Over the last five years, there have been many new marketplaces launched. Each of these marketplaces appeal to different types of buyers and sellers. We want to provide supporting information on options available so that you can make the choice that is right for your business. We have this information provided in two formats- the interview below as well as a YouTube interview with a representative from the marketplace. Our interview below is a summary of the information covered in your interview. The month’s interview interview is with Jon Lincoln of goimagine.
See below for answers to all the basics about goimagine, and check out the interview on YouTube for even more gems and nuggets of wisdom as part of our interview.
Here is the interview on our YouTube channel:
Can you share the origin story behind the marketplace?
I’ve been in tech for a long time. I started another technology company about ten years ago. I had the the typical founder experience – we raised money, did fairly well, and I exited the company a few years ago. What I found in growing the other technology company that is that it was all about the money. It was all about the shareholders. And I personally became pretty disenchanted as the founder working so hard, you know, 60, 70, 80 hours a week, only to have the end result be the bottom line of how much you make your shareholders.
I had the idea of building a marketplace that was focused more on social good than it was focused on shareholder returns. That’s why with goimagine, we are heavily philanthropic based. Every transaction that that is bought on goimagine, 2% is now being donated to charity. And so that’s kind of what we’ve adopted so that philanthropy and helping children in need is is part of the fabric of our business.
We really wanted to focus on an aspect that was that everybody can get around. We don’t want to be a company that is ever seen like we’re in any way political or trying to support a cause that people people don’t want to support. Helping children in need is a pretty broad way to help those in the world.Â
If buyers and sellers could come together on a platform that’s focused on the social good, it it then becomes a scalable model that’s infinite given, right? That’s why I was so attracted to the marketplace model is that it’s it’s all about the people. It’s people powered, right? And when people rally around a good cause, a lot of good things can happen.
I wanted to also focus on a marketplace that was only handmade.
What countries/locations/categories are eligible to be sold on your marketplace?
The primary thing is that we are a handmade marketplace and available for US sellers. The the real crux is that it has to be handmade. And many marketplaces have different definitions of what handmade means. Definitely go to our website and check out the handmade guidelines. We do very much believe that handmade means that the maker has to touch the product. So no dropshipping is allowed. No print on demand is not allowed.
We do not allow AI art on the site. And then in terms of categories to your question, it’s all the categories you would expect in terms of jewelry, home and living, bath and beauty. We have food vendors. We have we have you know games, puzzles, clothing. It runs the gamut.
Â
Are you focused on specific niches or is it a general marketplace?
We are a general marketplace selling a wide range of products. We’re open to all aspects of the handmade industry. For us, it’s more about that it’s handmade and who made the product, then what category it falls into.
Can you share more of how the marketplace worked when it first launched, and how it has been evolving?
So we started, and it sounds like you mentioned it maybe to someone else, we actually started with a Facebook group ourselves. This is going back in 2020 before the pandemic. This was in January, so we didn’t even know a pandemic was coming. I started doing more and more research and then started a Facebook group and invited in a lot of the handmade artisans we knew just to start the conversation of what a handmade marketplace would look like if we could start one? Almost like a blank canvas. What are we going to paint for a marketplace? And our group grew and grew. In fact, today the group is vibrant. We’ve got about 12,000 makers and artists in our Facebook group.
Building a tech platform is not without its challenges. I assure everyone, whenever you’re on a technology product, and you encounter a bug, know that on the other end of that is a company somewhere that’s freaking out about that bug. There’s someone else trying to fix it, I assure you. We go through this, like every platform does.Â
I think a lot of sellers are gun shy about joining a new platform. Because why would you join a new one if you don’t know if it’s going to be around in a year? So I think over the past few years, we’ve really had to earn that trust of our customers that we’re in this little long haul, the growth is there, and that we’re seeing seeing a bright future.
Over the years we have continued to launch features to make the platform more engaging. From our regional gift guides to our Maker Challenges, we continue to enhance our platform.
How do your fee structures work?
There are two types of fees- one for the platform and one for transactions. All transaction fees are paid by the seller.
Platform
They start at $2.50 a month, and the top tier is $10 a month. Now, with each tier, you unlock more features.Â
So at $2.50, you get 20 products on the marketplace, which can be sold unlimited times. It’s a little different than the Etsy model where you know every time you sell it, you’ve got to pay. And at $5, you unlock 200 products you can post onto the marketplace.
