GCU Forum - New Card Seller Widget

Mindy

GCU Administrator
Community Manager

Posts: 6537
Gender: female

New Card Seller Widget
Aug 20^th, 2007, 12:13pm

We've been patiently waiting to announce this exciting new feature! With your help GCUniverse has assembled over 13,000 greeting cards in a very short period of time, clearly demonstrating our collective ability to revolutionize the production side of the greeting card industry.

Now, we are ready to do the same with the selling side by introducing the Card Seller Widget. With this new tool ANYONE can sell GCUniverse greeting cards and earn 50 cents per card.

This is ideal for community/interest oriented websites or blogs. It's an easy way for them to earn money and offer a great service to their visitors at the same time. We envision thousands of websites, blogs and social network users to leverage this tool.

Imagine for example these types if sites that could offer a tailored Card Widget for their community:
o Animals (Cats, Dogs, Horses, etc.)
o Coffee
o Wine
o Teddy Bears
o Festivus Holiday
o Gay/Lesbian
o and so many more....

1. How does it work?
Card Sellers register on GCUniverse, customize their Card Widget and post it on their website or blog. They can choose by category, keywords or hand pick their Favorites. Sellers will earn 50 cents for each card that is sold via their widget, any card, not just the ones they feature on their widget, within a 30 day period. Card Shopper accounts have this option too under Member's Corner.

2. What does this mean for artists?
Nothing but good news - more opportunities for your cards to be sold!

3. Do you have any Card Widgets already running?
We are currently working to promote this new service with some community sites, for example Red Hat Ladies.

4. Can I earn selling commissions by selling my own cards?
No, this is not intended for artists and double commissions will not be permitted. Artists will earn the customary 50 cents for each of their cards sold by Sellers.

5. How can I help?
o If you have cards ideal for a specific community, please contact that community and suggest that they become a GCUniverse Card Seller (sample email text to be posted shortly)
o Watch the Wanted Cards forum topic to review any requests for specific cards we might be asking for

6. What's next?
We will be running a PR campaign around this announcement. We will be quoting artists and sellers, so the sooner you get Card Widgets out there selling your cards the better.

Eventually we will have a page that details/displays the Card Sellers' Widgets so you can see what sites and communities are selling.

Let us know if you have any questions or suggestions. Also if you've had any success in attracting a seller.

The revolution is on its way!

Mindy

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Tom_131437

GCU Newbies
artist

Posts: 39

Re: New Card Seller Widget
Reply #1 - Aug 20^th, 2007, 12:57pm

Mindy--

I've been using the widget, and it looks and works great! I think it's a fantastic tool and I appreciate the work that went into developing it. I've only tried the Javascript version, as the Flash one makes me nervous (conflicts with browsers, etc.). I'll wait to hear from others about that one!

But hats off to the GCU brain trust! This idea is a WINNER!!!

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The Festivus Pole:
http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/festivus

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Kerra_131306 Senior Member artist Posts: 263	Re: New Card Seller Widget Reply #2 - Aug 20^th, 2007, 9:46pm These seems like a great concept! Now---just to review---these widgets are available to communities? Not to individual card sellers to put on their website? I saw the post where someone had gotten this new widget, where did they get it? -Kerra
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Teri Francis_131425

Senior Member
artist

Posts: 326

Re: New Card Seller Widget
Reply #3 - Aug 21^st, 2007, 12:55am

Hi Mindy

This is exciting news ... I think Huh

Can we get some clarity on who can sign up as Card Sellers? Is it going to be strictly community/socially oriented groups like the Red Hat Ladies? Is it intended for non-profit and charitable organizations to help raise funds for their cause as well as market GCUniverse greeting cards to their population? And if so, will the not-for-profit status of the sellers be verified by GCU?

Or, is the Card Seller program truly open to anyone ... retailers, eCommerce, B2B websites for profit?

I'm very confused by this, and perhaps I've missed something here, but it's really not clear to me who this if for and exactly who is eligible to sign up for it. You wrote that "ANYONE can sell GCUniverse greeting cards and earn 50 cents per card" ... but as I understand it, "anyone" does not include the Artists who have helped GCUniverse amass over 13,000 cards with which to launch the revolution to the greeting card industry. Again, maybe I've missed something here ... ???

