It's crunch time!

As I don't have anything off the top of my head that I'd like to rant about, talk about, etc. as I'm in the middle of a crunch time and quite possibly frogging one of the jackets (again!)  so a copy and paste from my notes on Jade Rose Zen on Facebook will just have to suffice.

"Hey everyone, wanted to give y'all a heads up.

The last day of this year that I'm willing to accept to orders for the Holiday seasons is November 16th.  There will be NO MORE ORDERS ACCEPTED AFTER THAT DATE FOR THIS YEAR.  

I'm establishing this policy because I got rushed with orders last year at the last minute and I ended up being late with a few of them.  I don't like being late, I don't like being surprised with stuff at the last minute which I'm sure you don't enjoy either.  

If you are interested in something for Christmas, start telling me now!!!!!

It takes some serious time to get everything made, because I'm working designs and ordering yarn many times for your orders.  

I've already one order that I managed to convince to let me start on it back in June (And boy am I glad they agreed!!!).   

So if you are interested in buying from for this coming winter gift giving season, LET ME KNOW NOW!  

It's okay if you are on budget, and need to put the money back, but please remember I do have a PayPal now and we can work payments if you need to.

This year (after including other current orders) I have room to start designing and settling on yarn:

• 1 Doctor Who scarf.  Full sized, or reduced, this one is the good yarn that is incredibly close to color but a bit more expensive.  Please see the Note, Product list, for pricing.
• 2 twin sized afghans
• 1 coat (I only have time left to work one right now, this might change, I'll update this note if I can take more orders)
• 12 Ma Cobb hats
• 6 dolls
• 12 baby afghans and hats
• 6 shawls
• Tote and Messenger bags - 4, Purses, sized neck to small - 10

I do not have room to take orders on the following:

• full, queen, King sized afghans

 Thank you kindly for being one of my clients, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you!"

You can still find me on Etsy - Jade Rose Zen until December 14th.  That's the last day I can ship things and (hopefully) still get them to folks on time.  After that I'm not having an open shop on Etsy.  I won't be uploading anything new there.

Now on Zibbet- Jade Rose Zen I am open there now, and will be for hopefully several years.  There is new inventory up there and will continue to uploaded through out the season.  On November 16th, the custom order option will be coming down until January 14th.  Between December 14th and January 14th... I'm taking a VACATION!

Has the search concluded?

By the Lady of Avalon, that took a while to find a new home.

But I think I have found it.

A site called Zibbet.

It took a while to get to going as I was going through the other sites.  I had been listing a test product on each of the sites, and the results on a couple of them were dismal to say the least.

However Zibbet... oh boy oh boy oh boy!

Pros:

1.  Does NOT take a portion of your sales.  NOPE, NONE, ZILCH! 
2. No listing fees.
3. Print receipts and export your transactions to offline sites.
4. You can make gift certificates specific to your store.
5. They can import your Etsy's listings over to Zibbet, and it's free to do so.

Cons:

1. The system they use is PayPal.  At this point though, I'm willing to forgive for that.

They around four different packages.

The Free Package has:

• No listing fees
• No transaction fees
• Sell up to ten items
• 1 picture per item
• Marketplace exposure.

Four dollars a month gets you the above plus:

• Up to 50 items
• 4 images per item
• More exposure on the marketplace
• Basic shop stats
• And a badge.  (I guess they're the same as like widgets or hot links???)

Then the Eight dollars a month gets the last two packages PLUS:

• Unlimited Items
• 8 images per item
• The most marketplace exposure
• Advanced shop stats
• Create coupons, gift certificates
• Discount feature

They have four main categories:

1. Handmade
2. Fine Arts
3. Vintage (20 years min)
4. Craft Supplies.

You can down or upgrade your shop package at any time.  Cancel, no-questions asked.

Has Jade Rose Zen made the move over to Zibbet?  Not fully yet.  December 14th of ths year will be my last day on Etsy.  After that, it'll be Zibbit, along with Storenvy and either I'll get it figured out how to do a storefront on Blogger or will be building a new website.

Storenvy update:
Now I mentioned in the last article that Storenvy had an option to integrate with your facebook page so that folks could go through Facebook and buy from you (no fee for using the facebook app).  HOWEVER, you have to pay five dollars a month to Storenvy for the subdomain through them...and THEN on top of that, pay whatever domain hoster you want to use for the domain name.    That was a major let down.

aftcra update:
One of the reasons I was having problems with their site was because they were updating to a brand site, with improved security, etc.  I do not have any more updates about them as of yet.

The Search for a New shop home continues....

So today I'm looking over the site known as Storenvy.

Now I had gone and checked out StorEnvy before, but it was as a passing thing, as I was still enjoying decent sales on Etsy. (PTUI!)

So joining all of these sites is free... it's just when you start wanting to list stuff that the details get... hinky.  So here we go into Storenvy!

Right off the bat with Storenvy, one of the first things you see is that there is a notice basically telling you can mark your shop open or closed.  (Hello editing listings just made easier!)

Pros:

1. You can export your orders from your shop to an offline source.
2. Creating a sale listing - choosing a category is much easier than on Etsy. You can tag a listing as on-sale or as a pre-order. On the tags though, you only get 55 characters. 
3. Uploading images: The limit is 5 here, and the size limit is 3 MB.  Instead that annoying this many pixels by this many pixels.
4. There's even a coming soon feature under listing creation.
5. You can customize your shops look more easily instead of the blanket everyone looks the same look of Etsy.
6. You link back to up to six other sites that you own or work off of under the Store Profile Tab.  (Probably best not to link back to Etsy, eh?)
7. Shipping rates are calculated for you!  (Whew, no more guess work!!)
8. You get a facebook app... and it's FREE!

Cons:

1. Their only payment system seems to be PayPal, and no news cropped up of considering other ways of paying.
2. If you want your own domain via them, it's 5 bucks a month.
3. You can't import your listings via any files. (And if there is... I haven't found it yet.)

When it comes to fees, there aren't really any that I've been able to find.  Outside of fees from Paypal, Storenvy is much cheaper than most alternatives that Etsy.

And that is Storenvy. There's a bit more customization, which means however complicated it gets is entirely up to you and it doesn't feel like you're pulling your own teeth when setting things up.