The top tier at $10 is the Mosaic tier, and that’s the one that comes with your own branded website.Â
Transaction
We take 5% transaction fee. It’s a important to note that we do integrate with Stripe, which is our payment provider. They take their own 2.9%. So you’re talking 7.9% for every transaction on the platform. That’s it. We don’t have any other hidden fees. I mean, that’s that’s kind of broken out pretty straightforward. And if you go to the website, you can certainly go to the membership page and see it broken down.
What do you do to attract both sellers and buyers to your marketplace?
Sellers
For sellers, the reality of a marketplace is that you can’t guarantee people their products will sell or not. It’s sort of that perfect storm of if buyers find it via their searches and the algorithms and you had it correctly coded.Â
We’ve tried to create a place that gives you value even if you don’t receive immediate sales. We do this a few ways- through our Maker Business Academy program and through offering websites with our Mosaic product.
Makers Business Academy is a program we started that was based off offering more education around our to our sellers on how to build your business. And not even necessarily build your business on goimagine, but build your business in general.
The Maker Business Academy, is on our social app called Maker Circle. And it gives people the ability to you know have ongoing education around building your business.
Buyers
The reality for a lot of marketplaces as that they are focused on going global. We are doing the exact opposite. We are going local.
So we’ve actually built in a lot of shop local tools and we have more that we’re releasing soon to make it easier for for buyers to find makers and artists in their own area. We think there’s there’s something to be said about supporting your local economy, supporting your local makers and artists. um We’re USA only, so we’re local already for USA.
But even broken down further, people have the ability to filter by state – if you want to see who in Ohio is selling Bath and Beauty products, or who in Massachusetts is selling jewelry, or selling rings, or whatever you’re looking for. So shop local is one of the things we’re doing to differentiate ourselves from from the masses, so to speak. And then the other, there’s our philanthropic mission, the ability to know that every time you buy something on our marketplace, you’re also helping a child in need.
From your perspective, what makes a good product listing for your site?
I think a lot of people who have great products don’t do as well as products that aren’t as good even because they have invested the time that are that is needed to present the product from a marketing perspective.
Photography is number one. Without without great photography, there’s no way for the buyer to actually really get a good feel for what that product’s quality is.
And then SEO, how do you get found? And SEO is one of those things that are both on platform and off platform. So whether you’re on Etsy or goimagine or any of the other marketplaces that are out there, focusing on how are people going to find your products?Â
Everything that’s on goimagine is automatically fed into Google Shopping. So when you talk about the traffic that gomagine is getting, and people will say, well, goimagine doesn’t have the buyer base. Well, really? Because every product we have is on Google, and Google has the biggest buyer base on the planet, right? And we have we we have sellers that, and I kid you not, we have sellers that have really great SEO and great imagery and they’re getting sales consistently through goimagine because they’re finding them on Google. So you have to think about your SEO for your products, your photography, and your pricing points.
What advice would you give artisans when looking at a marketplace to know if it might be right for them?
I think you have to look inward before you look outward. What is your goal as as an artist in business? What are you trying to achieve? The easy answer is I want sales, right? Do you have a certain amount you’re trying to make? Or is this a full time job or a part time job for you?
And then think about from the time you have to spend on it. If this is a full-time job, maybe you’re gonna say, I wanna choose three to four platforms, I should be on. Part-time job and you also have a full-time job that’s outside of making you might be like I’m just gonna choose one platform. I don’t have time to manage four platforms. What is your capacity to do this and what are you trying to achieve once you figure that out then you can look at these marketplaces more holistically on what do they bring to the table for you.
And then you get into like the basic comparisons. you know What are the transaction fees? What are the costs? All that sort of stuff. I mean, you’re going to do your cost comparisons no matter what. I would just say that marketplaces in general are pretty cheap compared to websites.
How do people get started on your site?
So if you go to our website, goimagine.com, click on become a member and you can choose the plan you want. And then there is an application process where you have to fill out a form explaining who you are, what you sell, things like that, because we have an actual physical human who looks at every application that comes through and decides if it meets our handmade qualifications. So most do. the The nice thing is that I think if you’re not handmade, you probably get scared off pretty quickly to even want to apply.
Â
