I’m pleased to announce the opening of my online shop at DaWanda. You may have already noticed the test links that I’ve put up on my last couple posts; now you can easily purchase the daily paintings I post on this blog through those links.
DaWanda is a European site similar to Etsy. I haven’t started my own Etsy site yet, but from what I’ve heard DaWanda is easier to use and more friendly to international sellers. Etsy has a lot more users, so a lot more potential eyeballs for your products, but on the other hand I’ve heard Etsy users complain that it’s hard to drum up attention for their listings in such a huge sea of products. With DaWanda I’ve noticed that my newly-posted paintings stay on the first page of search results for a decent amount of time, but on the other hand page views of my listings haven’t been very high.
Given that I’m based in Europe, in the end I decided to give DaWanda a try first (but haven’t ruled out adding an Etsy store later). It also helped my decision that listings on DaWanda’s English-language site are free for now, so I really had nothing to lose. Creating my shop and adding listings was quite easy.
It remains to be seen if DaWanda is really worth their 5% commission fee in the long run. So far I’ve had a couple sales, both brought in by me. The real test will be whether any sales are eventually brought in through the DaWanda site rather than through my linked sites. I know I need to be patient and give it a little time, as online shops tend to take a while to gain attention.
Another feature I like about DaWanda is the ability to add my shop listings as a tab on my Facebook page. I’m pretty sure Etsy lets you do that, too.
I’ll post updates here once I have a little more experience on the site. If you have a DaWanda shop, let me know!