Amazon Is Starting A Handmade Market

I just signed up for updates... Passed it on to the group of crafters I hang with.

me too... Thanks Peggy! :)

Thanks! Peggy
Crafters can really use this.

interesting, but one of the mail appeals of a pod for me is that I don't have to deal with printing, packaging and mailing my sales.

Yes, but as I said, it might be acceptable to have a fulfillment center do the printing, etc. for you. Then the only thing you'd have to do is place the order. It's also nice to know who your customers are.

Thanks for the heads up. I bet it will be fine to use fulfillment, particularly for artwork.

Thanks for the tip:)

Exciting to hear that we will have a handcrafted arena once again. Thanks Peggy.

Awesome thanks so much for Sharing Peggy I had no idea.....very interesting

EDIT: I have started making handmade jewelry with my artwork and its been a big hit so this may be something I will look into.

You're very welcome. Sheena, I also make jewelry so this new Amazon thing could be exciting.

I just got acceptance of my application. They're still working on the registration page.

Live link? www.amazon.com/gp/html-forms-controller/Handmade_Artisan_Email_1

I just saw this thread and am interested in hearing how you guys do but will hold off signing up. I'm still working up the courage to try r… er, another site :D

Might check that out since I already sell on amazon.

Doesn't "handmade" imply that digital prints don't qualify? From the link that Vanessa posted:

" All products available in your Handmade at Amazon store must be made entirely by hand, hand-altered, or hand assembled (not from a kit). Products must be handmade by you (the artisan), by one of your employees (if your company has 20 or fewer employees), or a member of your collective with less than 100 people. Mass-produced products or products handmade by a different artisan are not eligible to sell in Handmade."

Oh yeah, you're right, David. Is everyone here printing limited editions? And if so, are you embellishing them?

Yeah I've read that Amazon is trying to be strict with their handmade stuff, unlike Etsy which has really relaxed its original stand on that. I wonder if prints without handmade frames or something would be eligible.

Good question, Thomas. I don't see them being too specific about how much an item has to be handmade–but maybe because the assessment is difficult since it's pretty subjective.

I got accepted! I'll be putting my jewelry up. It's here and Etsy, but neither are doing anything for me. Ive got some pieces that need to move before I decide I can't part with them LOL

I dont view prints as belonging in the "handmade" category. I wouldn't expect they would be accepted. I'd think Amazon is looking more to arts/crafts than prints for this endeavor.

I signed up as soon as they announced it but haven't heard anything yet. Have any strictly print sellers gotten accepted yet?

I couldn't find any information on their fees. Anyone know what they charge to list? What percentages do they take on sales?

I was accepted, but I do my own printing. Some of the talk on etsy suggests that only those who do their own printing were accepted. I will see how it goes through the free period - after a year it's $40/month + 13.5%.

I didn't like the fee structure after the first year but I got my rejection email the other day so it's not going to matter! I don't do my own printing and they may have not liked my stuff either so...

The fees do seem a bit steep to me but if the volume of income/sales increased significantly then it certainly could be worth it for some sellers, really will depend on the volume of sales.

I got accepted on Amazon's handmade but then I saw the Fine Art section and it says they are not accepting apps from artists at this time. Only galleries. Hmmm. Any data on this?

In the first week I sold 2 photos on handmade at Amazon. A I understand you have to do your own printing, but you can outsource prints which are larger than you can print. I may start doing this for big canvasses.

Those fees certainly makes FAA premium fees look like a bargain. Of course their customer base must be the largest in the world.

Steven, I asked for and received their application but was put off by the clause asking for a description "in detail of the setting of your studio or work space." Listing little more than a table with a computer and printer plus a second table for assembly seemed a bit sparse so I ended up not submitting. Did you give a lot of detail in your application such as materials used or that larger images would be printed by a pod?

Two sales in the first week sounds promising, have sales continued for you?

Hmm..this sounds interesting, I also have jewelry and some other crafts that might be good to put on there. Thanks for sharing!!