If the marketing strategy of this program is geared specifically towards not-for-profit groups and organizations and those who support them, I see no problem with the Card Seller program as it benefits everyone fairly. However, if retailers and for-profit businesses are eligible for this program -- and if the GCUniverse card contributors are not -- I see a major inequity with this plan.

I certainly can understand and wholly support the use of GCUniverse widgets to increase exposure and sales across the site. I think all of us are supportive of each other's success here, at least all of the other Artists I've held contact with seem to agree that our individual success depends singularly on our collective success. While the contributing Artists have been using the widgets for some time on their websites and blogs, I believe we all congenially accept the fact that someone who clicks on the widget may buy a card or cards created by another artist. In that regard, we've all been playing fairly on a level field.

I guess what I'm getting to is my concern that for-profit e-commerce folks, particularly ad-farmers, are going to be eligible to register as Card Sellers ... essentially reaping in 50 cents per card sold across the site through their widget (and for 30 days after that first click-through) while the Artists who have been providing basically the same promotion of the site will only earn their regular 50 cent commission if one of their own cards sell ... and nothing if the buyer purchases another artist's card through their widget. If this is the case, I can easily see on-line profiteers rushing to the buffet table while the contributing GCU Artists will be left nibbling on the crumbs.

Sorry ... I hope I'm not dowsing doubt on a good idea. I just want to be sure I understand what the new rules are and who the players will be. If it's to help a good cause and non-profit groups that must raise funds to implement their volunteer work, I'm all for it. But if for-profit resellers are going to make 50 cents commission on every card sold for 30 days from click-through, then the same opportunity should be available to the contributors who are promoting the site with widgets as well.

I'll look forward to getting more info on this. I'd like to see this be a very successful way of spreading the word about GCUniverse, but not at the cost of sellers making 20-50 percent more revenue than the artists who provide the product.

Teri
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/squirrelhugger

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Squirrel Hugger's Card Store:
http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/squirrelhugger

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Corrie_131338

Gold Member

Posts: 1610

Re: New Card Seller Widget
Reply #4 - Aug 21^st, 2007, 6:44am

Hi, Teri!

I'm sure Mindy can answer your questions more fully, but I'd like to try and clarify something, and this is based solely on my own understanding - this new widget is for sellers other than GCU artists, since artists have their own widget for promotional purposes. You can understand that GCU isn't going to pay double commissions to a single artist for a single sale - if they allowed artists to use the special seller's widget, then if you made a sale through that seller's widget, you'd get not only your artist's commission of 50 cents, but the seller's 50 cent commission as well. Far as I know, no promotional program (as an example, Amazon Associates) allows double commissions on a single sale.

As I understand the way it works - and I'm sure Mindy will correct me if I'm wrong - if a buyer clicks through a seller's widget and buys a card within 30 days, both the seller and the artist make a 50 cent commission. You're losing nothing with this new widget, as the buyer might well be intrigued enough to click through on one artist's card, but browse GCU and buy from either the original artist or possibly another artist's store. That lucky artist who makes the sale might be you, or me, or any one of the other artists. We all have an equal chance with this promotion. Today the sale might go to Artist X, tomorrow it might be you.

You can better your chances of sales from your own store by asking friends and/or family to sign up to put a seller's widget on their websites promoting your store (as opposed to a random selection of cards). You can also target special interest communities who might like to use the widget for fund-raising - for example, if you have cards related to breast cancer awareness and you belong to an on-line women's health community, ask if they'd like to use the seller's widget on their website to promote your cards and earn money. Let ad farmers and corporations earn their 50 cents with the widget. You'll still get your commission if you make sales. The widget-holder is making exactly the same amount as you on a sale, so I don't see how they can be making more revenue per card.

Don't forget to use the artist's widget on your own blogs and websites. Self-promotion is never a bad thing. Wink

I'm repeating myself, but to succeed you should make sure you have plenty of designs available that will appeal to a broad audience. Put cards in those categories that are still lacking. Create cards that have special interest appeal, too. You never know what's going to tickle a buyer's fancy.

Bottom line - there's no need to fear that you might be losing revenue. That isn't the case. Every sale made from your store, you'll still get paid whether they go through a widget or not. The new widget is simply a further chance to reach the paper card market and make more sales.

