Module makers:
In case you haven’t seen this site:
I see several GO! products out there now. It would be nice to have a Gadgeteer presence also. You all should consider listing your products out there.
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Nice! Thanks. I’d seen it before but lost the link, so to speak.
I don’t get tINDIE. The buyer still pays via PayPal, the seller still ships from home, the only thing that changes is that tINDIE gets a 5% cut. As a seller, I give up the ability to manage shipping in a flexible way, give up the ability to manage taxes, give up the ability to manage my site layout, give up the SEO opportunities, the site traffic, and the off chance that someone might ever click an ad (never happened to me before, and I never expect it to).
The tINDIE guy admits that he’s a one-man shop, and he threw together the site in a couple weekends. For that effort, he takes a 5% cut of every sale that goes on.
Well, sure the same could be said for people selling on Amazon.com as third parties. Just do like they do and mark up the price by 5% before you sell on his site. Anything sold is still good for you, right? If they want more they’ll soon figure out that they can go to your site and get them cheaper. In fact, I would point that out as a flyer in the shipment.
I dunno. If you wanted a trusted third party to be involved, I think eBay would be a better call. Just my opinion.
Check out his “how does it work” page: https://tindie.com/how/
Does not inspire confidence. My wife suggested he add numbers or bullets, at least.
I remember when eBay was about that size… If all the money is being handled by PayPal and buyers are connecting directly to sellers then there’s really not much risk. He’s simply providing another avenue for marketing. He’s been getting some good write ups. I suspect it won’t be too long before the site looks more professional. You’ve got to start somewhere.
Love the delta robot.
Hey guys - I made tindie so I thought I’d say hello (‘Hello!’) and answer any questions you guys had.
@ godefroi Yep you and your wife were dead on - the How page was terrible (can’t argue with that). I had bigger issues to handle (25k people hitting the site Monday & Tuesday), so somethings were given less importance and the ‘How’ page was one. However I just deployed a much cleaner version that looks much more professional.
To be honest, makers do use eBay as well as Etsy currently. I think part of what makes tindie different is the community (like this forum). The option most people use (because they don’t the community is a match on Etsy & eBay has become the wild west with scam artists), is to build their own site and try to handle everything themselves. The problem with that option is the vast majority will never get enough visibility/traffic to sustain the maker. By having tindie, there is one place for people to look for these parts, kits and gadgets.
As far as the cost, unlike Etsy & eBay, I do not charge a listing fee. There is no harm in posting a product, and seeing if there is actually demand for it. To allow for that, there is the 5% transaction fee - meaning I only make money on successful transactions. I think that is much more fair than a listing fee.
And if ultimately a seller gets so popular that people start buying off the seller’s site, that would be fantastic! That would mean tindie is so popular that this seller has also built a reputation within the community. Nothing would actually make me happier than if tindie had that problem down the road.
If you guys have any more questions, please let me know! I hope these answers don’t come off in the wrong way; I just wanted to reply with my thoughts.
Best,
emile