ArtFire Handmade Marketplace – Interview with the Founder!

I recently had the great pleasure of interviewing John Jacobs, the founder of ArtFire, an online marketplace for buying and selling art, crafts and all sorts of handmade goods.

I was familiar with the site before this interview, but I hadn’t spent very much time exploring it. I’d spent some time on ArtFire’s sister site, Handmade News, and I really like that site, and as I explore more of ArtFire, I find myself liking it more and more! I really love how accessible John and his staff are, in case you have any questions or concerns about the site. They definitely love any feedback that you might have! I was pleased to hear John’s story on how ArtFire got its start and what the future holds.

What makes ArtFire different from other online handmade marketplaces? The biggest difference is that we put our members first.  Everything we do is aimed at supporting artisans and independent, indie, cottage, and micro business owners.  We do not charge transaction fees, i.e. no listing/insertion fees, no final valuation fees, no hidden fees.  In fact, if you choose to sell with a basic account you can do so for life without ever paying ArtFire a single dime. . . ever.   We have also pioneered a process we call Community Directed Development (CDD) which is a method we use to allow our community members to guide the development of new features and functionality, governance and policy on our site.

We have a culture of customer service that puts our company leaders on the front line, in fact you can follow me on Twitter (@ArtFireJohn) and ask me questions directly if you’re having problems.  We are also 100% committed to artisan success regardless of what venue they are selling on; if you have an account on ArtFire we encourage you to link out to your other selling venues and online presences and even give you the tools to do so with features like ArtFire’s “Market Hub”.

We are very community oriented, we do not censor our community members in any way, when we are at fault we admit it and work with our community to correct problems and implement procedures to handle similar problems in the future.   We do not ban, block or mute ArtFire members arbitrarily and we believe strongly in “fair process”.  ArtFire is committed to creating innovative tools like “Rapid Cart”, which allows members to sell ArtFire items right on their third party blogs like blogger.com or any site that allows Flash applications.  We also focus on providing the most customizable and powerful tools for our members that maximize their promotion efforts for the lowest flat fee price (or FREE for basic sellers) we possibly can.

Geek Soap by LuxuryLane on ArtFire

What inspired you to create ArtFire? I grew up in a very artistic family.  My mom is a jewelry designer and serial crafter.  I spent my childhood crafting and working on artistic projects and helping out with the family jewelry supply business that my mother and father ran.  For many years my parents traveled around the U.S. going to HIA, now CHA, Intergem, G&LW and G.L.D.A. shows trying to sell handmade jewelry.  I learned the true meaning of a starving artist watching my parents struggle to make a living this way and rarely making any profit at all.  In 1999 the family business moved off the road and transitioned on to eBay.  For the first time in my parents’ business, profit and payment for their work seemed attainable.  So after I got out of the military (Air Force) I started several companies, one of which was a “crafting” supply business that sold through online websites and venues to continue the family tradition.

My wife and I started Foxyfindings.com and became triple titanium power sellers on EBay within several years and along the way learned some very important lessons about how to choose a marketplace and just what can happen when a marketplace or sales venue starts serving shareholders first and opts for profits over service to customers.  My true inspiration for starting ArtFire was watching how Ebay treated my customers who were selling the jewelry they made with my supplies.  I was tired of the arbitrary ways that Ebay and other venues handled their customers, not respecting them as business partners.  There seemed to be a “tax” on creativity with listing and final valuation fees.  I really thought that there should be a better option, a venue that recognized its sellers as partners.   I started ArtFire because, as a seller myself, I couldn’t find a venue that truly understood that the roll of a venue is to SERVE its members.

Steampunk mini tutu skirt by SistersOftheMoon on ArtFire

How do the featured images on the front page get picked? Right now the items on the front page are the most recently listed items for sale on the site.  This gives everyone an equal chance to be on the front page.  As the site grows we may look at different methods for populating the items on the home page but we are not interested in any kind of “staff picks” method that breeds feelings of mistrust due to favoritism; if we use a different method it would be a combination of user selected, featured guilds, contest winners, and search algorithms.

Set of 3 Aromatic Lavender Sachets by BlackIceDesigns on Artfire

How often do you purchase things from Artfire, for yourself or as gifts? What’s your favorite Artfire purchase that you’ve personally made? I’m very committed to the handmade movement, I often find myself buying off of ArtFire several times a week, or if a member is running a sale that pops up on Twitter, I make a point to stop in their studio and say hello.  I try to do all of my gift shopping on ArtFire because a handmade gift is much more personal and unique than anything I can find in a store.  It’s really hard for me to pick just one purchase that was my favorite, I have handmade soap all over the house; my wife loves the candles we find on ArtFire; and I my 3 year old daughter loves the handmade pink scarf that we found for her on ArtFire.  I also now buy all our company greeting and occasion cards from ArtFire.  When we hear of a member falling on tough times we will usually pass on one of these very personal handmade cards from an ArtFire artisan signed by all our staff to help brighten their day.

Elfkin Dog Hat by SpoiledBratzwear on ArtFire

What are your plans for the future of ArtFire? We plan to be the unparalleled best place to list and sell your creative work on the internet, period.  ArtFire will also be a model of community self governance, online freedom and true value of a business partnership that breaks the eBay model of fees and control that other venues still use.  We hope to impact artisans, communities, families and government in positive ways by modeling how new technologies can be used to maximize freedoms and control in business.

I have committed my team to “Innovate to our level of discomfort.”  We’ve already rolled out many industry-first tools and policies and we don’t see that stopping anywhere in the near future.  Our community gives us great feedback about what they want and we use those ideas to create new tools and functionality.  We are looking forward to introducing a culture of creativity to a new generation and getting them involved in the handmade movement.  We will bring the best new tools, concepts, functions and policies to the Artisan community before other venues and with full tech and customer service support.  No one on my team can hide from the customers.  I require all of us to be on Twitter, in the forums, answering emails and phones.  We will set the standard of responsibility to the customer that all other venues will have to follow in order to compete in the future of online marketplaces.   That is a tall order.  But my mom didn’t teach me to think small or aim low.

Tagged as: artists, craft, indie