Custom Made

[wdkits1]

Hi everyone

After much pondering,soul searching and debating I have decided to jump off the deep end to try my hand at selling my wares on Custom Made, a site that after talking to other members there seems to be the place to be if you want to get lots of exposure for your woodworking. With over 100,000 web hits a month and a great staff to help out, I'm feeling pretty good that my investment will pay off. Follow this link to my page and let me know what you think.

http://custommade.com/by/mikemathieu

[Derekkest]

Interesting site and very nice work.

[Beechwood Chip]

Both the site and the pieces are impressive and professional. I bookmarked the site for the future.

[PaulMarcel]

Love the tables you've posted. Nice work on the intarsia, too.

Hope it works out well for you! Best wishes.

[iSawitFirst]

So, how does the site work? Do you pay to advertise on the site and is there a fee paid when you make a sale? Can you share the numbers?

[wdkits1]

So, how does the site work? Do you pay to advertise on the site and is there a fee paid when you make a sale? Can you share the numbers?

Thanks for the comments Guys

To iSawitFirst

You join the site by picking out a plan and paying quarterly or yearly. The more you pay , the more exposure and listings you get. They help to promote your page and help in setting you up. You don't have to pay anything if you sell. You deal directly with the client. I guess that time will tell if it works but that can be said for any kind of advertizing. Thanks for asking

[bois]

I've gotten to know the good folks from CustomMade over the past few months (and have been a customer for about a year now). There are some inherent advantages to listing on the site. For one, my own web site is never going to get the kind of SEO that I would like, while CM seems to be a google magnet. Mike Salguero, the CEO of the company stopped by my shop over the summer, and he interviewed me me about my experiences (you can see the interview on the Rockler Mini page). I also turned the tables and interviewed Mike about what he's seeing in the woodworking community, and the demand for custom made products. I think they are doing a great job advocating for all custom craftsmen, whether we are subscribers or not. I think we're still doing a lot of educating in the market, but Mike and his team are working hard on our behalf to get the word out.

[adamking]

I know the folks at Custommade do a good thing there. However, I would highly advise against paying for a listing if this is your first time. There are so many other outlets to use that allow you to post for free and take a small percentage of the sale.

The best one being 1000markets.com. Also you can create a simple listing to your blog, site, FB page, etc. with Bixbe.com.

Also, the real key to selling success is knowing exactly what you want to make and who buys it. Know your ideal customer and it's easy to find them and bring them your woodworking wonderment.

And, to bois:

You CAN get your site set up with killer SEO to drive all kinds of search traffic looking for what you make. Just gtta take the time to set it up and know who is looking. Never say never.

[CustomMadeChris]

Thanks for mentioning the site Mike and Rob!

for iSawitFirst, Mike is correct. There is only a one-time initial sign up fee, after which your contact with your clients is your own business transaction. We don't take a cut of the sale amount.

to Adam King: Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to check out 1000markets.com and see if we may be able to offer a similar option for artisans who would like to pursue it, though reading the announcements, it appears as if theyve been acquired by Bonanza and their clients will be responsible to switch their stores over themselves etc. Additionally, viewers of 1000markets.com are looking for all kinds of things from candles to clothing to food etc. and that site can't offer the targeted traffic CustomMade can as our brand is synonymous with custom woodworking, furniture, and other home decor items.

But honestly, you are right! outstanding SEO is possible for anyone who wants to dig in and really put in some solid time and effort into it. However, we find that most artisans want to spend their time in the shop, not learning SEO strategies and spending all night online. Since we make it our business to get our clients work seen, and depending on how valuable you think your time is, with CustomMade taking care of your marketing and SEO, your ROI ends up being even greater.

Let me know any other questions or feed back any of you guys have!

-Chris

CustomMade.com

[adamking]

Chris,

Thanks so much for dropping in. You've impressed me with that. I had no clue about the 1000market acquisition so that certainly can change things. My only concern is paying for a listing. Also is the traffic buying traffic? I have watched your site for years and love the concept. I just am not totally sold on effectiveness yet only in the sense of paying a listing fee as opposed to you simply taking a % of the transaction.

I'm the guy who advocates going your own path and using your own site as a portal to sell your work. If I can do it anyone can do it. And probably better.

But a site like yours could really be a great stepping stone to learning to sell online.

Any thoughts?

[bois]

I am a good example of the type of woodworker Chris described. I am not a full time woodworker, although I do sell commissions. Since I am also managing a day job, it would be nearly impossible for me to actually fulfill customer orders in a timely fashion if I had to spend time worrying about SEO and my web site. CM is a good alternative for someone like me that needs to maximize time in the shop.

[sethcustommade]

Hi Chris,

I saw this thread that Chris Cioffi in our office responded to, and I figured I'd drop in as one of the owners of CustomMade.

