Out of the Pink Sky

Sushi Demanding My Attention

By getting between me and the computer

Free shipping and making my own earwires

I'm once again having free shipping in my shop, so now is a great time to pick up a handmade pair of earrings or pendant from Out of the Pink Sky!

I've continued to make my own earwires for my gemstone earrings which I hand-shape and, often, oxidize.  Below, six pairs that I recently listed are pictured.  I'm in love with the orange carnelian earrings.  The carnelian is just so luscious!

              

               

Merry Christmas!

On a totally separate topic, the President of Artfire just posted their 2009 goals.  It's a great start for them, and his statements illustrate why I chose to open up shop there!

2009 GROWTH PLAN and VISION

As many of you know, we are very active in the blogosphere, on the Internet in general, and keep a close pulse on other sites that support handmade.

There are some interesting questions popping up in the ETSY forums today about how ArtFire will be able to handle "explosive growth" and I think that it is a great time to share a bit of our plans for growth and my vision for 2009 so that we all feel comfortable with the direction we are traveling together.

I have instructed our employees to stay out of the ETSY forums and not comment as sock puppets, as we feel that this is inappropriate.  So just in case our members are interested, let me comment on the following issues here.

How I Think

I am young (30 years old), I am ex-military police, and SWAT, and have a Masters Degree in Business.  I started in business many years ago and own several now.  I have built successful companies, and I have failed in business.  I push very hard and my expectations are unreasonably high in almost every case.  I am accountable and though I act tough, I am a rescuer and love to lead people.  I am married with two young children and in my spare time, I work.

Several things that I frequently preach:

1. Put up wins every day and make your company better every day, don't wait until tomorrow, win today.

2. If you don't like the ladder your climbing, build you own.

My Vision For ArtFire and Our Mission

We have sold on large sites like EBay, and we have been abused, ignored, shut off without discussion, and felt like we were nothing to them.  This is a very bad feeling that I will never forget.  I know of eBay sellers that built multi-million dollar businesses on eBay and who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to eBay, that were shut down over night without notice or discussion.

Think about what would happen to your business if you woke up and it was gone.  No explanation, no reason, no further communication allowed.  I don't think that anyone or any business should be treated like this and I will not allow it to happen on ArtFire.  Here, you will be respected, engaged, and supported.  This is not impossible for ETSY or EBAY, or ArtFire.  This is a choice that management makes.

I had the honor of making the acquaintance of Tony, CEO of Zappos which did over 1 billion dollars in sales in 2008, and I was/am impressed to say the least by his leadership.  Tony does not approach customer service like a chore, but as a culture.  At ArtFire, I choose if you will be important to ArtFire and I am responsible to you.  The President / CEO is where the buck stops.  For the record, you are my mission.  

This community is here to support your needs.  We believe that if we can add value to your business then we have succeeded.  Even if all you do is fire up a free account with ArtFire and use it to drive traffic to your ETSY store, we have accomplished our mission!

We have rolled out what we think will be seen as a revolutionary new way to build social sites and web sites, which we call "Community Directed Development".  This is an exciting and dynamic way to grow a company that puts the members in the driver's seat of the sites development.  This also means we stay in what is traditionally known as "Beta" for a longer period of time, AND we all experience and HUNT bugs together.

This is exciting to say to least.  We are always on our toes, we are constantly challenged and frankly, we have never had this much fun!  Putting up big wins and sharing them with you is the best feeling in the world!  As you may have noticed, we identified Google Analytics as a feature that you wanted today, and we mobilized and knocked it out in 2 hours!  

Responsiveness and Management

We expect that we will have some issues and certainly some short scheduled downtime, but our commitment is to keep you in the loop at all times.  There will be more bugs moving forward.  Our policy and promise is that we will not bury these bugs, we will respond rapidly and be responsible to you.  Again, this is a choice that we have made and a culture that we all share here.

As ArtFire grows we will scale smartly with the community and remain proactive in meeting your needs.  Each team member will be hand selected to meet my standards and your expectations.  Our standard is to maintain the level of service that you have come to expect from us and to earn and keep your trust.

Infrastructure Growth

We have watched ETSY for several years and we are aware of the issues that they have had with scaling their community.  This is a very real issue for us as well and one that we have spend extensive time, money, and resources on addressing.  We do expected explosive growth for ArtFire in 2009 and we have planned for such growth.

