Tophatter

Over the last few weeks, I have been exploring every possible avenue to make a little extra cash. I took the remainder of term off, and will be starting fresh in the spring (April 2) and decided to take this extended spring break and get my business moving a bit more product... Well, good on me. I have gotten several custom orders, which is fine, except that I can't make enough orders to keep up...

So to sell some of my other crafty skills, a couple of crafty friends suggested Tophatter, an auction site that is similar to etsy and ebay, but faster than both. The only major problem is that Tophatter is only about 3 months old, and is still having some issues. Such as there being too many sellers, not enough buyers, or most of the buyers being sellers of another product.

One would think that being a maker of crafty goods, one would understand the time that goes into the work, but many seem to think that if their craft is fast, all crafts are fast... not so much!

It is still a great little program. You go on as a seller, list an item, schedule it into a category, and you are given an auction date and time in which to go talk to your buyers. You build an avatar, and you bid, as if you were out in that cold world at a real auction house. The only issue with this piece of the puzzle, is I am not 100% sure everyone understands that it's a real auction, it kinda looks like a FB game.

Once the auction is over, you use paypal to receive payment (or send it) and to print shipping, package up the goods you sold, and send them on their way.

Tophatter Pros:
*Quick(er)
*"Face-to-face" chat with customers/artists
*Faster payment (usually)
*Newer artists
*More variety (sometimes)
*Easy to use (most of the time)

Tophatter Cons:
*Still a bit glitchy (because its new)
*A lot of bickering from sellers who think they know how to run it better than the staff (try their job for a day, you'd be a lot nicer)
*Some of the features are intermitantly available on most browsers, but not all (speak with staff only sometimes shows up with Google Chrome)
*A few people still think it's a game, and you never get paid
*Shipping costs are OUTRAGEOUS
*Many international customers (read: Canadian) are discouraged from buying because of shipping
*Products are often not well represented because sellers are not present for auction, so you can not ask ????'s

All in all, great site. Needs some improvements

Also, check out my seller page, I have a ton of stuff ready to put into auctions!