Okay, I just had to see what all the fuss was about! I’ve been hearing about ArtFire.com for months now. Basically, ArtFire.com has the same thing going on as Etsy.com as far as a business model. It’s a web site where anyone can join for free and set up a shop for free. All items must be hand-crafted by the seller or be supplies for crafting. They also have a vintage section.

The main differences are the options. If you want to go totally free, then you are limited to 10 items in your shop, but it is, as I said, totally free, no fee for selling or listing. At Etsy, the shop is free, but there’s a fee for listing items and selling items. If you decide to go up a level and have unlimited listings and lots of other options like more images of your pieces that you list, right now it costs $12 a month. Not that long ago it was $7 a month, and supposedly, it will go up to $20 at some point. Why this difference in the pricing, I’m not sure. It’s actually something I think is not cool to do, but I guess they are trying to get people to join. To me, though, it doesn’t seem fair that just because you join early you get a lower price. What about the poor folks who will pay almost three times as much as the early people who join?

I opted to try it for free (no big surprise) and see how it goes, so you can now find me over there too: Crafty Princesss ArtFire Shop. Right now, I only have a few items listed but plan to put up a total of 10 at some point. Like my Etsy shop, I’ll mainly concentrate on selling supplies and components. For example, the lace textured fine silver charm pictured above is over there.

I’ve found it to be similar yet different than Etsy as far as a user experience, if that makes any sense, and it probably doesn’t. However, as I continue to play around over there, I’ll let you know what I think. If you are curious about ArtFire, stop by my store and than surf around over there. I’m curious to hear what others think.