Don't worry Vanessa, someone will start selling massed produced factory stuff in the handmade area, and Amazon will make a new rule in their honor.

Meanwhile, having a handmade area for art under Amazon doesn't sound like a bad thing at all. At one point I looked into what you have to do to sell art on Amazon, and there are a lot of hoops to go through. Basically, you have to be an established art gallery in order to even think about it.

Looks like Amazon's trying to compete with Etsy. I've bought things from Etsy - jewelry for gifts - and they were very high quality. I hope this move won't hurt Etsy's artisans.

Peggy, have you tried Etsy's marketing?

They turned down my application. I used my faa artist website as my homepage so maybe they figured I would be using them to fulfill and didn't like it, or they didn't like my stuff. Realistically speaking, what is really the difference between printing yourself or using a company to do it? The handmade part of a print is the photo either way. I may re apply. I can print up to 13x19 at home but generally don't.

I've got my store up, but I only have one copper bracelet. Guess I need to stock the shelves before the Christmas rush.

I dont see how anyone selling handmade jewelry can make a profit with Amazon tsking 20% + charging $40.00 a month for the store. I'll be closing before the monthly fees kick in. I won't be surprised if Amazon changes that just before we have to start paying. They will lose a lot of the handmade stores.

Lynn - I just told them I processed and printed the photos myself - up to 17" wide. If I recall correctly I never talked about my studio ( and I don't have a photo of my workspace on the site). I never talked about using a POD. I just recently saw the bit about allowing you to use a pod to print larger stuff. At the moment people have stuff on both amazon and etsy (although like here my etsy sales have dried up). No new sales since the first 2.

Here is a quote from Amazon, about what is not permitted, regarding printing

"Products for which the entire printing process is outsourced for production, unless it is photography or artwork that is too large to print in-house"

I just got accepted. Haven't done anything yet. Has anyone had a sale from that site? Maybe too early to know success pitential

"Etsy’s Artisanal Goods Are Coming To Macy's

The online selling platform last week announced new retail partnerships with major companies including Whole Foods and Macy's."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/etsy-macys-whole-foods_564b791ee4b06037734b47d8

Now, if only etsy will use my stuff in this partnership.

Now that Amazon handmade has been going a little over a month - I've had a grand total of 3 sales. putting this in context - much better than i did my first month on etsy or here on Faa.
I had another potential sale. - I have some photos of lobster buoys - the buyer thought they were real buoys and not a photo. Managed to convince him of that, so he cancelled the order (therefore it didn't ding my seller ratings).

"Martha Stewart ditches eBay for Amazon

The handmade goods business that once seemed so folksy is beginning to feel like a chess match with increasingly large playing pieces. The latest move has home goods and media queen Martha Stewart ending her deal with eBay and moving her American Made store to Amazon’s new Handmade marketplace."

http://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/news/2015/11/18/martha-stewart-shifts-american-made-store-amazon.html

I was wondering if any of you have concerns about Amazon's Agreement terms -

4. License.

You grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use, reproduce, perform, display, distribute, adapt, modify, re-format, create derivative works of, and otherwise commercially or non-commercially exploit in any manner, any and all of Your Materials, and to sublicense the foregoing rights to our Affiliates and operators of Amazon Associated Properties; provided, however, that we will not alter any of Your Trademarks from the form provided by you (except to re-size trademarks to the extent necessary for presentation, so long as the relative proportions of such trademarks remain the same) and will comply with your removal requests as to specific uses of Your Trademarks (provided you are unable to do so using standard functionality made available to you via the applicable Amazon Site or Service); provided further, however, that nothing in this Agreement will prevent or impair our right to use Your Materials without your consent to the extent that such use is allowable without a license from you or your Affiliates under applicable law (e.g., fair use under United States copyright law, referential use under trademark law, or valid license from a third party).

