What’s the scoop with Daily Boutique Deal sites?
23. Apr, 2012 
6 Comments
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What’s the scoop with Daily Boutique Deal sites?
When sales are slow and production is steady, some handmade artists consider taking a chance on a “Daily Deal” site.
Online daily deal sites all work differently, but they have one thing in common: a large subscription base in which they can promote your products to the right new and interested buyers. Here’s a little roundup of these companies, so you can compare the facts and see if one might work for your handmade business.
Very Jane
To apply to be featured seller on Very Jane, you should email featureme@veryjane.com
Very Jane artisans are typically featured for 48-72 hours, during which time members can purchase your item directly from the site. Very Jane tracks all of your orders on a spreadsheet that you can view during your feature by logging into an account page setup for you. Once your feature is complete you can download and print this spreadsheet which contains the items sold, quantity, shipping address, and customer contact information.
Very Jane takes a 25% commission for featuring the seller; however a 30% commission is taken for items priced less than $5.00, to cover credit card fees. This commission does not include any shipping fees, which are given directly to the seller. Very Jane will release the sales and shipping funds within one week of your feature, although in most cases much quicker.
To ensure that the product is of high quality, Very Jane does request each seller to send a sample product before your feature is live to shoppers. There is no limit to the amount of times you can be featured on Very Jane; however an application may be required for each submission.
GroopDealz
GroopDealz is a Daily Deal site that features crafters in exchange for a 30% commission on the purchase price of the product. This does not include shipping, which the crafter keeps. GroopDealz will issue half of the sales by the following Friday of the feature end. The other half of the funds are reserved until the crafter fulfills all the orders within the specified time frame. The orders containing all information needed to process them can be accessed through an account page on the GroopDealz website.
GroopDealz sellers are featured for at least 24-48 hours. In order to be featured on GroopDealz, the crafter must fill out a submission form and may be requested to send a product for photography and quality purposes.
Today we have only focused on two of the main sites offering Daily Boutique Deals on handmade goods, but we have a few more for you to check out:
In Summary:
Daily Deal websites can offer benefits such as:
- Increased exposure in a short amount of time
- Residual traffic to your shop after the promotion
- Reduced marketing fees and often purchase transaction fees
But even with these perks, it’s essential to make sure you’ll still make a profit on your handmade goods after the numbers are crunched. When offering products at 50% to 70% off the normal retail price, sellers need to take in all the expenses, including shipping and production costs. Also, it’s important to make sure you’ll be able to fill the orders in a given time period, so keep that in mind when accepting an offer from any of these sites.
Do you have experiences with any of these companies that you’d like to share? Please leave a comment we would love to hear what you think!
Devon Brown; Co-owner of the Etsy shops The Country Barrel {thecountrybarrel.etsy.comlonelytreedesign.etsy.com}.
About The Author
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I always wondered about these sites. Thank you for this concise summary.
I did a listing with GiGis Petals. The owners were very personable and easy to work with. I didn’t do it for the money (I broke just even) but more for the exposure and traffic to my etsy shop.
Becky,
Did it work as far as exposure and more traffic? Are you making regular sales?
I have always been curious about the benefits.
Never heard of these sites. will have to check them out.
I did a deal on a new site http://www.watchdogdealz.com and even though I only made a little money on the product it really increased my daily traffic. I will do more deals with them if I can. by the way they gave me a better split than I was offered from the other sites
I did a listing on both GroopDealz and VeryJane. And even though VeryJane has less likes on Facebook than GroopDealz they sell more. I gained more fans with VeryJane than with GroopDealz as well.
VeryJane is very nice and easy to work with. GroopDealz seems like there a lot bigger than VeryJane so it isn’t quite as pleasant process. VeryJane I knew about a month in advance when I would be listed, and GroopDealz I didn’t know until the night before (this makes it very difficult for me personally when I have to get all the supplies shipped quicker than knowing in advance.)
But overall I’d give VeryJane 5 out of 5 for customer service, and GroopDealz about a 4 out of 5.