Lilyshop - Free Online Marketplace | Great Place to Sell Handmade Crafts/Goods

Not too long ago I wrote a hub on a couple of online marketplace where you can sell your wares, almost at no cost to you. Some of those mentioned were etsy, eCrater, Bonanza, and a few others.

Well, there's a new online marketplace out there. Kind of like 'The new kid on the block'. Lilyshop it is called. If you've not heard that name before, it's because Lilyshop was founded just over a year ago, in April of 2010.

Lilyshop is an online marketplace where you can buy and sell handmade goods, vintage items, and crafting supplies.

Located in Calabasas, California, Lilyshop is the brainchild of Jessie Jane. She built this shop as it is her passion to inspire "creativity, passion, and endless curiosity while providing a platform for those who want to share their own creations".

Like all the other online marketplace, to sell on Lilyshop you are required to register. Registeration is free for everyone. Once a registered member, you can then open your store, lists items you're offering for sale, wait for a buyer, and then ship once you make a sale.

• Lilyshop used to offer four different shop levels:
• The Studio shop at $4.95/month
• Boutique Shop at $9.95/month
• Gallery shop, which cost $19.95/month to set up.
• The Emporium Shop. This was the biggest shop level on Lilyshop. At $149.95/month you could list 1000 items. Any additional item listed there after will incur a fee of $0.20 per item.

What's New At Lilyshop

Recently, Lilyshop changed their shop ownership policies. The site is now free. There are no setup fees or monthly fees. No listing fees or re-listing fees. What this mean is, a Lilyshop owner can list all items available for sale without being required to pay an upfront fee for listing those items.

Once an item that's listed is sold, Lilyshop will charge the shop owner a 5% sales fee on the final sales price, which does not include the shipping price charged on the item. If a listed item does not sell, it can be re-listed. The lilyshop owner will not have to pay any fees to re-list such item.

Re-listing fees are usually applied on competing marketplaces like eBay and etsy.

I have owned several ecommerce websites, all of which have either been parked (with a webhost) or put up for sales. I had www dot giftsetmore dot com, clips design dot com, and a few others. The cost (overheads) of owing and financing one's own website can sometimes be too much for small scale entrepreneur like me. even though I still sell, I do it on the platform of a marketplace.

Selling on a marketplace eliminates the cost of hosting one's own website. The time put into managing a website; uploading sales items, tracking sales, and keeping sales and customers records can be demanding. those are things one wouldn't need to worry about when using a marketplace platform for selling. A market place makes it all easy as those responsibilities are taken over for a charged fee.

Selling at a marketplace does have it's bad side. A seller will most of the time be competing with other sellers of same product on the marketplace platform. Finding a niche that is unique, rare, and in demand is therefore the way to go. Less competition puts one in the path of success.

Just thought I'll point out some keypoints on whyLilyshop may be the option for you.

• Lilyshop, unlike all of the other competing marketplace, is a woman owned site.
• Shop owners on Lilyshop have access to their own personal blog which operates under their shop. They also have the ability to customize their storefront with a banner upload.
• Lilyshop also allows shop owners to operate more than one shop if so choose, and there is no limit on how many items can be listed for sale.

If you would like to know more about Lilyshop, go to Lilyshop's web page. You can also follow them on Facebook, and on Twitter.

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Author: Comfort Babatola - © 2013