Jessika Hepburn, the new owner of Canadian blog, ohmyhandmade.com along with Zoe of A Quick Study are launching Worthsy today, as stated on their site, "it's a response to sites like Heartsy and Groupon that encourage purchasing handmade at low prices. There are so many opinions and questions in the handmade community about pricing and discounts of these sites, and they wanted to find out more". So they created Worthsy as an experiment to see. Each week they will feature one carefully curated, one of a kind, handmade item up for bidding with bids starting at wholesale price. Make the highest bid and it's yours! Click here to find out more!
Comments
@anon Groupon deals work similarly for indie businesses or artists as Heartsy deals do. The seller offers a discount of between 30-60% or more off in exchange for the chance to reach a larger market. With Groupon the seller also pays a percentage to Groupon for each deal sold. In many of the stories/experiences I've researched the seller typically ends up loosing money and not gaining customers willing to pay full value for their work. They often end up putting out a lot of work + time for little value.
Here's a couple posts about Groupon deals/creative business:
http://www.ohmyhandmade.com/2011/contributors/the-danger-of-discounts-my-decision-not-to-groupon/
http://www.meejahor.com/2011/05/08/beware-of-the-groupon-piranhas-eating-you-alive/
That said, I do think this is an interesting project and am looking forward to witnessing how it goes. I just think that sometimes the handmade-sphere needs to be objective and not always ardently side with the crafter/indie business and automatically hiss at the big corps. Between this and the Truche debacle, I think it's important to do your research.
It's about time the tables were turned on this subject!
There isn't anything worded wrongly here - What we're saying is "There are so many opinions and questions in the handmade community about pricing and discounts + the ethics of these sites, and they wanted to find out more".
In referencing the UO debaucle - as we already mentioned in our UO post and comments, we did do our research. It was our opinion with the subject, just as you have your opinion.
But please own your opinion.
"There are so many opinions and questions in the handmade community about pricing and discounts + the ethics of these sites, and they wanted to find out more". See, this I completely agree with, but that's not the same as claiming Hearsy and Groupon are encouraging buying handmade at very low prices. They simply offer a marketing service for businesses and it's up to the sellers to figure out whether or not it will be worth offering something through Groupon. I'm a crafter and I would never use it for my business because I know I would get the short end of the deal. There are much better ways to market for an indie business and quite frankly I don't think that Groupon goes with the handmade ethos anyway. But again, it's the seller that's encouraging others to buy his/her work at cheap prices, not the service administering the discount.
I'm not going to keep beating a dead horse, but there where a lot of gray areas in regards to Truche/UO that I think were not addressed. For the record, I haven't shopped at UO since way before all of that happened because there are plenty of reasons that go beyond them ripping off artists to boycott them. Anyway, I don't mean to come across as defending Groupon, but imo it's more effective to address why indie businesses feel the need to use those types of marketing approaches rather than making faulty claims that it's the service causing sellers to get duped. Worthsy is definitely going to be interesting and I love its premise.
Many artisans in the handmade community believe they have to compete with larger companies who can frequently discount their wares. Shoppers see handmade items that they love, but are used to the constant sale cycles of big box chains, and have unrealistic expectations for what they should pay for handmade. Hopefully a site like Worthsy can help people to reevaluate why it's OK to pay full price for the things we love, and more fully support the handmade movement.
I still always toil over pricing, and I know I am not the only one. I applaud jessika for striking out to see what handmade can be worth, and having people see exactly how much time/money/heart is involved in a one-of-a-kind piece.
and to jan + earl, who always support and shout out for handmade, thanks for posting about worthsy! can't wait to watch it unfold.
We are proud to stand behind ours.
I should also note, I never said anything about all handmade people are right - just as not all large corporations are.
And maybe you're right, I should change the wording in the post, as the post is not necessarily our viewpoint but the viewpoint of Worthsy's.
Crafters can (and often do) have sales. There is no need to feel like there is competition with big box companies because that's a whole other realm. I always thought that one of the special things about crafters/indie businesses is that even the marketing was done from the heart. Anyway, it seems like this discussing has evolved quite a bit and I don't want to keep prying if at the very least no one can see why we need to talk about these kinds of things rather than just push the monetary value of handmade.
Jan - Believe me, I would reveal myself but I have a feeling that I would get heavily criticized by the handmade is better brigade. I've had my business for years and don't want to risk losing support over this.
Worthsy - I didn't mean to detract from your wonderful efforts. I will be following the progression of this project and I'm excited to see where it goes and its findings.