Corrie
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/corrieweb
http://www.corrieweb.nl

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Corrieweb Card Store:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/corrieweb

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Mindy

GCU Administrator
Community Manager

Posts: 6537
Gender: female

Re: New Card Seller Widget
Reply #5 - Aug 21^st, 2007, 12:34pm

Lots of good questions to better understand this new Card Seller Widget. Corrie, your points are right on target, thanks!

The Card Seller Widget is nothing but good news for Artists Cheesy

1. This opens more avenues for your cards to be sold AND targeted channels where sales may convert more easily (dog cards featured on dog lover sites, etc).

2. The intent IS for others to make money on your cards. The more they sell the more you earn. You still earn your 50 cents per card. Nothing is being taken away from the artists. GCUniverse takes the hit by making 50 cents less per card via this route.

3. ANYONE other than artists can use a Seller Widget - any individual, special interest groups, blogs, websites, social network sites, non-profit organizations, etc. Hopefully tens of thousands of new selling points....the more the merrier! Ask your friends, family, local communities to create their own Card Seller Widget. They can showcase specific categories, keywords or their own handpicked Favorites.

4. After 30 days we hope the buyer will love GCUniverse (tagged Favorite cards, set reminders, credit card info on file, etc.) so much that they'll keep buying and the seller commission no longer applies.

There is no downside and no justification for artists to receive double commissions.

Mindy

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Mindy

GCU Administrator
Community Manager

Posts: 6537
Gender: female

Re: New Card Seller Widget
Reply #6 - Aug 21^st, 2007, 1:04pm

Quote from Kerra_131306 on Aug 20^th, 2007, 9:46pm:

These seems like a great concept!

Now---just to review---these widgets are available to communities? Not to individual card sellers to put on their website?

I saw the post where someone had gotten this new widget, where did they get it?

-Kerra

Hi Kerra,
Individuals can use the Card Seller Widget on their site too, not just communities.

The widget you read about I think was Tom's posting in this topic that he was using for testing. It may be a test widget I set up and shared with him. You wouldn't actually "get" a widget for a seller, they need to set it up by registering as a Card Seller.

Each Card Seller account will have a seller id that is associated with their widget and will track their sales & earnings. So each Seller Widget is unique.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Mindy

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Mindy

GCU Administrator
Community Manager

Posts: 6537
Gender: female

Re: New Card Seller Widget
Reply #7 - Aug 21^st, 2007, 1:08pm

Quote from Tom_131437 on Aug 20^th, 2007, 12:57pm:

Mindy--

I've been using the widget, and it looks and works great! I think it's a fantastic tool and I appreciate the work that went into developing it. I've only tried the Javascript version, as the Flash one makes me nervous (conflicts with browsers, etc.). I'll wait to hear from others about that one!

But hats off to the GCU brain trust! This idea is a WINNER!!!

Hi Tom,
Thanks for the feedback. You've got a great and defined community of interest with your cards. Good luck!

At this point Card Seller Widgets will be FLASH only. These should be less finicky that the javascript and most browsers will work fine as long as the user is FLASH enabled.

Let us know if you find the FLASH version misbehaving Shocked

Mindy

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Mindy

GCU Administrator
Community Manager

Posts: 6537
Gender: female

Re: New Card Seller Widget
Reply #8 - Aug 21^st, 2007, 1:18pm

Here's some text you can <customize> and email to promote the Card Seller Widget:
........................
Hello,
Interested in earning 50 cents for each greeting card you sell?

It's quick and easy with Greeting Card Universe, the largest online paper greeting card store with an original and growing collection of <category/interest area> cards. These are REAL paper greeting cards.

You'll earn 50 cents for every card sold, but more importantly you will provide a great service to your visitors.

See my card collection:
<http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/YourStoreURL>

This service does NOT cost you anything. All you have to do is insert a few lines of code on your website or blog to display a Card Widget.

You can choose which cards your Card Widget features by category, keywords and even your own handpicked Favorites.

Learn More and Start Earning Now:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/community/card_widget.asp

Thank you for your interest.
........................

