Earlier this month, I attended the goimagine year in review update. During this session, Jon Lincoln provided a recap of 2024. He also shared what we can expect from the team in the coming year. It is delightful to see a company try to be transparent with their sellers. Additionally, it is a great way to glean insights in what is happening in the broader marketplace industry.Â
The current stats
- 7400 Makers
- 33,000 Registered Customers. (Please note that the marketplace also allows guest checkouts. A customer does not have to register in order to shop. Keep in mind this number does not fully represent how many people shopped on the platform due to guest registrations.)
- 61% Year Over Year Gross Marketplace Sales Growth
- 20,604 Facebook Followers
- 10,793 Instagram Followers
- 8.47 M views on Pinterest
Visibility on Pinterest has been a clear way for goimagine to raise its visibility. It is also a win for sellers as they have shoppable pins pushed to Pinterest. Expect to see them increasing investments in interest in the coming year. In the 4th quarter of 2024, goimagine had 5.86 M impressions on Pinterest, and engagement of 195.65 K.
As I have written about in articles for our subscribers, Pinterest is a clear sales channel that cannot be ignored. Pinterest has made substantial infrastructure investments into shopping. Their investments in tech have led them to a place where they know the shopper will buy long before you do.
Now that we have recapped last year, what can we expect to see coming this year?
What's coming in 2025
There were several big announcements made- here are three I found noteworthy:
New Membership Plans
This was probably the largest announcement- a new free tier is being added to goimagine. This plan will have a higher transaction cost. Up to 12 products can be listed as part of the free tier, with a 6.5% transaction fee. Please go here to all the new details about the plans.
Additionally, the Mosaic plan pricing is being recalibrated. Mosaic is goimagine’s website product where you can build your own website in addition to being on the marketplace. The underlying thought process was incentivizing sales regardless of whether they are through the marketplace or the individual websites built on Mosaic. How will they do this?
First, the rate of the plan is increasing. However, the transaction fees are declining. The new fees are 2% on the marketplace and 0% through a Mosaic site. Individual businesses will have to run their own calculations to understand the impact. To be fair, there is an ongoing tension for all marketplaces in pricing. A company has to ensure enough is being charged to cover the infrastructure costs. This is balanced with trying to limit transaction costs that affect product profitability for artisans. It’s a delicate balance. You can see their current membership tiers here.
Expanded payment options
It’s no secret that mobile payments continue to rise. More and more retailers offer them, and they are being embedded inthe fabric of how we pay. Apply Pay, Google Pay, and Pay-by-Link are all being added as additional payment types on the platform. These will roll out in the coming months.
A new community forum
As the company grows, it is also time to transition their forums. The company had their own community through something called Maker Circle. This has migrated to forums. Forums will be moving to a more robust infrastructure. This will also be easier to integrate to Google for search. In the long run, a project like this will mean that it easier to find answers to questions as new search tools are now available. There will likely be some growing pains as it gets migrated over.
Finally, the Maker Business Academy Program (MBA) will also be moving, as it was part of Maker Circle. It is free, and we will share more on when this is available in its new hosting home.
Our take on what we heard
We have long been fans of marketplaces, believing they are a vital component for sales for many artisan businesses. Our goal has been to be a place where we share what has been happening with marketplaces, and how they are developing and evolving. It’s why we started making the Marketplace Report, and it is why we stay in touch with marketplaces to monitor how they continue to evolve.
Goimagine has worked closely with us since we re-launched the magazine two years ago. They have continued to steadily execute on their strategy of building a company for the long term. Marketplaces pose very interesting and unique challenges, and they are just plain hard to do well. Goimagine continues to make steady progress on balancing buyer and seller growth. Things like the Mosaic product also provide an alternative to Shopify for many artisan businesses, and do it at a price point that is affordable. They also create a stable revenue base to ensure the marketplace will be able to remain viable.Â
Growth also forces change, which may make some people uncomfortable. Expect that they will need to continue to evolve as they grow as a marketplace. There will be growing pains associated with that. I also want to give credit to goimagine for trying to be transparent about where they are at as a marketplace. Choosing to go live, share a lot of information, and deal with ongoing commentary from those watching is about as brave as it gets, and I want to make sure I acknowledge this.Â
I look forward to share more from this marketplace as they continue their steady rollout of new features to help the Handmade community! If you want to learn more about goimagine and their backstory, go here to the Marketplace report Interview from last year with Jon. Just note the conversation about fees is now out of date with the new pricing tiers. But their story remains the same.Â
I will also update this article once the year in review video is available online from goimagine- it wasn’t yet posted at the time of this article.