Standard legalese to cover showing your product. Amazon isn't in the manufacturing business - except for its devices.
...
Amazon's fees are HUGE! But they have the traffic. Basically if I ever sell there the prices will be bumped up significantly. Smart shoppers will come directly to my artistwebsite - www.edwardfielding.com
...
It is interesting to watch the big, old dinosaurs trying to re-invent themselves to the new realities of the market i.e. the interest in local, authentic, craft made and non-mass produced.

My take on Etsy's massive losses is they will not make it longer term.

Amazon smells blood. But the fee structure Amazon is using

after a year it's $40/month + 13.5%.

is very high. Remember FAA is $30/year and FAA does the fulfillment, Amazon does not.

I see at least one of you has been rejected for not doing your own printing, so it is a no go for me as well.

I wonder if artists on Amazon will be front and center in the search or back of the pile?

Dave

Individual seller account doesn't have the monthy fee but has a 15% commission on every sale. The monthly fee was for professional accounts. This Handmade scheme seems to combine all fees possible. Talk about soaking the little guy.

Once again it makes FAA look like a great deal.

- unlimited inventory
- $30 a year
- Fulfillment
- low commission rates

FAA should be running a YouTube ad comparing Amazon Handmade to FAA.

Ed,

Amazon has no choice. Etsy's modeled sucks. Losses like you would not believe.

Dave

Once again it makes FAA look like a great deal. -Edward Fielding

Everyone here take note, most of the other PODs commonly run losses.

FAA has one major programmer in charge and from the little I know not a lot of extra help.

This does not work elsewhere on the internet.

Thanks Sean.

Dave

Esty abandoned its roots trying to take over the world. Should have kept to their original Unique Selling Position. So many companies lose their way trying to be something they are not.

Consider the challenge of being on Amazon trying to sell high end artwork and competing with posters from overseas sold for 50 cents with free shipping.

FAA should be running a YouTube ad comparing Amazon Handmade to FAA.

Ed,

Even if Sean could win the resulting lawsuit with Amzn, the lawyers would charge more than Sean is making.

Not worth it to who? Us.

Dave

Ed,

Etsy was not public so the records are not clear to me, but reading up from a Skate's Report earlier this year, I am not sure
Etsy ever made a dime. Major losses for years.

Dave

Amazon has only made money in recent history. Not really an issue when you have a large war chest due to IPO.

Amazon makes a lot of money just selling ads on the listings. So even if you don't sell anything they make money on your monthly fee and the advertising.

Amzn is the exception Ed.

A gallery view of ETSY. Check out the second chart, the three year chart.

I think ETSY has been public since April May this year.

http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/gallery.html?ETSY

The thing is a total loser. Really bad. They will have a tough time with future offerings to the secondary market.

Dave

And yet it has little to do with the success of the little guy. Unless you've built up a business there and it shuts down cold.

Always have your own website and promote your own brand as its the only thing you can control.

It matters what the definition of "Your Materials" is. You hand over your copyright to Amazon for all of "Your Materials" whatever that may be, except that they don't strip trademarks off. This looks as if it was written with commercial goods in mind, as opposed to artwork. Probably they originally meant it to apply to marketing materials such as: if you're selling chicken wire on Amazon, this would apply to your photographs of rolls of chicken wire, and the paragraph you wrote describing your chicken wire - so Amazon doesn't have to go through the process of getting permission every time they post an ad someplace mentioning or showing your chicken wire.

I see it as potentially problematic for selling artwork on Amazon. Probably not the original intent, probably Amazon wouldn't take your art & resell it or give it away for use on someone else's packaging materials, if they did nobody would use Amazon to sell copyrighted artwork. But... if they did, to do anything about it you would probably need to argue that your art was *not* included in the definition of "Your Materials" and work from there.

I'm not sure what they're saying with respect to fair use, they are entitled to "fair use" of copyrighted materials whether it's written into the contract or not, because the law allows "fair use" of copyrighted materials.