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Tom_131437

GCU Newbies
artist

Posts: 39

Re: New Card Seller Widget
Reply #9 - Aug 21^st, 2007, 1:33pm

Mindy--

Yes, the widget was the one you showed me. If anyone is interested in seeing it in action (or in buying one of my cards--hint, hint!), you can see it at:

http://www.cagle.com/hogan/features/christmas_cards_2006/main.asp

Scroll down to the bottom of the page, beneath the last row of Christmas cards. I think the widget is SO COOL!

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The Festivus Pole:
http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/festivus

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Teri Francis_131425

Senior Member
artist

Posts: 326

Re: New Card Seller Widget
Reply #10 - Aug 22^nd, 2007, 12:33pm

Thanks Corrie and Mindy for your explanations.

I never meant to suggest that Artists should get a double commission for selling their own work. undecided

I'm terribly sorry if I gave that impression. I agree with you … it's no different than if the customer finds their way to GCUniverse by way of BigDates, Google, or Yahoo. I wouldn't expect GCUniverse to pay a double commission to the Artists for promoting their own sales.

I understand that the Card Seller’s incentive is to drive new customers to the marketplace. Again, I agree with you that more traffic means more sales opportunities for all Artists. I don’t believe that Sellers will be “taking” anything away from the Artists collective commissions. My point was that individual Card Sellers are likely to see significantly greater revenues than individual artists will, at least initially, as I understand it.

I didn't raise these questions out of interest in earning “sellers” commissions or double-dip artists commissions. I do not participate in any paid referral programs for professional reasons, so who gets what is irrelevant to me personally. I simply wondered why the same opportunity was not being offered to the Artists who bring customers to GCUniverse through their sites, presuming that some customers will browse and buy cards from other storefronts as well.

It may be that these concerns are not really significant to other Artists. It was, however, very important to me to understand certain aspects of the program before presenting it to my friends and particularly my business contacts.

Again, I apologize if I’ve offended anyone or clouded a clear-cut situation with the questions posed in my previous post. lips sealed

Teri

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Squirrel Hugger's Card Store:
http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/squirrelhugger

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Mindy

GCU Administrator
Community Manager

Posts: 6537
Gender: female

Re: New Card Seller Widget
Reply #11 - Aug 23^rd, 2007, 5:25pm

Hi Teri,
No problem. I've replied to your email as well in more detail.

If there are other artists with concerns we'd like to hear from you. We don't see any downside for the artists with this announcement. If we're not taking something into consideration please let us know.

Are there artists out there that are interested in being sellers too?

Mindy

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Corrie_131338 Gold Member Posts: 1610	Re: New Card Seller Widget Reply #12 - Aug 24^th, 2007, 1:09am Hi, Mindy! I suppose if artists also wanted to use the seller's widget, they'd have to showcase cards of artists other than their own to avoid getting double commission. Would this indeed be the case? Corrie http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/corrieweb http://www.corrieweb.nl
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Mary_131922

GCU Newbies
artist

Posts: 4

Re: New Card Seller Widget
Reply #13 - Aug 26^th, 2007, 4:24pm

There's no reason why artists cannot also be affiliates - the two are not mutually exclusive. There are ways to separate out sales on the back end to make sure you don't give double commissions - your programmers should be able to take care of that.

I'm both. I have a large network of Cafepress stores and I sell both my own art and that of other people.

Mary

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evisionArts Greeting Cards:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/evisionarts

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Mindy

GCU Administrator
Community Manager

Posts: 6537
Gender: female

Re: New Card Seller Widget
Reply #14 - Aug 28^th, 2007, 1:19pm

Ok, here's where things stand. If artists are interested in selling GCUniverse cards, sell away!

Artists can use the Card Seller Widget, however here are a few items to note...

1. You must create a Card Seller account and use a different email address than your Artist account. You can NOT use the same email address, it won't work.

2. Earnings as a Seller will be accounted for and paid separately from earnings as an Artists.

3. In the near future, the Card Seller Widget will change in appearance and will look different than the Artists' Card Widget. It will be available in different sizes, have heavy selling messaging, etc. The Artists' Card Widget will be more appropriate for your own sites and self promotion.

4. We will not prevent Artists from earning selling commissions on your own cards. Which means you will earn double commissions on any of your own cards sold through your selling widget. It wasn't our intent but it's not a show stopper for us.

So, Artists, good luck and good selling

Mindy

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