I think it’s a lovely idea, but my problem is time. I work full time so promotion time is limited to early morning usually, I have tried to ‘schedule’ posts on twitter and FB but then those posts don’t get many views as they usually contain a shop link and they can get treated as spam on FB particularly, I would love somewhere that I could promote say early morning but that my posts get shared later on in the day when there are more people on line, no idea if that is feasible but it would certainly help with people who don’t have much time.
[quote=“NataliaBraga, post:19, topic:7369, full:true”]
I literally just googled “British handmade crafts” and Folksy didn’t appear anywhere on the first five pages (I have no idea where it does appear because I got sick of scrolling through the results by that point). I can’t help feeling that this is a shame and it would be great to raise awareness.[/quote]
On google for me, Folksy appears number 1 spot and has for a very long time. As for it being a shame, why would that be? I don’t mean to sound rude if it appears that way because it’s not my intention but you’d be just one of thousands who’d search for ‘British Handmade Crafts’. Folksy didn’t appear to you in the first 5 pages you checked but that doesn’t mean that the next person who searches it will have the same problem.
You say this new thing you’re doing is absolutely free so I’d just like to ask if you can explain the following comment you made in your post ‘As for what I’d get out of it, apart from personal satisfaction and promoting some of my friends, I would have to make sure I was covering my costs’.
How would you do that with no income from what you were going to create? From where I’m sitting it implies some kind of fee would be necessary.
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@paperchainsandbeads It’s such a shame scheduling your FB posts isn’t working out for you Maxine, but I’ve never heard of scheduled posts being penalised…? I know that as of late last year FB started limiting the reach of all promotional posts (organic, not paid), but I would assume you’re also posting about general topics that interest your audience and not just what you’re selling at the moment…?
Back to the topic at hand, the idea for the site I mentioned would have posts scheduled well in advance, so that should suit people with limited schedules.
@tagpress Great points Kelly!
Regarding fees, I’d like to make it really clear that my intention was not to charge either sellers or buyers but to instead find other ways of monetising the site. Does that make sense? For example, affiliate arrangements, (minimal) Google display ads etc are some possibilities.
As for the Google search, I just tried again out of curiosity and found that with inverted commas Folksy doesn’t appear on the first page, but without it does, which is seemingly why we got different results. After all, Google algorithms aim to provide stable results 
(Oh, and just to be clear, I was trying to say it was a shame that Folksy didn’t appear when I did the initial search.)
Okay that’s fine and thanks for clarifying. At some point you’re still going to need some sort of cash flow if you wanted to make this a big thing, there’s so many marketplaces online if you like and surely you’d want to stand out above the crowd. That being said, you would need some kind of cash flow eventually and as the saying goes, money doesn’t grow on trees. 
You mean that money plant I bought isn’t actually going to grow money?! I’ll definitely have to return that one to the nursery… lol
On a serious note, though, you’ve raised a great point; I would have to really crunch the numbers and have a strong plan in place to make a site like this work. I suppose I was trying to first get a feel for whether this is something the community would be interested in.
I understand totally where you’re coming from but there’s just much more to think about other than our feedback & money must be a high priority as I said, eventually you would need some, i.e: Craft Magzines.
Sellers will want to go where it’s in their best interests for their businesses. And to make them do that you’ll need something spectacular to grab their attention.
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I think it sounds like a good idea. I sell on the other side with E**y and the problem we have here in the UK is the overwehelming competition from the US. It would be great to have a place where we could just promote UK handmade items. Craftjuice is mainly UK based but they promote on Twitter which I personally don’t like as I prefer to look at pictures of things rather than just reams of URL,s and words. I have stopped using a lot of sites such as Wanelo and Bestie because I just don’t have the time to promote and they didn’t lead to sales and I am paying another company to promote my other shop on Twitter. I don’t know how much you know about websites or how complicated it would be to set up but you could charge a minimal fee every time someone clicks on a picture which takes them through to relevant website.Those that don’t have full time jobs probably have time to promote but for us that do have a full time jobs, having a site that helps to promote our shops, even if for a small fee, sounds like a good thing.
How strange, I googled “British handmade crafts” , Folksy was at the top of page 1.
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Were you logged in to Google? If you were, it will know your preferences.
Kim
x
I am personally for the idea, i don’t have a large “business” if you could call it that, but i do buy hand made gifts and do find knowing about the other lesser known craft stores is hard. For instance i didn’t know about folksy until i looked in to selling, and i wish i had done, i can tell you a many more who haven’t either and it is a shame. There is so much talent that just hasn’t been discovered. As for the UK only thing i would say start small but do extend to other countries, although UK is good for us in the UK i think world wide would bring a larger audience and people do buy from aboard! I would maybe give people the option to search or see goods made from certain countries. Maybe at the start limit that to England Scotland and Ireland. You could charge a small fee maybe not massive but say a user subscription, of course i would love free but is it feesable for all your effort? I would be willing to pay maybe a few pounds, nothing massive but it would all add up for you, and might for us too!
I wouldn’t use a paid for when I can use pinterest, google+, facebook, twitter, craftjuice,
There’s also crafttori, instragram and trumblr all are free to use.
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Just to clarify, Folksy DOES appear on the first page of Google for a search for ‘British Handmade Crafts’ if you are signed out (so it doesn’t know your preferences).
It also comes top if you search for ‘handmade jewellery uk’, ‘handmade ceramics uk’ and lots of other searches too @tagpress @talulahblue @KBCreations 
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I believe that Folksy already covers these key areas that you mention:
-providing advice and information to sellers
-helping first time sellers,
-promoting a crafting community
-highlighting and celebrating success of sellers (folksy blog, twitter, e-mail newsletters, facebook)
-encouraging an interactive craft community (forums, folksyhour)
-helping shops improve SEO (folksy actively encourages people to improve their shops as regards SEO and provides articles on such topics)
-provides access to expert advice through folksyhour and the folksy blog
-promoting sellers both through the web and also other media eg magazine articles
This is in addition to providing a stable selling platform for people who wish to sell their crafts online.
And as folksy appears top of the list for Uk handcrafted items and many other key word searches, i am not sure that this can be improved upon.
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I agree with you Sally @SallyandtheFreckles. I absolutely love Folksy and will remain here renewing my plus shop. The Folksy Team are lovely and have the sellers best interests at heart unlike some places, the Best of British springs to mind, deservedly so. x
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hi there-
yes - the Folksy team are always v. helpful and also very knowledgeable about all aspects of selling.
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Thanks Camilla! To reiterate what I previously mentioned, the difference in results turned out to be due to the inclusion or exclusion of inverted commas. 
@SallyandtheFreckles Hi Sally,
You’re absolutely right – there’s no doubt that Folksy does a great job in all of these areas.
In fact, the key question is somewhat different: Would it be beneficial for more outside websites to be pointing back towards Folksy stores so as to increase the number of people visiting?
Handmade wedding fascinators is there on page 1, yay!
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@THElakotaLEGEND Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts Emily – much appreciated! Giving users the option to search by seller location is definitely food for thought.