I have a question about categories of Items

[IDBCA Canada]

Why do we not have a category Sold?  I have actually sold a pendant but the person can not use paypal or if/when someone has come to pick up and sees something else to buy or at another sale.  All I can do is delete it now. 

So it looks like I am not selling anything.  My pendants etc are one of a kind so it is difficult to say custom order.

Any thoughts?

Ca

[Fairy Cardmaker]

I see what you mean - the seller has a "sold" filter in the "view all products" but the buyers cannot see what has sold from the shop because they don't have that filter.

Interesting observation.  It's true, some people will buy what everyone else is buying or it can show the "best seller" in your shop.

[Northern Girl Jewelry]

As a general rule, no selling site allows items sold in another venue to appear in the sold items list.  So if you sell in person (at a craft show, family, etc.) your item will not appear sold here on icraft (or any other site).  There are good reasons for this.  If a buyer does not check out with an item, but a seller can just manually move items to a sold category, then sellers could falsely claim sales that never happened in order to manipulate the system and appear to be a bigger seller than they really are.    

Many of us do sell items outside of our online venues, but our sales don't appear there.  

Icraft also allows us to sell things "outside of icraft" without being considered "fee avoidance" like some other selling sites would.  I have sold about triple the number of items than what appears in my sold number from buyers contacting me through icraft or from people seeing my items on icraft and then picking things up in person.  I've done custom orders for people that contact me through icraft, but because we conclude the sale in person, the seller doesn't check out here and the item doesn't go into my sold count.  That's fine with me.  When I get paid in person I don't pay any paypal fees, so I save on that.  And I have sold items that I wouldn't have sold had people not found me through this site.  And I've gotten repeat buyers this way too.  


If you have local buyers that want to pick up in person but you really want the item to appear in your sold number, you could ask your buyer to checkout with the item but to then not log into paypal to pay.  But you are asking someone to take extra steps and to have to register for an account to do this.  I don't believe that everyone that sends us questions through icraft has to register an account to do so, but they need to in order to purchase.  Only you can decide if asking that of your buyers is worth it to register a sold sale on icraft.

[iCraft Admin]

Northern Girl, great points! You pretty much answered this question for me. 

Yes, we can only report on sales that actually went through the site. Otherwise it won't be an accurate number, as sellers could manipulate it.

If, for whatever reason, customer doesn't want to use PayPal, encourage them to buy your product through iCraft anyway, but instruct them to choose "cheque" or "money order", as a payment option.

First, they'll have a record of a purchase in our system. When you ship their item and specify the date of the shipment for that order, they'd receive an email notification about that.
Second, customers could leave a feedback on that purchase.
Third, it's easier for repeat customers to purchase more products from you later, once they establish their account on iCraft.

[Fairy Cardmaker]

I guess I misunderstood the question!
Those points all make sense but I didn't realize that was the question.