[turrrn2]

My company is developing a feature within the company, that will allow indenpendent designers the ability to market and sell their items on our site. We will charge a $10 one time setup fee and a$2.15 tranaction fee for each sale there after. Designers will be get a personalized email adress and have picture and bio posred on a feature page. My company will sell items via our online store, but the designer or artist will get to set their own prices. at the end of the week, 2 week, or month (which ever the choose they will get a check. They would not be charged if their item did not sell.

What do you thin about this idea?

[mxer210]

If I was a designer, the only reason I would use your service if it got alot of traffic from buyers. Just make sure you have some good advertising and get alot of traffic. Other then that, your plan sounds good. Good luck.

[Karen]

This sounds like a good idea. I have to agree with mxer210 on the traffic issue. Make sure the site has alot of visitors to make it worth while to a designer.

Karen

[TheOriginal]

Personally the 2.15 transaction fee seems a bit steep to me, but other than that I think that it's a wonderful idea!!!

TheOriginal o(-_-)o

[mmerkau]

I this this would appeal to those who do not know how to use a computer or just don't have the time. Because you can do it yourself on Ebay or Amazon for a lot less.
On the upside, if you are taking care of the customer relations and the hassles that inevitable ensue...then that may be your niche.
Best of luck.
MM

[turrrn2]

Yes, I plan to make it a joint effort between the two, my company and the individual. The problem I had with ebay is that it is mainly an auction style of purchasing, and most of the traffic on ebay comes for those who are looking to bargin. So I'm not so sure a person would be better off selling via ebay or amazon for that matter.

[troyswitch]

Sup turrrn2,

That's a little like what we're doing with the company I'm interning for this summer, Switchville.com. But our company works in reverse of what you're trying to accomplish.

Instead of companies posting their information on our site and having customers order appropriate projects through it, Switchville.com lets customers post projects -- and companies will then bid for those projects.

I think your idea would definitely work given the appropriate foot traffic, like other posters have mentioned. I'm sure there's a big arena for what you're wanting to offer because a lot of entrepreneurs I talk to want more marketing tools to get their businesses out there.

The question though becomes, how can you increase traffic to your site? Maybe building a community within it- a little like youngentrepreneur.com? Offering advice tips? I'm not too sure, but with the proper methods, I'm sure this can definitely work.

[turrrn2]

I appreciate the ideas, sounds good! I might consider that!

[BetterEdit.com]

As everyone says, it's the traffic factor that will make or break you.

I think any web based business can succeed as long as it has eyeballs viewing it (and not just random eyeballs like from pop-ups forcing someone to load the site in their browser).

Getting the eyeballs coming and coming is the hard part though, and certainly takes time. Just like word of mouth though, once you have eyeballs the eyeballs bring more eyeballs.

Ok, that's enough about eyeballs...

Yes, definitely try and develop a site that has something valuable for free, that will keep users coming back for more. Then once you have a user base you can start the commercial aspect (I wonder if youngentrepreneur.com's owners I thinking this too?).

Yaro

[turrrn2]

Thank you, for your advice. It has been hard getting the "eyeballs" to my site. Thank you again and I welcome any more advicefrom you and everyone else.