Whatchamacallit

I've been happily reading Seth Goodin's blog — he mentions a couple of sites that would have been a HUGE help with choosing a name had I known about them back when I was starting LTD Beads.

Wordoid uses your word to find others that "sound natural, almost natural" or "hardly natural." It works in English, Spanish, French, Italian and German and provides domain availability, too.

With Nameboy, you can start with two keywords, plus opt for results that rhyme or have hyphens. There's immediate domain availability information here, too.

Why eCrater?

As you can see from the links in the next column, I have stores at Artfire, Bonanzle, Etsy, and eCrater. I even have my own website. But the one that I promote the most is the eCrater store. Here's why:

Originally I struggled to get my own website up and running. It was an incredible, huge hassle. Updating the site remains a hassle. While I was developing my website, I put a few of my items up on Etsy. I posted fewer than a dozen items, and had only one sale.

Lately, I've checked for other options, and am pleased to find several. I'm trying Artfire, Bonanzle, and eCrater as well as Etsy. eCrater is the cheapest. No fees to eCrater at all, only to your credit card processor if you use one.

I'm trying to make a fair comparison though. It's not just about cost — it's about what you sell. Well, actually, it's about profit. Costs are straightforward, but will I sell many more items on a site devoted to handmade? So what I want to do is post the same items in all of the stores. I started with eCrater. I like free, I like their community, and I like that their forums are very tightly moderated. Now I'm finding that posting on eCrater is a lot faster than the other sites. At this point I've got lots more posted on eCrater – so that's where I aim my promotions. Wonder if I'll ever achieve that fair comparison.

MORE ON eCRATER
I just found another blog, Creative Web Promotions, with an article about eCrater and lots of other good marketing ideas.

Survey Results: Merchants Rate Online Marketplaces

Ina Steiner of AuctionBytes.com has compiled the fascinating results of her survey comparing merchant ratings of 15 ecommerce marketplaces. See it at: AuctionBytes

Marketing

Amazing how busy one can be just sitting in front of the computer! I really want to get the word out about LTD Beads, so now I've got a presence on Twitter and Facebook. (You can access Facebook quickly using the button in the right column.) Along the way, I've found forums/rings specific to crafting, or jewelry, or marketing, and I've joined them, too. I've researched other blogs, aiming to improve the content here. So although I've barely moved my body in days, my brain is exhausted from the workout.