Disclaimer: Definitely not legal advice, just my best guess.

Fair Use would be to show listings. Hard to sell something if they can't show a picture of it.

I do sell on Etsy already but the 12% fee is a bit steep compared to what I am use to on Etsy.

I suppose its cheap compared to rent and overhead + commissions in a gallery.

I got in on the Amazon handmade stores with my jewelry. It's very complicated - uploading, descriptions, tons of boxes to fill in. Then trying to figure out taxes, shipping, etc. the uploader is not user friendly.

The store is free for a year, but they take 20% (yes, TWENTY!) for jewelry. After a year, they will charge $40.00 a month plus 20%. I don't see how a handmade jewelry artist can make money here, even those who just glue Michaels crap together and call it "handmade". My silver and copper bracelets and pendants take a while to make, and unless I sell them tremendously overpriced, it's just not worth the money. Why would anyone pay big bucks on handmade when its displayed next to cheapie machine stamped/glued crap? Personaly, Amazon isn't the place Id think to shop for jewelry.
I've only listed 2 bracelets and I doubt if I list anything else. I'll be closing my store whenever I can figure out how.

I expect those monthly fees will come down in about 9 months when all the handmade artists start leaving.
I'll just stick with my website, FAA and etsy.

Edward:
There is more to "fair use" than showing listings -- in fact, I'm not convinced that "fair use" would be a particularly effective argument for them to use to defend using copyrighted materials in the course of showing listings -- it would be smarter for a sales venue such as Amazon to require copyright waiver prior to using copyrighted material to show listings.

If I'm selling a copyrighted work, such as a painting or photograph, on a sales venue such as Amazon, I do want them to put my work in their sales listings, I don't want them *not* including my work in their sales efforts for fear of falling foul of my copyrights, so to a point, I would not have a problem with waiving my copyrights for purposes of selling my art.

"Fair use" is a legal term, it means very specific things in the context of use of copyrighted work without the copyright holder's permission. "Fair use" isn't a bright line rule, as a practical matter, the fuzzy boundaries of "fair use" can make it hard to apply . Some fair uses include educational purposes, parody, etc. Usually a use of a copyrighted work is more likely to be held "fair use" if it is non-commercial, and the user isn't copying the whole work... but non-commercial, and partial copying alone are not enough to support fair use.

*****
Melany: 20% isn't a bad percentage. I'm not listed on Amazon, but I can make money on my stuff at a 20% sales venue, but not at a 50% sales venue. I've slowed way down on jewelry, the market is too sensitive to trends in fashion. I have a whole box of handmade necklaces that are currently out of style, I might take them apart and use the pieces to make something more fashionable, if I get motivated to do that,

People do like the craft store beads - some of them are junky (plastic, etc), some of their real semi-precious stone or glass beads are very attractive, even though they're mass produced. I have some jewelry that I like a lot that I made for myself out of materials I bought at Michael's - I get compliments on it. (I don't use glue, though, I draw the line at glue). If I need piece of jewelry on short notice to match an outfit, I don't shop for it at the retail stores, I shop for it in the bead section at Michael's or a local bead store and make it myself for a fraction of the cost something similar costs at a retail store. For me, jewelry is just something to add color/variety/visual interest to the clothes I'm wearing, it's not an investment or an addition to a jewelry collection.

That said, if your pendants are higher-end than the pendants at Michael's -- because they're solid silver or solid copper and each one is individually hand-made, I would think you would charge - and get - more for your jewelry than if it's made from mass produced beads/pendants (but not from someone like me). The people who are looking for one-of-a-kind handmade artisan jewelry won't be giving the mass-produced plastic bead-and-glue stuff a second glance.

My experience with Amazon was a nightmare that had me sleepless one night.

I signed up with the handmade stuff but just closed my account.

Long story made short...don't try it out, it's not a good experience. It's really hard to figure out at least it was for me, I might have a lower IQ or extremely impatient than the rest of you, so go figure.