Tami Polichetti, a Certified Public Accountant, began selling homemade woodcrafts on auction sites several years ago. She met Meg Smith and Donna Madej on an online auction chat board, where they came up with the idea for selling crafts on their own Web site.
"After doing craft shows in hot sun and rainy cold weather for years, then having more success with the online auctions, I wanted more" said Polichetti. "More control over shipping, to do away with bidding and waiting for bidders. Let customers come, shop, purchase and leave."
The three women put their heads together, and created Crafty-Ones.com, a site offering homemade crafts exclusively. An integrated shopping cart offers real time payment and shipping options, and major credit cards are accepted. Tami, Meg and Donna share in the administration and decision-making on the site.
Crafty-Ones turns 1 year old tomorrow. Based in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the Web site is home to twenty crafters from all over the country and Canada, and features items in 28 categories.
Tami said she does not view the site as a substitute for online auction selling. In fact, Crafty-Ones will list items for sellers who don't have accounts with auction sites. "We get tremendous amounts of traffic from both auction sites and search engines. Crafty-Ones comes up number 3 on a search for candied pecans in the search engines," she said.
So who buys crafts online? It really varies, according to Tami. One repeat customer buys scrunchies for her cheerleading squad to match their monthly theme. And many buy home-baked goods for family and friends in the military.
One of the best-selling items on the site are inexpensive sleep masks, also popular with service men and women. Terry Weber sells the masks on eBay and on Crafty-Ones, and he purchases Google Ad Words that direct people to his items on Crafty-Ones from the Google search engine.
Tami said they recently placed forums on the site, including one for their sellers so they can learn techniques and marketing tips from each other. She's pleased with the success of the site, and enjoys the feeling of community that is made possible by focusing in a niche market. Crafty-ones.com sellers feel the reason earnings are far exceeding expectations is due directly to the site's superb customer service.
Tami said Crafty-Ones continues to look for new crafters to join and expand their product offerings. Tami proudly stated that in the first 4 months of 2003, sales beat the entire sales for all of 2002. Spoken like a true CPA turned entrepreneur.
http://crafty-ones.com
