Artfire so far

As I mentioned before in Testing new waters...Artfire, I opened a shop on Artfire.com LiveDreamCreate2. Since then, I have upgraded to "Pro", added all the items also listed in my Etsy shop, and checked out some (but not all) of the features Artfire has to offer.

Pro's:

• Artfire "pro" has a lot of really neat features that Etsy does not have. 
• I was able to import all of my Etsy items fairly easily without having to reload each picture, description and tag from scratch. I still had to enter categories and eventually fine tune everything, but instead of taking me an hour to do 4 items, I now have 55+ items in my shop in the same amount of time.
• I can alter and change the color of the header and text on my page to fit a lot better with my shop and banner.
• I can add free shipping, buy one/get one, on sale, free gift, and coupons to items and it will mark each item with a label to make them easier to spot.
• I can have coupons, free shipping, gift certificates, etc.
• Like Etsy, I can set up shipping profiles to make it easier when listing items.
• I can add up to 10 images per listing
• Item descriptions can be far more detailed, including inspiration, time invested, materials, tags, categories, shipping notes, promotions, etc.
• I can list an item quantity up to 999.
• I don't pay artfire to list each individual item, adjust quantities, or a percentage when an item sells.
• My items are available to more people, with potential to bring in more sales (I've decided I just can't give up my Etsy account.)
• Artfire offers almost all of the things we love about Etsy.

Con's:

• Far less views then Etsy. Items on Etsy that have 200+ views barely have 20 on Artfire. But remember, they haven't been listed on Artfire for nearly as long though.
• No sales as of yet from Artfire. I am just starting to promote BOTH of my shops, so hopefully this changes.
• There is so much to do, see and try on Artfire, I am still figuring stuff out! This isn't really a bad thing, because I keep learning new stuff, but I end up spending more time on the computer than I intend sometimes. ;)

All in all, I am going to try the Pro version of Artfire for a couple months, just to see if things pick up. If I don't make any sales, I can't afford to keep paying the $10 a month to keep it. I will then downgrade back to basic. I will keep both my Artfire and my Etsy shop open though! :)