There have been quite a few questions asked related to the upcoming changes.  If you missed the info about the ‘changes’, you can read about it here.

We keep getting a lot of the same recurring questions, so we thought it would be better to have an easily accessible compilation of them here.  We will do our best to clarify and make things as clear as possible. FAQ’s

Q: Why are you changing your business model?

A: Simply put, it just wasn’t working.  We want you to know that the decision to change our business model was not a light one.  After weeks of intensive research, discussion and planning we came to the decision/realization that we needed to adapt our business model in order to achieve our ultimate goal, which is to see Zibbet become a thriving artisan marketplace.

Q: Why wasn’t it working?

A: As you know, Zibbet’s current, and soon to be ‘old’, business model is ‘pay no upfront fees, and pay us a 7.5% commission when your item sells’.  Most of our sellers also sell their items on other ‘handmade’ sites such as the popular Etsy.com.  When given the choice, sellers would choose to promote their Etsy shop rather than their Zibbet shop.  Why?  Because if they make the sale on Etsy they would pay them 3.5% versus paying Zibbet 7.5%.  Putting ourselves in the sellers shoes, we would do the same!  Why would you want to pay more than you have to.  Because of this, Zibbet had become seen as a great ‘additional’ venue to put your items on, which had led to sellers setting up shop with a few items just to ’see how it goes’.

Statement: 15 items is not enough items for the free, Basic account.

A: We’ve heard you and have taken your feedback on board.  We’re excited to announce that we will be raising the Basic account item limit to 25, instead of 15!  Due to the increased amount of items allowed in the Basic shop, we will now also be adding the ’shop sections’ feature to the Basic account.

As a recap, I want to remind you that a Basic account will be totally free.  There won’t be any listing fees as always, but there will also be NO commission paid to Zibbet after a sale.  So you can sell as many items as you want and you won’t pay us a cent.  A ‘Basic’ Zibbet shop is not so basic as it will still have all the features you currently have available to you, plus we’ll also be releasing a lot more features that will be available to Basic sellers as well, over the coming weeks.  One other thing, because you don’t have to pay us commissions on your sales anymore, we’re lifting the link-out restrictions which means you can feel free to link to your other sites and even include your email address in your welcome message if you wish.

So here are the things that will be changing if your choice is the free, Basic account…
- You now won’t pay us any commission when you sell your items.  So now you can promote your shop as much as you want, because you’ll be keeping every penny.
- You’ll be able to have up to 25 items in your shop at a time.  Once you sell an item from your shop, you can simply list another item to replace it. Therefore, you can sell as much as you want for FREE!

Quick Facts:
The average number of items a Zibbet seller currently has in their shop, is 11.
There are currently less than 60 sellers that have more than 25 items in their shop out of over 1,600 registered sellers.

Q: If I have more than 25 items in my shop, what will happen to them?

A: On launch day, all existing shops will be set to a ‘Basic’ account.  If you have more than 25 items in your shop, the ‘most recently listed’ items will stay active in your shop and the ‘least recently listed’ items will be put back to ‘draft’ status.  If you choose to upgrade to a ‘Premium’ account, you will easily be able to ‘re-list’ the items with one-click of your mouse.  Since there are not too many sellers with more than 25 items in their shop, we’re more than happy to do it for you if you like.  Simply email us for this service.

Q: What are the advantages of having a Premium account?

A: With a Premium account you will have the freedom to list as many items as you like, plus have the flexibilty of having full control over the customization of your shop’s color theme, and layout.  The are many other features exclusive to Premium account sellers, such as the ability to rearrange the items in your shop via a very nice ‘drag and drop’ design.  You will also be able to add Widgets to the right hand column and bottom of your shop.  Widgets are simple, fun and useful applications that can be embedded into your Zibbet shop.  As an example, you can keep your customers up-to-date with your latest blog posts, display your tweets from Twitter, input your Etsy mini and so much more.

There are many more Premium account features that we’re working on, some of which will be ready for release within the first few weeks of launch.

Q: How much is the Premium account going to be?

A: The Premium account is going to be launched at $7/month.  This special price won’t be around for long and will only be available to the first 2500 sellers.  After that, the price will be going up.

Q: How can I get my Premium account for free?

A: We have a new Referral Program that should be ready about 1 week after we launch the new changes.  For every friend you refer who joins at a Premium level, we’ll take $1 off your monthly membership, for life. For a limited time, our upgraded Premium accounts are only $7 per month.  Therefore, if you refer just 7 friends, we’ll convert your upgraded, full-featured account to ‘FREE FOREVER’.  That means, for the rest of your life, you can enjoy unlimited listings, no sales fees and all the’ benefits that a Premium Account holder gets, for FREE!

Q: What’s happening with the old Referral Program?

A: The ‘old Referral Program will be replaced by the ‘new’ one as it clearly doesn’t work with our new model.  If you have referred people to Zibbet we will be contacting you over the next few days and you will be eligible to receive $1 off a Premium monthly membership for every person you have referred.  As an example, if you have referred 2 people to Zibbet, you’ll be getting a coupon that will allow you to get a Premium account for $5/month instead of $7/month.  If you have referred 7 or more people to Zibbet, you will be getting a coupon that will enable you to get a FREE Premium account forever.

We appreciate your support, and wanted to make sure you were rewarded for your efforts!

Q: When are the new changes launching?

A: We’re working hard to launch the new structure within the next 7 days.  We will do our very best to get it going sooner rather than later.

SOME INTERESTING COMPARISONS…

Etsy VS Zibbet (old and new)

Etsy model:
If you listed 25 items on Etsy it would cost you $5 (25 x $0.20 = $5).  If all these items sold for an average price of $15 each (average sales price on Etsy), you would be paying Etsy a further $13 in commission fees (3.5% x $15 x 25 items = $13.125).

Therefore, for you to list and sell 25 items on Etsy it would cost you approximately $18.00

Zibbet’s ‘OLD’ model:
If you listed 25 items with Zibbet’s OLD model and sold 25 items for an average price of $15 each, you would be paying Zibbet just over $28 in commission fees (7.5% x $15 x 25 items = $28.125).

Therefore, for you to list and sell 25 items with Zibbet’s OLD model it would cost you approximately $28.00

Zibbet’s ‘NEW’ model (based on a ‘basic’ account):
If you listed 25 items with Zibbet’s NEW model and sold 25 items, it would cost you absolutely nothing…$0.00!

Therefore, for you to list and sell 25 items with Zibbet’s NEW model it would cost you exactly $0.00!

The above comparison is not intended to ‘put-down’ Etsy in any way.  It’s merely to point out that our ‘new model’ is the best value for money for sellers.

We hope you found this blog informative and that it answered any questions you may have had about.  Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions on mail@zibbet.com.  We are more than happy to help!

Image credit: Oberazzi

Tags: changes, FAQ's, questions about changes