Fandom Seller Directory Answers!
FWIW, guys, I started building the poll. It should be live in a day or two. It’ll be mostly self-sustaining but I’ll try to format it for readability as I can. And I’ll recc it out on Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and perhaps the first week in December.
cathain852 replied to your post “Fandom Gift Shop Directory”
if they are fandom related goods, a list of available fandoms would be helpful
Ooh, good one, added!
wingedspirit replied to your post “Fandom Gift Shop Directory”
Also, as a buyer, I would like to know where they're located, both for the sake of expedient shipping (getting something within a few days if they're in the same country as I am, vs having to wait ages for it to come from overseas) and for the sake of avoiding "this is expensive, shipping will cost an arm and a leg, and then I'll have to pay customs charges on top of that".
Yeah, this seems pretty doable, at least in a “Where are you, do you ship outside your country” sense. Any more detail than that gets into a bit nitty gritty area, and is something that I think is better asked once you know you’re interested in their goods.
voyageboots replied to your post “Fandom Gift Shop Directory”
If its a very large registry, some basic categories people could opt into would be helpful for sorting the sheet. Like crochet/knit goods, bags, jewerly, clothes, resin, etc. Also maybe price range like how google I can sort $ $$ $$$? Seconding the request for a binary yes/no custom orders column
The binary yes/no custom orders column is in, plus a “how to contact for commissions” question right after. I thought about putting the “what do you make” in categories, but I think at that point it starts to pigeonhole people too much, and the spreadsheet starts to get really ugly. I think people can probably word-search or scroll if there’s something super specific they’re looking for.
Price range I tried to add, but it’s just...that’s such a subjective thing, what’s low price versus high price. I figure that’s some research people can do on their own a bit -- at least with the directory they can go back to it if they check someone’s prices and it’s too high for their budget.
akela-nakamura replied to your post “Fandom Gift Shop Directory”
As a buyer I would want to know if they accept commissions/customization (Within reason, of course), and if they have a different form of contact for said commissions.
The second part I hadn’t thought of at first, good call.
kagekanecavi
As a buyer I’d like to know the latest time I can order something for it to get to me in time for Christmas. I know people who, for example, use places like redbubble to make prints, mugs, shirts, et cetera for them would need to just direct you to the site’s policy, but there are some creators (like from Etsy) who might have individual policies
I thought about this, but I’m inclined to leave it out just because it’s something most people post in their shops anyway, and I don’t like to have a column that gives a deadline like that, especially since it tends to give people a sense that they have more time than they do, and then the artist gets crunched. I think, kind of like price range, this is something the consumer can better check for themselves. Good idea though, definitely something I seriously considered.
