Vendor Spreadsheet

So what do you think, Wheat? Admins? Can we move forward with this? I think this would create a fairly regular stream of revenue for the website, even if the charge to the retail vendor was very minimal.

Part of the point I want to make here is that as the website grows, there will be more sub-categories added, and when a vendor finds it important to add a sub-category listing, the return to Fiberkind increases.

So let’s say the charge for a vendor to post in an appropriate listing is $1 per month. As an example let’s say the main category is YARN. Any yarn vendor (retail, distributor, importer or manufacturer can list their business name and link there for $12/year to FK. But an indie dyer (let’s say she dyes 4ply sock weight yarn, just as an example) would ALSO list her business in a subcategory “hand-dyed yarn”…so that results in revenue of $24/year to FK, with a link to her sales portal (website, etsy, FB, whatever is appropriate). And sometime in the future, let’s assume that YARN>Hand Dyed Yarn> also develops subcategories such as “fingering” or “4ply”, or “worsted” or whatever. THEN, our fictional indie dyer would pay $36/year, for a listing in YARN, and one in YARN>Hand Dyed Yarn, and one in YARN>Hand Dyed Yarn>fingering. That comes to $36/year.

As a full service yarn shop, I would list Handknitting.com under Yarn, Knitting & Crochet tools, Accessories, Knitting Jewelry, Single Patterns, Pattern Magazines, Books & DVDs . That’s 7 categories, $7 per month = $84 per year. And every subcategory I choose to have a listing in will generate another $1/month, or $12/year.

There will be a lot of subcategories under yarns. There might only be 2 or 3 under Books&DVD’s. So let’s say that under Books & DVD’s, I choose to have sub categories for Knitting and for Crochet, and for Weaving. That would be another $1 per subcategory = another 3$ per month or $36 per year.

This structure allows the vendors to make the decision about how much to spend, which categories (and ultimately which products) are most important. The members provide feedback in their purchases. If a vendor advertises in a subcategory that returns nothing, then the vendor must decide if it is their product, or if it is the subcategory that is not inviting to buyers.

I would very much like to work with you on this–as I have said before, I currently spend between $130-250 every month on R, on their “buy it now” advertising for yarns.

We should have a phone conference to talk about this. If you aren’t interested, please let me know, ok?

Thanks,
Laurel

I am hoping @Admin & @snickerdoodle have been able to catch up and read thru this thread.
this might be something that would need to be worked on as “study group”
but yes, I very much agree that two things need to happen. 1st is FiberKind needs a revenue stream if it is to survive and grow in the free services it offers and 2nd Supplier/Advertisers need both a reasonable ROI during the development years AND some small advantage for the support they provide

I am interested, but a phone conversation is not easy for me at this time.