Our team understands how ETSY's system was built and we approached it a little differently and hopefully from a more stable direction.  This being said, my focus is on ZERO downtime and redundant systems and we are adding to our systems constantly.  We are currently taxing our infrastructure at about 1% of capability and continue to optimize load times.

Site Announcements

We have heard your suggestions to increase notifications and channels in which to deliver important site news and we will be adding an official CEO/COO page shortly in which regular updates will be posted and site direction will be shared.  We are also working on a better email system to support communication which will be finished shortly.

This section of the ArtFire Forums will also receive updates as they occur and we also stay connected with site changes on Twitter.  My Twitter page is: http://www.Twitter.com/ArtFireJohn and Sara is on Twitter as http://www.Twitter.com/ArtFire

Your Direction, Your Voice

We are excited about the new Guild and Council structure rolling out in the next 90 days that will allow a unified voice to be clearly heard through micro aggregation within the community.  Guild Masters will represent interests and concerns to ArtFire leadership and ArtFire elected councils.  Councils and Guilds will help guide the development of new site features, activities, events, and direction and this system will ensure that your voice is not lost while we grow.

Marketing and Traffic

In several surveys that we have reviewed the overwhelming reason to stay with a large selling platform was traffic and sales.  Even if the large selling platform did everything else wrong, the results were usually the same.  Sellers follow the traffic and follow the money.

We agree, and we are working hard and smart to build traffic to ArtFire through traditional and Internet channels.  We cant do this without you though, and we ask that you "help us help you" by telling your friends, family, and local groups about us.  Post a blog about ArtFire or go to other craft blogs and mention how much you enjoy ArtFire.  Every time ArtFire is mentioned on the Internet our page rank (and Google traffic) inches up.  If each of us push just a little bit, our community will benefit substantially!

Thank you for joining ArtFire and contributing to our direction, you are the most important part of this community and its development.  Please let us know where we can take you!

Gracing the Front Page of Etsy

I created a treasury that made the front page of Etsy!  Woo hoo!  I'm particularly glad I was able to bring some of my Columbus-based personal crafty friends with me - jewelsofluxury (Michelle), amyd (Amy), Adornmentsbykarla (Karla).

Even Glass Ninjas are Fierce

Deb DiSalvo, who I know from the local crafting circuit, made these little glass ninjas.  I think they're absolutely adorable.  She has all kinds of cool fused glass creations in her shop!

Sometimes "bad" photos are good

When, I took this photo of my Marisol Earrings, I loved the way they looked in the orange sunset.  I couldn't really use the photo in my shop as the vividness of the sunset misrepresented the color of the earrings.  However, I still think it's a great shot!  You can click on the link above to see a much more accurate photo.

Art Fire - the new game in town

 

I recently set up a sellers account on Art Fire in hopes that this venue will avoid some of the pitfalls that Etsy has become prey to.  It's still in Beta, but, overall, I'm quite pleased.  There are certainly bugs to iron out, features to implement, and the site is definitely an evolving beast.  However, so far, everything looks quite promising.  They have a one-page listing process.  They allow up to 10 photos of your item.  They have a "share" feature which helps immensely in promoting your work on other social sites, such as twitter, facebook, google, myspace, and so on.  They do not have renewals so you do not feel that you have to fight it out with big sellers by handing over 20 cents after 20 cents, which adds up, as we all know.  There is a monthly fee, but then listings are free after that.  Currently the monthly fee is $7, for life, for the next, approximately, 4000 subscribers.  After that, it goes to $20.  I approve!

If you subscribe because of my glowing review *grin*, tell 'em outofthepinksky sent ya!

Unique Metal Makes for Interesting Accessories

Some of my most recent accessories have features metal pieces that, while not one of a kind, are unusual and interesting in their appearance.  The above Koi earrings contain cage-like metal pieces that I found on a "thing" in an antique mall.  I say "thing" because my mom and I could not figure out what it was.  I think it had something to do with a candle, but I'm not sure.  Below, you see my Organic Meets Industry Earrings, which have a hint of Steampunk in them.  While the wooden beads give these a natural feel, the metal gear-like bead make a swerve in the other direction.  Both pairs are on sale in my Etsy shop.

FREE SHIPPING in my shop on Monday December 1

On December 1, aka Cyber Monday, I will have free domestic shipping in my Etsy shop.  International shipping will not be free, but it will be at a discount.  Please come by and see all the new items I posted this weekend, including those pictured in this entry.  More new items to be posted later today.  This free shipping promotion only runs on December 1st, Eastern Standard Time.  Please contact me through my shop if you have any questions.