Someone recently brought up the web site www.1000markets.com . I had never heard of it so I thought I should check it out. It’s like Etsy in the sense that it promotes “small, artisan businesses as they deliver small-scale authenticity to appreciative customers”.
It’s free to sign up, so I went through the process and found out that it’s a branch of Amazon Marketplace. Or at least I believe it to be so, because I had to sign up for Amazon Payments, which is the only form of payments you can take. (*Update- It’s not affiliated with Amazon Marketplace) On the positive note, by using Amazon Payments your buyers can pay with credit cards or from their bank account. Getting set up was no more difficult that getting verified through PayPal.
Once you are ready to sell (there are a few steps to go through) your shop will need to be approved. I quote the following – “Your portrait, banner, product photos and descriptions must be clean, accurate, and reflect the high quality standards of 1000 Markets.” Sounds a little snobby, but I suppose it weeds out the sellers who aren’t truly serious about running an online shop.
It is a family friendly zone, so they is a long list of no-nos that can get you suspended. You can read the Code of Conduct info here. It’s all pretty standard stuff. No nudity, no illegal items, no copyright infringement, etc.
At this time it only supports businesses in the USA. They are working with Amazon Payment on expanding to a worldwide service.
As of yet, I haven’t found the time to get anything listed. I’m already running an Etsy shop and this blog. Keeps me pretty busy already. 🙂
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