A List Of E-Store Possibilities

January 25th, 2008

I did a lot of googling before I even came up with a short list of places where I could create an estore. And in return I would like to share here the places I know of, and information about them. If you’re looking to open an estore, then check out these places below. They’re the best options I’ve seen so far that cost little to no money to run.

Etsy: This has become a popular way to run an estore. They’re craft specific, so that means you can only sell items you make here. Since they’re specifically for the sale of handmade items, it’s a popular place to go. The people who shop through Etsy are looking for items in that category so the chances of a sale goes up.
Etsy is not free. Although it’s free to sign up and it’s free to create your own shop, you pay 20 cents to list an item and they also charge you a 3.5% fee for all things sold. This will not include any fees you might face from paypal. But due to how popular the site is, they’re able to get away with fees. They’re the ebay of the handmade items estore world.
eCRATER.com: They are a lot like Etsy in the way they’re set up, but the huge difference here is that eCRATER.com is free. Free to join, free estore, free to list items and free to sell items. Angel’s Crafted Creations is at eCRATER.com, and I like their set up. They don’t have the popularity of Etsy, though. Which means you’re going to have to promote your store, get the word out. But you can sell pretty much anything there. It’s not specific towards any type of items. I sell my handmade items in my store, but they don’t specialize in handmade items. So you will have plenty of choices on what to sell here.
MomLaunch: This is for moms only. And it’s free. I joined as soon as they opened up to signups. They have great idea, and they’re always improving. Dave wanted to help his sister find a way to work from home and realized that their weren’t really that many options out there to help out moms. So he did all the leg work himself and managed to create Simple Startup, which is the name of the store software. MomLaunch uses that software to give moms free and paid store options. My store is Angel’s Hand-Knit Scarves and they have so many great ideas behind their software. Their’s a couple things that could be done to help make it a little better, but it’s very promising and worth a look. I love it. I especially love the fact that you have a store wordpress blog where you can blog updates and other things store related.
WeBidz: I’ve written about them before when I talked about ebay alternatives. But they fit here because as well as auctions, they have a store option where you can set up a store to sell your items through. It does cost $5 to become verified, but once you’re verified you stay verified as long as your information stays the same. Auctions can help boost store sales, so by keeping your store at an auction site makes your store more accessible.

I hope that list will help you out. If you know of another good estore site that is low in cost or free, please leave it in the comments. I’ll add it to the list if I agree!

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