Handmade at Amazon Launch, Day One, Very Disappointed

So how was Handmade at Amazon's launch? 

English Bulldog Custom Portrait by me
artist Robin Zebley

Really rocky first day, a lot of issues.  For instance:

They had a big Handmade banner that you could click on, but when you did, only 300 plus items showed.  If you then searched (thinking you were searching within Handmade), you got the general Amazon with regular Amazon items in the front, a sprinkling of Handmade.  You had to know to go to a sidebar and click on a category within Handmade to get a search bar for handmade.  

And results showed large clumps of a few sellers' items with no variety.  I did find my house portraits , they were in a block together, just like other house portraits artists who have a different style from mine.  Just blocks of one artist!  So you would think there were only a handful of sellers within each category.  It took me three tries and about 10 minutes to figure out how to navigate through to find a working search that showed Handmade.

The banner is gone now.  We don't know if it's because of the above and they are working to fix or if yesterday's banner was the Big Announcement and it's over now.

The drop down menu for Search for all departments does not include Handmade.

The stats do not work.  We do not know if we got even one view yesterday.

Don't think it's an Etsy killer, at least not as of today.  Sellers aren't disappointed with the lack of sales (some did sell, but nobody expected Day 1 to be a big selling day), but at how hard it is to find Handmade at Amazon.  At all.  

I had a TON of views yesterday at Etsy, so am wondering if all the "Etsy Killer" press Amazon stirred up actually worked in Etsy's favor?  Anyone truly interested in handmade would find Etsy a much more favorable shopping experience.  At least yesterday.

Hopefully they are working on fixing all of the above to buyers can find us!   I'd hate to see the hours it took to list ONE BY ONE (they didn't think to program a copy feature for handmade, guess they thought we all made different things different days, not similar things) go to waste.

But until or if Amazon does some serious work, I won't be wasting another moment building there.

I'm portrait artist Robin Zebley, I blog about art, animals, the artist's life, selling online and venues.  My work can be found at my site robinzebley.com, I'm an Etsy artist at CustomPortraitArt.etsy.com, and sure wish I could add Amazon to this list!  

Handmade on Amazon, Live and Ready for my Pet portraits!

Sarge is looking for his portrait painting
on Handmade at Amazon!

Handmade at Amazon opened for business today and my shop there is live and open for business: My Handmade at Amazon

I need to add more samples and more of my woodblock prints and other art, but am optimistic that Amazon will do this up right and publicize it to make it worth our while.

I'm so honored that I was chosen as one of the pioneers of Handmade!  It's exciting and encouraging for sure!

And I hope Etsy gets off it's self-appointed high horse for handmade and actually advertises for buyers for us.

If they still really want customers of true handmade, that is. Which is of course debatable, given their encouragement of factory made in the past two years!

Selling Original Art on Handmade at Amazon

I promised I'd update you about Handmade.  Well, here we are the last few days of September, on the cusp of the Christmas selling season and it hasn't launched yet.

English Bulldog Portrait by Robin Zebley

Most of us who were juried in have gotten a one week's notice to get our items listed, so hopefully it's close.  The problem is it is very, very time-consuming and Amazon has just piggybacked Handmade onto it's regular programming, making it confusing for those of us who are not in the business of importing widgets and reselling them.

The shipping is a nightmare.  You can't adjust for items easily.  You have to use a confusing spreadsheet to upload a base price and then adjust it from there in the item, using percentages and MATH.  Which many of us artists are not the best at.  I had three dedicated sessions before I figured it out, sorta.  What I'm doing is using my most common shipping price and just adding into my largest paintings selling price.

There is no copy function.  Regular Amazon has this, I guess the programmers thought that handmade means we are all making all kinds of items, none of which are similar.  You literally need to start with picking a category for every single listing.  Now, there is a hack to save SOME of your info, but listing on Amazon, with all its boxes and no copy function, is quite time consuming.

There is little Amazon presence in the forum, which would seem to me to be better than fielding tons of phone calls.  So the forum is full of rumors and advice given by volunteer "regular" Amazon sellers who have some different functions that we do.  Like, they can copy, we can't.  

And lastly, their Terms of Use are confusing and have frightened off some really good sellers who would be an asset to Handmade at Amazon.  They are aware of it and have chosen to just post reassurances that they will not use your intellectual property even though the language in the TOU says they can if they want to, forever.  They would do well to revisit the TOU and have a IP lawyer help them from the seller's side to clarify and make the site work for the very cautious.

On the plus side:  TONS of space to add search terms.  For me, that's not as important as for others.

Also, no silly matching of search phrases to title for the algorithm to be able to find you.  This Etsy-only exercise in moving one pile of dirt to another is a hard habit to break, but refreshing.  At Etsy, the mistagging is rampant, so that "original oil painting" shows reproductions OF original oil paintings.  I hear Amazon's search will not produce those kinds of results AND that mistagging is punished.

And I'm really excited to sell here, I can't see a downside personally and am looking forward to being able to paint instead of fixing listings constantly to conform and optimize for Etsy's latest change, in order to get eyeballs on my portraits. 

The buzz is also starting, I was interviewed for a story thestreet.com is doing on it (hopefully I won't end up on the cutting room floor!).  There is a lot of attention and focus from financial and business press and blogs, and every one of us who is signed up NOW can benefit from that.

So, our hope is that within a week, we'll get the promised 48 hour warning and that the zillions of Amazon buyers and buyers who never thought about buying original art or handmade will be shopping with us!

House Portrait Watercolor Painting by me, Robin Zebley

Handmade At Amazon vs. Etsy for Artists

Handmade at Amazon or Etsy?  I know how Etsy works for me at this time and both Etsy tomorrow  and Handmade at Amazon are unknowns.  Etsy has inserted a bizarre partial list of categories at the top of every page.  One that hides Art.  With a drill down that doesn't include portraits.  So I am 

Bulldog Portrait by Robin Zebley

expanding into Handmade @Amazon and hoping for the best.  I was honored to be selected in the first round of artists to open there, and am working on my shop.  It's not an easy transition, it's a whole different experience to list there and set up, but Amazon APPEARS to be embracing the hand made and art and Etsy's still intermingling the handmade and art with the factory goods.

Here's my Etsy shop for portraits: CustomPortraitArt and for my woodblock prints and other paintings and drawings, Robin Zebley Art. I will be watching the progress of both venues carefully and let you know what happens!

I'm artist Robin Zebley, specializing in custom portraits of children, homes and pets.  I also like to make other art!  My portrait art can also be seen at here at Robin Zebley Portraits I sell at Etsy, too, and am about to be shown at Handmade at Amazon.