, but once again, personal opinion.  Slideshows are another pet peeve of mine.  I like shops to be organized and uniformed.  You don’t find that at Artfire like you do Etsy.  But I think I am done for now and will get off my soapbox.  I guess I just really didn’t like the email and tone it carried with it.  Like I said, it’s not a bad site, but it’s seriously exclusive.  And like I said Etsy has some exclusive stuff too, and I am find with being exclusive, but Artfire takes it to the bullying extent almost.  If they don’t like basic accounts then get ride of them and free that site up for their members then to add more features or something.  I’m sure they will like that and then they can stop making basic members feel like they don’t matter.  Either way you have to put hard work into promoting your shop to be seen, I’m not going to put all that work in to bring traffic to a site that thinks I’m second rate.  No thanks.  Yeah, I’m bitter.    But that’s all I wanted to talk about right now. I’m am off to work on a new blog design.  I want to come up with a theme and logo now that I finally decided what direction I am going in.  I hope to get the new layout and logo up soon.  Until then bye for now. 

Loves ya,
Mouse