Tictail's Merger with Shopify

[LovesVintage43]

Hi everyone, just wanted to get people's thoughts on this... is this really a "merger" or is Tictail just closing down completely? Is everybody going to go ahead and set up shop on Shopify? Has anyone here had any experience using Shopify for a website or Facebook store? I am really unsure on what to do x All views and advice welcome :-) Thanks peeps- NB: This post is public

[QuiltPolice]

Hi Selena

I left Tictail, when they started their in-house payment.
From some other people on Tictail, I am hearing that they can't afford the new pricing that will be from Shopify and looking for a new site to move to.

Hopefully, some others will check in.

[LovesVintage43]

Yes I had looked into Shopify in the past and decided that the cost was risky for me, as I don't have a budget behind me for advertising etc I suppose it would work in the same way as Tictail that you have to drive your own traffic there? x

[TwiLdCapitHog]

Hi Selina,
I too put my shop on vacation when the new payments were introduced.
I launched my Shopify site at the end of October. It’s still a work in progress! I know it takes time to get established on search engines and I use virtually no social media, so it’s a little early to comment on the decision. :0)

[BohemianMoonDesign]

I won't be going to Shopify unless they get 'better' free templates, better, (easier) Category and Subcategory functions, and templates that ALREADY have the coding for a good functional site. Yes you get an hour of free geru time but when that runs out you have to pay their geru techs to get basic coding done that should already be on those templates. I understand that that is how they are able to give all the free lance coders work, but for such a big site they need to upgrade their web building system.... been there and done that. Wish that they would pick up Tictail's fabulous templates and back panel since they are buying them out! And as far as traffic and their SEO I prefer other sites Indiemade has good SEO as does Supadupa.me which I use for one of my websites. That site brings in traffic and views and cost the same basically as shopify. I had a coder go into supa and copy some of the coding (back when I was on shopify) for the boxes and spacing and look of Supadupa,:) - for my site I had on Shopify lol! I talked to TT and suggested they they pick up some of Tictails templates (and coding) oh that would be FAB, then I might....Sorry to see them go.

[LovesVintage43]

So from what you are all saying it's not sounding too appealing to me, cranky to set up and expensive and have to drive my own traffic. Moving forward I am wondering whether to continue with Etsy & Amazon Handmade, and try to build on my sales via Facebook and Instagram rather than go through the whole hassle of setting up another website from scratch, am in a real quandary here :/

[BohemianMoonDesign]

It's a quandary for sure, I hear you Selena...How many products do you need to run?

I am playing a tiny bit with Wix. They have a lot of 1/2 odd offers /sales if can pay by the year and it isn't near as expensive as Shopify.
Wix Prices & Premium plans - Which one should I choose?
https://www.websitetooltester.com/en/reviews/wix-review/prices/
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Read this page, fast and easy... sounds good https://www.indiemade.com/pricing
The other I am looking at is indiemade, they have a 30 day trial free...
What Search Engine Optimization (SEO) features does IndieMade have?
(Your IndieMade site takes care of many traditional SEO tasks automatically for you. It creates search-engine-friendly URLs, structures your HTML pages properly, generates canonical tags, submits nightly a list of your pages to Google and Bing, and so on. It also automatically creates meta keywords and meta descriptions from the content you've added, and it generates FaceBook's open graph tags as well.)

As site owner you also have control over meta keywords, descriptions, and <title> tag if you want to go that far -- but many of our customers just use the defaults.

this is cool switch Templates easily to see what you like:)
Can I change the way my site looks?
Yes. We provide you with a number of high-quality themes for your website, and you can switch between them whenever you like. You can upload your logo or banner, pick a color scheme, select from a variety of fonts, and so on.

(Start with pro:) -- are you on the pro or plus tier? If so, you can "link" these products to your Etsy store. Read this handbook page for more info.

you can start bottom tier to build (100 products I think, don't quite me and then upgrade to 19. I have 2 friends that have "beautiful sites there.
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Anyone with experience with either please chime in!!!

[LovesVintage43]

Thank you very much for the information and the links Silver Moon, I am going to go through it all with Mr.LovesVintage, he is the techie and will be able to figure out what's what! I have had a mix of handmade, vintage & new on my Tictail site which meant I could carry more varied stock than I can here. I suppose my usual stock numbers are between the 150-200 mark, I used to have more vintage but lean times have left me unable to invest in as much as usual so my handmade items have been carrying the business mainly over the past year. Currently around 107 items here. x I would like to keep my domain name if possible so that will probably push the monthly price up on a new site ...

[BohemianMoonDesign]

Nice you have a techie other,:)!
Both wix and indiemade you can use your domain at no extra cost I believe. good luck! Please share your findings here as it may help other teamies decide a viable option.

Indiemade is quite beautiful. I like that you can have as many pages as you want, links to where ever you want, sell what you want, and their seo sounds so good....you could start with the low tier 100 products ( doing a 30 day trial - free). Standard $12.95/100 products, PRO $14.95/200 products, PLUS $19.95/300 products - (yearly rates are less)
[Looking for more than 300 products? No problem! Signup for a Plus plan and contact support. We will be happy to increase your limits].
I want to be able to grow so that is great!

With the Pro and Plus upgrade comes *product attributes and
*[Etsy Connect]
Push product listings to Etsy.com with a single click. Sell something and your inventory is adjusted automatically.

I have a lot of products I don't need attributes for and thought well, one could even start with the 100 tier and then upgrade, (though I would probably start with Pro so I could see how everything functions).

My friends assure me they have good attribute functions, they also have Etsy shops....I will share my teammates sites in another post,:) Have to go right now...

