OK, you run a home business of making crafts. You have a good marketplace to sell your crafts (eBay.com), probably you have a site of your own to promote your products. But now and then you think of new business ideas, you wonder: how to expand your crafts business? Are there any new opportunities to market your business our there?

I would draw your attention to Etsy.com service – Your place to buy and sell all things handmade. Site started back in 2005, but it has gained a considerable visibility and reputation within this short period of time.

I like their ‘About Etsy’ section – it is short, but informative:

What: Etsy is an online marketplace for buying and selling all things handmade. Etsy lets you shop by color, place, time and material.

Where: Rob is in Brooklyn, Jared is in Albuquerque, Haim is in Jersey City and Chris is in Philadelphia.

When: After several months of planning and building, Etsy was launched on June 18, 2005.

Why: There are lots of new ideas and technologies opening up new ways to shop online. The big corporate sites like eBay and Amazon seem to be content with a text-only advanced search. We’re here to show the range of possibilities, and just what’s possible.

Well, I am primarily interested in the process of selling at Etsy.com, so I will explore how it works for sellers. In fact, the entire system works much like eBay.com, so those who know the mechanism of eBay will grasp Etsy basics within a few minutes. Just a few facts that are of interest to potential sellers:

Selling an Item & Shipping

Etsy is a venue for you to list your items and for buyers to find them. We do not handle any part of the transaction between you and a buyer. We do, however, facilitate arranging for payment, letting you choose what payment methods you accept, and even handing the transaction off to PayPal® for you. In this sense, we handle this process much like eBay® does.

Once you sell an item, it is the buyer’s responsibility to pay you, and your responsibility to ship the item as described. Etsy does not offer any fulfillment services for shipping.

We recommend that you determine an item’s shipping cost before listing it. This way the final sale price may be paid promptly after purchase. Sites like www.ups.com, www.fedex.com and www.usps.com all offer handy online shipping calculators.

Feedback

We have a simple feedback system for buyers and sellers to rate each other’s quality of service (positive, neutral and negative, and textual feedback). After you sell an item, we’d appreciate it if you took the time to review your buyers.

Fees and Billing

It costs $0.10 per quantity to list an item on Etsy, regardless of the selling price. When you sell an item, there is a flat 3.5% commission fee assessed by Etsy.

And a few more questions that are important to sellers:

I’m in Canada, or the UK, or anywhere else in the world besides the US, can I sell on Etsy?
Yep, as long as you’ve got a valid credit card you can sign up. We’ve got a bunch of non-US sellers in places like Singapore, Australia, the UK and Canada. We’re working on making Etsy an even better international marketplace.

What items can I sell on Etsy?
You can sell anything that is handmade or, a bit more loosely put, hand-assembled or hand-altered. For example, screen-printed shirts are OK. A custom-built computer is OK, as long as you’re making the case and not buying prefab. Furniture is OK as long as it’s nothing mass-produced (yes, you can use power tools to build it). If human hands put some love into the object, odds are you can sell it on Etsy. Please note: we do allow some non-handmade items in the Supplies & Vintage categories.

What items can’t I sell on Etsy?
Anything that is mass-produced or a knock-off. Yes, some of that stuff may be made by hand, but it’s not made in the right spirit. Such items will be unlisted by Etsy admins and listed fees refunded.

You can sign up for free here

Welcome to the international niche focused marketplace to sell your crafts!

[tags]home business, work from home, sell crafts, craft business, etsy, paypal, ebay[/tags]

I know freelance job is great when you have work to do. You have regular and happy customers that recommend your services to others or you know the market and can easily get them. Freelance job is great when you know that you will not look for the ways to borrow funds to pay your bills tomorrow.

Freelance style of life: you are under pressure, all the time. It is not for everyone. Some can stand this pressure, others quit and go back to regular 9-5 office hours. It is a fight that we should win.

Persons of miscellaneous professions try freelance way of life looking for one thing – freedom. We spend much time of our life at the job and it is a great idea to be free at work. Here are the stories of:

- freelance artist. I like this comparison: who decided to jump out of the plane of life without a parachute.

- freelance UK web designer. In the short guide the guy describes the ways (company sites, cold calling, design sites, magazines, recruitment sites and agencies – see the links below) that should help web designers and developers to find projects in their industry. He also lists the links that might be useful for your search.

Useful web design job links:

Design sites:
Newstoday

37signals

Magazines:
Creative Review

Design Week

Recruitment sites:
Chinwag

the Freelance Forum

Mad.co.uk

A few more resources I recommend to check if you need a freelance job:

www.freelanceworkexchange.com (aff)

www.elance.com (aff)

[tags]freelance work, freelance designer, freelance artist, freelance tips, freelance websites[/tags]

People looking for a telecommute position should be aware that the completion for this sort of jobs is much higher than for normal office position. The recruiter have a choice from the pool of jobseekers located anywhere in the country or even in the world. On the other hand, the decision of the employer (who seeks a telecommuter) is based on resume alone. The conclusions:

Your resume should somehow stand out from others. As stated by a telecommute recruiter within 3-4 days he gets about 2000 resume for each project he posts. Can you imagine the level of competition?

How to make a great resume?

- You should list all your skills, experience (preferably related to your prior telecommute job) and education achievements.

- Scan samples of professional resumes available on the Internet: make notes to implement all little discoveries and steps in your resume later.

- Put yourself in the shoes of telecommute recruiter: each his step from the moment he opens his e-mail box with over 2000 resumes delivered for the last three days.

- Experiment: do not leave your resume unedited for months.

Your resume represents you; it replaces your face-to-face interview with the recruiter. It should be perfect: grammar, spelling, readability. The recruiter is likely to make the final decision based on small details: most jobseeker’s resumes will meet the basic requirements for the position.

They might call you, but it is not always the case. Imagine: scrutinize hundreds of resumes and then call even 8-10 persons from the list – it takes a lot of time and energy (of course, it depends on the position open).

Summary
Telecommuting jobs provide a lot of benefits. This fact accounts for a very high level of competition among jobseekers. Your resume (added to your education, skills and experience) plays the significant role in job hunting process – make it perfect.

[tags]telecommute, telecommuting jobs, telecommute recruiters, legitimate telecommute jobs, data entry telecommute, telecommute employment, bilingual telecommute [/tags]