[dkrich]

I'm curious about the decision to not charge more. I think you may be assuming that people won't pay a setup or monthly fee to get a single product up, but I think you may be leaving money on the table.

I could see this being a great way for college students to sell tshirts to parties or groups to sell event tshirts on Facebook. Why not have them pay a larger listing fee up-front? I don't think there is necessarily a correlation between number of items and willingness to pay (especially if you are comparing to Shopify's $29/month plan which is aimed at small stores anyway).

Anyhow, this is a really interesting idea.

[katherinehague]

Thanks! We really appreciate the feedback. You're not the first to suggest there might be room to charge more. The most important thing for us is that we always have a risk free option. We want it to be really easy for someone to get started. But pricing strategies moving forward is definitely something we're taking a hard look at.

[molsongolden]

I haven't used Shopify but I don't understand why someone would pay $29/mo for a tiny store when you can set up a Big Cartel store for free. BC limits your html access and you can only have five items but shopowners can still customize the css and it's free?!

[dkrich]

Well as somebody who has built stores from scratch and used Shopify, I don't think Shopify is a bad deal actually. Even when I build my own from scratch, I still have to pay for hosting that runs at least $30/month. Of course Shopify also takes a cut of sales revenues, but for somebody anxious to start selling, these costs are not huge. Add in difficulty and costs of setting up certificates, and to me, Shopify is not a bad option.

I think that if somebody is sitting there with a bunch of stuff they are eager to start selling, they are not going to mind pulling out a credit card and spending $20-$30 to get started. That's why I think these guys should raise their prices to capture that impulse buy up-front. I think there is a lot of value in knowing the brand. If I know Shopify is a proven product, I'll probably pay a premium rather than try an unknown service.

[molsongolden]

I agree that Shopify can be a good deal vs. building and hosting your own but I was trying to compare the $29 Shopify base plan to a Big Cartel free plan.

Big Cartel is a fairly established player in the "run your own storefront" game. With their most basic plan you can edit your storefront CSS, they don't take a percentage of sales, and you can have 5 products for free.

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That said, I see ShopLocket as competing more with Gumroad than with the "storefront management" companies. If I want to open a storefront then I will open an Etsy/Shopify/Big Cartel store but if I already have a website and I want to now offer a few items for sale then I would use ShopLocket.

I would be glad to pay the current ShopLocket fee after my first sale but would not be willing to pay an upfront setup charge. What if I'm not sure that anyone wants the item I am trying to sell? I'm not a retailer, I'm just a guy who wants to try selling something. ShopLocket would be driving away a large number of amateur sellers if they put up that barrier to entry. With no upfront fee there is the chance of catching the amateur seller who is testing the waters then ends up with a hit, with an upfront fee that person would go use Gumroad.