Handmade at Amazon - A New Venue to Buy and Sell Handcrafted Items

Thursday, October 8,2015 was the big day.  Many serious artisans of handcrafted items were waiting for Amazon to launch their new Handmade at Amazon platform.  Artists applied to be a part of this group of people allowed to sell their wares on Amazon.

There is a lot of hype around this new venue for handmade sellers.  Some of the hype is that this will kill Etsy.  Until now Etsy was the biggest venue of handmade goods on the internet. They started about 10 years ago and grew over all these years.  They began to allow the artists to collaborate with manufacturers to produce items back in 2013.  This caused a lot of controversy that is still raging until this day.

I have been selling my handmade jewelry, beaded lanyards, and badge reels on Etsy since 2006.  I started with a shop I called LeAllyson's Creations.  I then opened the Etsy shop, Plum Beadacious, in 2008 and closed the first one.  I was refining my brand and niche.

I have done very well on Etsy over these years.  I am pleased with the traffic that comes to my shop. My customers are wonderful, and I enjoy interacting with them, creating custom designs for them, and of course, like anyone in business, I light up with a smile when I hear the Etsy Seller App on my iPhone go "cha-ching" meaning I made a sale.

A number of Etsy sellers took the plunge to join Handmade at Amazon.  They completed an application with Amazon, and went through a rigorous approval process.  Amazon has strict rules about how the artist's shop must be set up in the Amazon venue.  

Have you looked at Handmade at Amazon yet?  I have.  It is easy to search for handmade items on it. You can make purchases under your Amazon account just like you do when shopping for other items at Amazon.  You can even add items to your Amazon wish list.

My friend, Lari, creates beautiful spiritual jewelry.  She is one of the initial artists who secured a place on Handmade at Amazon.  Take a look at her new shop on Amazon, Lari's Jewelry Designs.

It is exciting for those of us who love to make beautiful things and share them with the world to have so many opportunities to do so.  Check out Amazon's handmade shops.  Start a conversation here with your comments about it.