Thanks for this great discussion, Chris - and thanks to Rob and Mike for all of the kind words. From an advertising perspective, the value lies in getting your content on our site well indexed by the search engines. The most common way people come across your profile is by searching on google for something particularly specific (like a Bubinga and Wenge coffee table), and then landing on that specific item on CustomMade.com. So the more items you have, with pictures and appropriate rich-text descriptions, the more likely you are to be found by a searcher either in Google or on our site. The advertisers on our site all perform differently (and we provide an analytics package on the site so you can track your views) - most folks are very happy with service. The biggest difference between those folks who do very well on the site and those that don't is the quality and depth of their profile. Customers evaluate an artisan based on example projects - so more sparse profiles tend to do worse than those which are very richly populated. For example, these western wagons makers do amazingly well on our site.

From a % of sale perspective, that's a more challenging answer. We initially avoided allowing folks to sell items directly on our website for the last two years. That's mostly because we believe the cornerstone of our brand and website is around "custom" - and having something custom made is a service business, NOT a product business. To have something custom made, you need to deal with real people - it's a relationship business. That being said, given the number of requests we are receiving for it, we are soon going to roll out a new feature which will allow our subscribers to indicate that their item is "ReadyNow" and then we will populate a ReadyNow store with those items so our consumers can buy them. In that instance, we will take a commission on the final sales price (which allows us to go out and buy even more consumer traffic to those items that are ReadyNow). The item has to be ready to ship immediately, unique, and truly "ReadyNow" We will also be launching reputation management functionality, so your customers can leave reviews in your profile when you do a job or sell a piece. Unfortunately, subscription fees alone just aren't going to support the level of service we want to provide to the artisan community. They are simply an advertising fee, and we want to be more than that. We want to change the way people buy.

We are different than websites like etsy.com, artfire.com, or 1000markets.com (now, bonanza.com). The average ticket price of an item on etsy.com is around $18.00 while the average selling price of a "project" on our website is around $2,300. We believe that folks should be buying custom instead of retail, and we are trying to change that buying paradigm. It's not easy, and we need your support to do it! You can sign up for free which allows you to reserve your "vanity URL" and gives you a very bare bones profile just to get you started!

Thanks to all of you for your support.

Seth Rosen

CustomMade.com

Sign up for FREE at: https://custommade.com/secure/signup

[kesac]

Hi everyone

After much pondering,soul searching and debating I have decided to jump off the deep end to try my hand at selling my wares on Custom Made, a site that after talking to other members there seems to be the place to be if you want to get lots of exposure for your woodworking. With over 100,000 web hits a month and a great staff to help out, I'm feeling pretty good that my investment will pay off. Follow this link to my page and let me know what you think.

http://custommade.com/by/mikemathieu

I see people tell us about listing with custommade, and with etsy, but I have yet to find anyone talk about the volume of sales they have moved thru these sites. I see some very nice stuff on there. Sometimes the prices are astronomical, but not always, and many of those things seem to be the very item that has been listed for a year and more. Especially when I guy is still talking about "#2 of 30" at a reduced price long after you would think he would have gone on to at least #3 of 30.

[kesac]

Hi Chris,

I saw this thread that Chris Cioffi in our office responded to, and I figured I'd drop in as one of the owners of CustomMade.

Thanks for this great discussion, Chris - and thanks to Rob and Mike for all of the kind words. From an advertising perspective, the value lies in getting your content on our site well indexed by the search engines. The most common way people come across your profile is by searching on google for something particularly specific (like a Bubinga and Wenge coffee table), and then landing on that specific item on CustomMade.com. So the more items you have, with pictures and appropriate rich-text descriptions, the more likely you are to be found by a searcher either in Google or on our site. The advertisers on our site all perform differently (and we provide an analytics package on the site so you can track your views) - most folks are very happy with service. The biggest difference between those folks who do very well on the site and those that don't is the quality and depth of their profile. Customers evaluate an artisan based on example projects - so more sparse profiles tend to do worse than those which are very richly populated. For example, these western wagons makers do amazingly well on our site.

From a % of sale perspective, that's a more challenging answer. We initially avoided allowing folks to sell items directly on our website for the last two years. That's mostly because we believe the cornerstone of our brand and website is around "custom" - and having something custom made is a service business, NOT a product business. To have something custom made, you need to deal with real people - it's a relationship business. That being said, given the number of requests we are receiving for it, we are soon going to roll out a new feature which will allow our subscribers to indicate that their item is "ReadyNow" and then we will populate a ReadyNow store with those items so our consumers can buy them. In that instance, we will take a commission on the final sales price (which allows us to go out and buy even more consumer traffic to those items that are ReadyNow). The item has to be ready to ship immediately, unique, and truly "ReadyNow" We will also be launching reputation management functionality, so your customers can leave reviews in your profile when you do a job or sell a piece. Unfortunately, subscription fees alone just aren't going to support the level of service we want to provide to the artisan community. They are simply an advertising fee, and we want to be more than that. We want to change the way people buy.