[BohemianMoonDesign]

Here are my friends links I promised:

www.SilverandEarth.com
She has over 300 products, she asked for more and they increased her to 500 and told her if she needed more to just ask,:)

www.barefootmaiden.com

[TwiLdCapitHog]

Thank you Ruthie for posting the links to your friends shops. They do look very nice! I did contemplate Indiemade, but I'm sticking with Shopify for the time being.

https://twildcapithog.co.uk/

[BohemianMoonDesign]

Hi Julie;) I like it too, for a smaller store for sure! Handmade 600 items and under I think it is a good one. Glad shopify is working for you! ♥

Mostly want a place where I can keep expanding, and my first priority is a supply shop so I think I am sticking with Wix.

I stayed up till 6:00 in the morning playing around with it! This time I used their wix ADI to set me up (and made 2 copies of the temples to mess around with.
You know what was good about that was a better understanding of the editors as it walks you through all the options available, it helped me to see how to use the site more easily...and you can later switch to the other Editor for advanced stuff, even coding.... but you can't switch back to the ADI so I am milking all the knowledge I can get before I do.

Its pretty cool. I have about 8 different templates going and having fun playing and learning! I found that I could do as many pages as I want and do links to anywhere. Even link to Tictail for their cart that I already have set up so I may go live with one shop even before being ready for full launch... will see. I am thinking I can really do some linkage from my blog and other sites - good for SEO. I feel inspired again...

I was feeling pretty burnt out what with all these constant ch ch changes. on Etsy, my experiences with Shopify, and then TT changes and closure!!

[LovesVintage43]

Hi @TwiLdCapitHog  how is shopify going, you have been there a couple of months now? how is the traffic and sales? 

[BohemianMoonDesign]

Wow Julie! Love love your "Wizard Smoking Cap, Gothic Style Black Tassel Pillbox Hat with Applique Stars" Your site is Looking good!!!!

[TwiLdCapitHog]

Thank you so much Ruthie! Really appreciate you taking a look at my website and the feedback. I haven't really added to it over the holidays, but will continue building on it now. So much to do!!

[SeaBreezeUK]

Hi all! I'm about to go and close my Etsy account - it's been a long time coming! But first I wanted to stop by and wish you all the very best. I hope that you find good solutions for selling. (I can still be found at my blog: annmackay.blog - still haven't set up my FAA shop but am doing some industrial photography for the next few weeks...)

I don't know if I've already mentioned this site:  https://foltboltshop.com/  It is a beautiful-looking handmade selling site that deserves to be beter known and might be worth a look. If I start selling small arty items again, I'll probably set up there.

I used to enjoy the community on Etsy and will miss the original forums and teams. Without it, I really don't want to stay - it feels sad!

Good luck everyone! Best wishes to you all, Ann.

[ManicManx]

Foltbolt looks beautiful. I might give it a try. 

[ManicManx]

Storenvy has a beautiful new theme called Cooper. I loaded that up and my icky storenvy site suddenly became beautiful. I deletet my tictail shop and am moving on. 
https://kristismart.storenvy.com/

[LovesVintage43]

Hi! Good luck in your store- Is Storenvy similar to Tictail in how it works? I can't find info on the site for what the fees are, can you elaborate at all? x

[LovesVintage43]

Hi @ManicManx  I looked Storenvy up on the web and it has some terrible reviews, a lot of people have been saying that is's a scam front for overseas stores who will never send your goods. How have you found it being on there, are you getting traffic and sales ? Is the whole idea of it with the "envying" working to help your items get seen by a larger audience ? 

[ManicManx]

Im sure there are scammy people on storenvy the same way there are scammy people on etsy or any other selling platform. 
The way storenvy works is that you have the option of having two shops. One is called your marketplace shop. What that means is that it is visible on their website and in their search engine. Its a lot like etsy. If someone uses their search engine and you have clicked the option of being visible on their site, then they will take 10% of your sales since they generated that sale for you. You do not have to click the option of having your shop visible on their market place.  I only just clicked that option and dont have anything to report about it. 
When you dont click that option, your site is seen as your stand alone shop. You have to drive your customers to it. All your sales are yours and I believe they take a low percentage of the sales. I think 3% but dont quote me on that. 
The sales I have gotten are because my personal website is linked to my storenvy shop through my "Shop Here" button. I am now driving my customers to it. 
I had my link directed to my tictail shop but had to stop that. Their policiy of shutting down any shop that didnt log into their dashboard every days was harmful to my sales.  My sales are low but they can be high ticket items.
Tictail shut down my shop at the moment my customer was trying to purchase an item for $1,050.  When she went to buy the item from my tictail shop,  they had just shut it down on day 30 and she found the item in my storenvy shop on day 31 She  purchased it from there. I was really happy with the low commision fees. 
One thing storenvy does that i do not like is they charge our customers a sales $1 fee for I dont know what. Its really annoying and a surprise to the customer. If somoene is buying a $300 coat its not too much of an issue. If they are buying a $5 pair of earrings, it can break the sale. Im hoping they change their policy on that. 
So here are some links. 
https://support.storenvy.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2174447-what-fees-does-storenvy-charge-merc...

[ManicManx]

https://www.storenvy.com/open-a-store

[BohemianMoonDesign]

Well I recently heard some new things about Zibbit - that may be another community option.

Zibbet offering a Community store, Website, and going Multi channel, that's amazing for the

price they are offering.

[QuiltPolice]

I received an email from Zibbit about the stores.

I took a quick look and it looks like it's for Crafts/Handmade and Antiques for ? $5/month ?

I would think about it if they would include the "kitchen sink".  (Since I sell clothing, knick knacks, collectibles, crafts, handmade and such.)

[BohemianMoonDesign]

I think you can put whatever on your website space there, Quilt !♥ 4.00 per channel... so with both 8.00