Thinking about selling on 1000 Markets?

I set up shop on 1000Markets.com a few weeks ago, and I wanted to share what I've learned and my experiences with those of you who are considering opening a shop on 1000 Markets. Brace yourselves, this is a long post. Make sure you have some time to read it and a cup of coffee in hand.

In their own words, "We are a community of marketplaces, large and small, connecting artisan merchants with the people who love their products."

-The site is still in Sneak Preview mode. This means that they are still tweaking the site. Just last week they added Categories, which currently only shopkeepers can see.

-Currently, they are only open to members of the U.S., and they only accept Amazon Payment. I truly think this is their biggest flaw right now, but besides that, I am ecstatic that I found their site; it is everything that I've been looking for in a selling venue.

-There are no listing or renewal fees. You are only charge if an item sells. They charge 5.5% + $.50 for each item sold. This might sound like a lot, but it is as cheap as selling on Etsy if you use PayPal, because Etsy charges $.20 per listing, and PayPal charges $.30 per transaction. Amazon Payment transactions are free for 1000 Markets sales. The percentage charge is also about the same.

-setting up, hosting, and opening a shop are free. Once you setup shop and have at least 5-7 items for sale, 1000 Markets will review your shop, and if they approve your shop, you are free to start selling.

-About Amazon Payment, per the 1KM website: "We use Amazon Payments to send your money. Whenever you make a sale, the full amount of the sale is immediately placed in your Amazon Payments account and then our fee is deducted. Since your payment is backed by Amazon, there's no more chasing down dead-beat buyers.

When you make a sale, we deduct 5.5% of the order total (inclusive of any shipping fees you
may charge) plus an additional $0.50. There are no additional transaction fees. Amazon Payments are free for orders that originate from 1000 Markets."

-if you make and sell your own artisanal products, then you can open a shop.

Now I'll take you on a little tour of how I as a seller see the site.

Enter Site

This is 1000 Markets' home page. You will need to register as a member, and then start setting up shop. Before you can set up shop though, you need to have a verified user account at Amazon.com.


Private View

When you click on My Account, you will see your Account Dashboard. On the left are your tools, including Manage Your Shop, Manage Your Stuff, Your Shop Account, messages from 1KM, your blog, shop stats, privacy settings, etc.


All of your listed products (both saved draft versions and published versions) show up under Manage Your Shop > Your Products.


Listing a product is very easy - all the steps are on one page. You add a title, a description, a price, a quantity, whether it is Made to Order, whether it is OOAK, the shipping costs, the main category and sub-category, the tags, the photos, the collections it belongs in, and the markets it belongs in. Uploading photos is easy and quick because you can upload as many as you want (I think - I've uploaded up to ~10 photos for a product and didn't see a limit) and you can upload multiple photos at one time. Your photos are then stored in a library that only you can see, which is accessible at any time during listing.


Under "Manage your Shop" you can create product Collections. To illustrate, this is much like creating shop sections on Etsy. Choose themes or genres for your items, and it is helpful to have all of your items in at least one collection. Some of my collections are more basic, such as Greeting Cards or Gift Tags, but others are more creative, such as the Woodland Collection. When you click on a category, it allows you to select which of your products you want featured in that collection.


Under "Manage Your Stuff" you can view all of the Markets you are a member of. Click on each individual market to sort which of your products you want featured in that Market.


When you click on a Market you belong to, it allows you to check off which of your items you want featured in that market. I have all of my items selected for the Windy City Market, but I would not have all of my items selected for the Papercraft Market, since some of my items are coasters and necklaces.


Under "Manage Your Stuff" you can moderate your comments, if you do decide to have your comment wall present. Comments aren't pubicly posted unless you approve them.


Under Your Account you can upload a Portrait, which is like a much larger version of an avatar. I chose an item from my shop, the same item which I later decided to use as my banner as well. The site assists you in getting the right size by providing a cropping tool.



Under Your Account you can upload or create a banner for your shop. These banners are larger than Etsy banners. They have a tool that helps you fit a banner into the size alloted. I opted for the option of choosing a high-quality product photo, and overlaying white text with my shop's name. Text overlay is optional, you get to choose the font and color, and you can select the text's position. It literally takes about 30 seconds to do this.


Your Privacy tab allows you to block users from contacting or buying from you; decide if you want to allow comments on your home page; control how much 1KM emails you.


Public View

When you enter a shop's home, this is what you would see: their banner, profile picture, selected product categories, their tabs (products, blog, profile and policies, and shop home), the markets they are a member of, their comment wall, and their most recent blog post


Scroll down a shop's store front and see their selected categories, which are the same idea as shop sections on Etsy.


At the bottom of every shop's homepage is their Wall, where people can leave comments about their work, and their blog, if they have written any blog posts. Every shop also has a Blog tab, where all of their public blog posts can be found.


Click on a shop's Products tab to see all of their products, all of their collections, and all of the tags they use for their items.


The Profile and Policies tab shows a user's tagline, available contact information, About, location, and shop policies (which were cut-off for this screen capture, but they are at the bottom of the page)


Click on the Categories tab to see the full list of categories, and their sub-categories


Categories > Books and Paper - You can search within this category, or click on a sub-category


Categories > Books and Paper > Stationery. This is what you would see. You can search within this category.


This is the bottom of the page under categories, where shops are randomly featured:


Click on the Markets tab, where shoppers can browse seller-administrated markets based on themes. I belong to the Windy City Market, the Papercraft Market, and the Grand Arcade. It is a different way to shop - it reminds me a lot of Etsy's Gift Guides, in the sense that there are themes to the collections of items. If you belong to a Market, you get to decide which of your items fit in that market, and if all of them do, then they will all show up in that market! Market memberships are by invitation only; some markets allow you to request an invitation, which all of the three markets I belong to do allow.


This is the community page where 1KM admin show their favorite items, and some interesting and updated member blogs are showcased.


So that is that for now. I am definitely still keeping my Etsy shop, as I feel that is an irreplacable part of my business right now. I tried 2 other handmade selling venues in the past year, besides Etsy, and neither of them compare to 1000 Markets as an alternative to Etsy for getting your eggs in more than one basket. I think my favorite parts about 1KM are the ease of listing, the seller-created markets, and the blog and wall options.

I didn't go into depth in this, but 1KM also has a forum and user stats available for shops.