A.C. Moore Marketplace Launch

[togan]

Since I couldn't sleep last night...I decided to make it worse by laying in bed and surfing the internet on my phone. 

I had a lot of stuff in my news feed about Etsy 'backlash'.  But then I saw a lot of articles about A.C. Moore (a U.S. craft supply store) partnering up with Zibbet. It launched last month I believe. Anyway just wanted to share! Here's an article from PRNewswire on 15 Aug:

BERLIN, N.J., Aug. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- National arts and crafts retailer A.C. Moore announced today the launch of A.C. Moore Marketplace, the craft retail industry's first handmade marketplace for artists and makers. Powered by the multi-channel management experts at Zibbet, the A.C. Moore Marketplace establishes a new connection between A.C. Moore and creative entrepreneurs, helping them sell their handmade creations worldwide.
Shops within the A.C. Moore Marketplace can be fully personalized with unique branding, featured products and customized ordering. The Sydney, Australia-based Zibbet works to simplify order management and fulfillment across multiple sales channels, offering sellers the benefit of enhanced exposure while simultaneously managing listings, inventory and orders from a central location, allowing creative entrepreneurs more time to produce the crafts they love.



"We're delighted to partner with A.C. Moore as we expand upon the number of exclusive sales channels available to creative entrepreneurs on our platform," said Zibbet Founder Jonathan Peacock. "This is groundbreaking and unique, but what I'm most excited about is the tremendous value we can bring to every moment in a seller's journey, from buying craft supplies, right through to selling what they've made."



Since opening for sellers to set up their shops in late June, the A.C. Moore Marketplace has listed more than 3,000 shopfronts with 75,000 products available for sale. With no item listing fees or commissions on sales, all revenues generated by the A.C. Moore Marketplace are funneled directly to sellers, apart from a flat-rate $10 per month to activate two selling channels on the Zibbet platform.

"The launch of A.C. Moore Marketplace continues A.C. Moore's legacy of delivering innovative products, quality materials, and an unmatched brand experience to creative consumers," said A.C. Moore President and CEO Anthony Piperno. "This new endeavor represents A.C. Moore's continued growth as a leader in the arts and crafts retail space, delivering a dynamic platform that empowers a global community of creative entrepreneurs."



The launch of A.C. Moore Marketplace marks two years of widespread channel expansion for the omni-retailer, which includes 15 new brick and mortar locations across the U.S., the introduction of "A.C Moore Essentials" small-format concept stores, and the activation of e-commerce on acmoore.com.

[DawninCal]

That is VERY interesting, togan. A.C. Moore has enough resources and name recognition that they could be in a position to actually be a successful platform for their sellers. I am going to look into that further as I'm not at all happy with the direction Etsy is taking. Of course, the cynical side of me says that these selling venues always start our all happy clappy but eventually forget why they started up in the first place and end up making decisions that are not in the best interests of their sellers. I try to put the kabosh on my cynical side when she rears her ugly head.

ETA that Cat has a Zibbet shop. Hopefully, she'll be along to weigh in on this latest development.

Thanks for bringing that to our attention. I hadn't heard anything about it until reading this post.



Dawn

[michelle]

Hmmmm. Definitely something to consider.

[togan]

Seemed super intriguing when I read it. It will definitely be interesting to see how it goes...seeing more numbers and stats for instance of people who have already added it as a sales channel. There seems to be even more jewelry today than when I looked last night...which I guess would be normal since people are able to just import their Etsy stuff.
Definitely would love to hear Cat's opinion!

If I find any more interesting bits (like stats) about it, I'll share. And Dawn, I don't think your cynical side is ALL wrong. When entities get big, they do what they think sustains their growth, even when it hurts those who carried them to where they are. Cautious optimism =)


**Also...on Zibbet's site...their CEO posted about future updates to the platform. They want to add more sales channels so that creators can manage everything in one place on their site. He mentioned A.C. Moore's thing, but he also mentioned in the comments about Shopify integration in early 2020.

[caeterle]

I can't say much about it yet as it's still so new. I do know that a few of my fellow Zibbet sellers had their first sales there, others didn't (me included, but I have never sold well from any marketplace, this year most of my sales are directly/custom or in FB sales groups).
I wouldn't be too hopeful about it all being handmade because I just found single diamonds in the handmade jewelry category ... It will be hard to report all of them and get them deleted, I think, that would be a job for Sisyphus.
On Flickr for example so many Indian suppliers post in all kinds of groups and not even there the group admins manage to delete them. It's very annoying.

In our Zibbet shop owners group quite a few people said they'd rather drop their Stitch site (Stitch is what looks like your own website, you can use your own URL, but it is connected to Zibbet) and add A.C.Moore as a channel instead. I can't give you any numbers how many of them really did it.

[DawninCal]

Cat, were the Zibbet sellers automatically upgraded to the new marketplace or is it an opt in thing? I'm not sure what Zibbet's pricing/selling fees were, but I hope that the new arrangement is beneficial for Zibbet sellers and not some sort of increase over what they were already paying. From what I've read, the people who run Zibbet seem to be pretty good people who don't try to put things over on their sellers.

Seems like existing Zibbet sellers should get some sort of extras or incentives that aren't available to the newbies that will be coming in to take advantage of this new venue.



Dawn

[caeterle]

Zibbet has different pricing depending if you pay monthly or annually, but now that they turned into the marketplace and are not just one selling venue, you pay per channel, so you are free to decide which channels you want to choose.

I'm one of the lifetimers who got in almost at the beginning with a one time payment, so I don't pay anything. They promised us they would honor that lifetime agreement, and they do. That is why I don't have to worry about using Zibbet as my inventory list even if I don't sell nothing at all. I feel very lucky about that.

This isn't the first time Etsy sellers have been coming in, the last time was after the last big change, but if they stay really depends on how well they can bring their customers with them.

[DawninCal]

Yea, I remember a couple of mass exoduses/exodi (?) in the past from Etsy sellers and I believe there was another by Artfire sellers when they were upset about something AF did. I don't leave venues lightly; it's too much work to get set up to bounce from place to place.



Dawn

[caeterle]

I left both AF and Etsy in a very righteous rage back when, but I already had Zibbet then and the item transfer worked very well for me, so that was okay.
Years later I left DaWanda after they started raising fees and adding new fees, too much for what I sold there, and I did it just in time before they went bankrupt and shut down (all the sellers could easily transfer to Etsy, but I had already closed shop there), and then there was VonDir, another German place which was a little strange, so I left there - they don't exist anymore, either.

So I've had my share of platforms.

[caeterle]

Just to complete this ... I did have my first two sales on the AC Moore marketplace now, but its future is unclear as AC Moore will shut down soon.

[Irith-Rita]

After reading this I began to consider looking it up and trying it, but as it will shut down soon, it's no use...