We are different than websites like etsy.com, artfire.com, or 1000markets.com (now, bonanza.com). The average ticket price of an item on etsy.com is around $18.00 while the average selling price of a "project" on our website is around $2,300. We believe that folks should be buying custom instead of retail, and we are trying to change that buying paradigm. It's not easy, and we need your support to do it! You can sign up for free which allows you to reserve your "vanity URL" and gives you a very bare bones profile just to get you started!

Thanks to all of you for your support.

Seth Rosen

CustomMade.com

Sign up for FREE at: https://custommade.com/secure/signup

I have searched for quite a number of pretty specific items, on Google, and have never once been led to your site. I don't know why that is, but it is. To see something on custommade, I have always had to specifically search for custommade.com.

Also I have looked at your site to attempt to figure out what extra you get for paying a premium, and have no idea which are the gratis and which are the subscribed vendors. I can't tell what improvement I would get for my money listing with you.

I am not trying to be difficult, just giving you my perspective as a prospective customer.

[dvan1901]

Sternberg, I agree with your last comment. I came across Custom Made a while ago, thought about trying it out, but decided not to...partly because if I did searches for key words like "cherry shaker table", for example, their site didn't show up until the 5th Google search results page; Etsy was one first page. The only way, only way, I have gotten their site to show up on the first page is to put the phrase "custom made..." into the search.

[Vermont Carpentry]

You made a good decision. I've been with them for three months and got 3 flaky calls. Nothing remotely serious. Wish I had saved my money.

Mark

[kaybee]

Custom Made reminds me of Tauntons' "Home Furniture" magazine from years back. A great idea with the wrong focus. It was filled with ads from great furniture makers. Did they really think that other furniture makers were going to buy anything from them? Really?! Custom Made's ads seem to show up mostly on woodworking sites(can't say for sure about the glass and such). Their business is selling ads. Easier to focus on selling the ads instead of concentrating on the end user who doesn't make them any money. Hope they get it right, because it'll be great if they do.

[ChetlovesMer]

Hi everyone

After much pondering,soul searching and debating I have decided to jump off the deep end to try my hand at selling my wares on Custom Made, a site that after talking to other members there seems to be the place to be if you want to get lots of exposure for your woodworking. With over 100,000 web hits a month and a great staff to help out, I'm feeling pretty good that my investment will pay off. Follow this link to my page and let me know what you think.

http://custommade.com/by/mikemathieu

Your work is outstanding. I hope you do well.

Good luck.

[Vermont Carpentry]

KB,

Good observation and fair assessment.

Mark

[kesac]

How has Custommade.com done for you, now that you have about 4 months experience with them?

Hi everyone

After much pondering,soul searching and debating I have decided to jump off the deep end to try my hand at selling my wares on Custom Made, a site that after talking to other members there seems to be the place to be if you want to get lots of exposure for your woodworking. With over 100,000 web hits a month and a great staff to help out, I'm feeling pretty good that my investment will pay off. Follow this link to my page and let me know what you think.

http://custommade.com/by/mikemathieu

[Vermont Carpentry]

No sales. A few flakey emails that showed me the writer had not gone to my site. My opinion is save your money. The concept of having someone else doing the marketing and giving you exposure is excellent, especially since it lets you concentrate on doing what you love: woodworking. Again, in my opinion, this site is not doing that. Its possible more woodworkers go there than the buying public.

There's lots of marketing information on the web and some excellent books available. I think you can't go wrong by listening to Adam King's podcasts at the WoodWorkers' Journey.

Good luck,

Mark

[kesac]

This sounds like it might be an infomercial for Adam King.

No sales. A few flakey emails that showed me the writer had not gone to my site. My opinion is save your money. The concept of having someone else doing the marketing and giving you exposure is excellent, especially since it lets you concentrate on doing what you love: woodworking. Again, in my opinion, this site is not doing that. Its possible more woodworkers go there than the buying public.

There's lots of marketing information on the web and some excellent books available. I think you can't go wrong by listening to Adam King's podcasts at the WoodWorkers' Journey.

Good luck,

Mark

[Timberwerks]

I think it's better to put more effort into face to face sales and marketing. Many one man or small shops that have web sites only sell a small fraction of their work via online. Most high dollar sales are made at shows or by word of mouth.

[Vermont Carpentry]

No infomercial or advertising intended. Just my way of passing on a site with good content for wood workers.

Mark

[Vermont Carpentry]

Dale,

Agree, that's how I built my remodeling company with word-of-mouth advertising. My web site has provided a good supplement to this in that I can steer potential customers there so they can see my work.

Mark