Splinters in My Brain!

Well, it has been a good, not great, first week on my new site!  So far, I haven't sold anything on Boananzle.com yet, but I have met a whole lot of very nice, encouraging people!

It is a whole different, and very much nicer environment.  Everyone seems to be a part of a much larger team.  Last Saturday I had my first Bonanza, which is a special sale run for a hour or two giving a percentage discount during the event.   A lot of people stopped in and wished me the best of luck, and a few of them have 'Favorited' my booth.  I checked a few of the booths around mine, and guess what?  These were some of the people whom I had seen coming into my booth!

A more caring and supportive bunch of people can be found no where else on the internet; probably not in the brick-and-mortar world, either!

I have spent today and part of last night reading posts on several of the forums, and have come conclusions.  One of the mistakes that I made was to raise the prices on items in an attempt to recover losses from the high fees at my 'other', fee-based store.  After reading the forums, I checking on Google, and, believe it or not, my items showed up on the old site, at lower prices.  I have not had a store there for several months, and have nothing even listed on their auctions, but previous items still are listed!

Thinking further, why should I raise my prices now that I promote and sell them much cheaper on Bonanzle, I spent some time this afternoon lowering my prices to more accurately reflect what they were before I moved here.  Rome was not built in a day, neither was Bonanzle, nor was Al Hansen Woodworks.  I didn't lose a lot of money on the other site overnight, and I have decided that I don't need to make a ton of it here, overnight, either.

Take a look, see if there is something that you like.  If there is, great!  If not, check some of the other booths.  There is something for everyone at Bonanzle!

http://www.bonanzle.com/booths/cribbagemaker

- Al

Moving On

Goodbye, Cruel World!  

No, not that it is the end of everything.  Just that it was time to move on and try something new and even more unusual.  After six or seven years at eBay, I finally got tired of paying them more than I was making on my cribbage boards and other crafts.  Things seemed to be fine, and I sold more and more boards each year.  Most years I sold almost as many as I had time to make.  The problem was and still is, I get bored just making cribbage boards!

I also enjoy making Nativity sets, Christmas ornaments and other things on the scroll saw.  This is a good change-of-pace from the very repeatative process of drilling hundreds of holes in a hunk of lumber.  Besides, people who see my other items also seem to enjoy them.  Unfortunately, people on eBay apparently don't think enough of them to actually put in a bid.  Every year, I would also list a Nativity set or two, along with sets of my ornaments.  The ornaments would sell very quickly, at a very low, break even price.  The Nativity sets would not.  Ever.  Each nativity set that didn't sell would still require a listing fee, which wiped out the profits from several of the cribbage boards that sold.

This seemed to leave me with a few different options:

Keep making cribbage boards, and just cribbage boards!  They sell, and people keep buying them.  I am getting closer each year to my goal of getting a board in each of the fifty states.  At last count, I still needed only four or five more.  Boring but safe!

Quit making cribbage boards and everything else.  OK, but then what should I do?  Safe.  But talk about boring!

Find somewhere else to sell all of my stuff.  If it sells, great!  If not, it shouldn't break me.  But where, and how to find it?  

And then along came Bonanzle!  No listing fees!  No picture fees!  No Bold or Subtitle of Highlighted Fees!  Only a small and very reasonable fee When My Item Sells!  If I make a cribbage board and it sells, I pay them about 2 percent of it's selling price.  If I make a Nativity set and it sells, I pay them about 2 percent of it's selling price.  If a cribbage board or Nativity set doesn't sell, I pay them.... Nothing???   Yep, nothing!

Goodbye, Cruel World!  Hello, Bonanzle!

Check out my items at: http://www.bonanzle.com/booths/cribbagemaker

- Al