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Last week we presented our first in a series of seminars for eBay alternates. I was quite pleased to see the nice turn-out and fantastic participation from those in attendance. But, for those who were unable to attend, we are posting an edited transcript. Enjoy, and be sure to join us this week for the next seminar, featuring auctionspiel.com at http://forums.delphiforums.com/boycottebay/chat
Silkfair: I’ll go over a few of the basics info which I think everyone and others might be interested in first.
Please feel free to jump in with questions/comments any time.
Silkfair.com was a project that was conceived in 2006 and launched in 2008, initiated from a separate manufacturing/wholesaling business that we seeked to change our business model.
To make a long story short, the business manufactured and distributed products thru retail chains in USA, and if any of you dealt with mass retailers, you would understand the stringent requirements and terms.
Since the items sold are quite expensive, we carefully examined our risks on hand in the US market, and considered a direct-to-consumer model as a potentially viable alternative, which of course required us to greatly modify our logistics.
At the same time, during other venture discussions with other companies, we decided that potentially, other manufacturers could be facing the potential difficulty in starting up a direct model.
That triggered other analysis and discussions, eventually evolved to the initiation of Silkfair.com, which targeted at helping small players to start up and grow e-commerce ventures.
I understand this forum is a collective community of sellers that has difficulties with eBay, whether fortunately or unfortunately, eBay or eBay issues with sellers was not the catalyst to the formation of this Silkfair project.
But since our launch in 2008, we were compared or labeled as an alternative. Since it might be easier to digest in that context, we accept that, but we anticipate that will change and formulate our own unique identity.
Regardless of that, our principal service objective is simple – provide an easy and flexible ecommerce platform with low barrier of entry; to level the playing field for all. In fact, that guiding principal is a double-play of words integrated into our name Silkfair. This can only be achieved when each participant is fully empowered.
So, when you try Silkfair, you may find some things familiar, some things not so familiar. Since the beginning, we brought in design talent that worked on household branded products/sites in hopes that consumers can encounter a consistent mall-like feel.
We utilized development techniques to try to make startup and maintenance for sellers as simple as we can while masking complexities.
Even though this is the 3rd generation of development, we still consider the current production version rough, the core modules are considered stablized and we’re continuing with the enhancement and experimentations.
The teams in support of this project now comprises of marketing teams, support teams and development teams. Since launch, we actually pulled back on marketing as we listened to the feedbacks, and used the time to make changes.
We’re now starting to modify the marketing efforts, as much of the system has been changed to better suit the needs from feedbacks we gethered.
Since the features we offer are quite lengthy, I invite you to peruse thru the 2 tabs in this link http://www.silkfair.com/help/features when you have a chance. In short summary, here is a brief synopsis of some of the services :
1 – Fees – only on final sales – 3%. We will be implementing video fee based on bandwidth usage later on. No anticipated listing fees in Silkfair.com.
2 – Direct import from Ebay and Etsy supported; realtime eBay rating integration; more direct importing being developed
3 – Additions/Deletions/Updates of listings via CSV formatted file import/export supported
4 – for buyers – 1 page multi-vendor/multi-item shopping cart checkout
PaAntiques – you might be interested in this :
5 – separation of specialty interests starting with Handmade goods, Vintage, Antiques, Collectibles, earth friendly green goods, mass produced vs one-of-a-kind and limited edition goods, etc…
6 – auto googlebase submissions. Custom googlebase submissions available.
7 – customizable meta-tags for shop and individual listings for search engines
8 – very simple in-line editing of listings. Just click on the area that’s to be changed to modify and edit. Short video demo : http://www.silkfair.com/site/demo?v=Silkfair_InLineEdit1
We try to flatten the category tree. Each shop has own customizable category tree as well. management of shop category tree is very simple – drag and drop so, if you need to manipulate the order of the category / sub-category, you just drag and drop to sort
9 – payment option of PayPal and GoogleCheckout
10 – Full order processing with order history and communication; payment processing including authorize/capture/void/credit; inventory management
11 – flexible pricing templates, listing templating, shipping and tax templating. 12 – integrated shop blog and forum for each shop
13 – Adult-content filtering / opt-in viewing ; we welcome all legally tradable goods
14 – Double-blind feedback facility with detailed buyer/seller experience ratings
and that encompass seller able to rate on the experience dealing with the buyer
15 – Filtering search mechanism; in-store search
Currently, the platform only handles fixed-price format, but we will be providing an auction format when the time is right.
The system already has multi-currency support built in, but not yet enabled. Upcoming function under development are currency conversion and integrated shipping calculators (UPS, FedEx, USPS) also coupons and multi-item shipping discounts because our system can handle crediting/refunds, some sellers have been setting up refunds. Major function that we hope to release shortly (maybe a pre-release this month) is a custom shop option, which empowers you to have your own independent and fully customizable shop to be set up in a couple of minutes. What that means is, it’s a quick and simple path that empowers you of your own destiny.
For sellers who are familiar with html, you will have full access and control over the html/css, and the shop is fully your brand.
if you have played with blogger.com, it’s pretty much like that except of course, blogs are easier to deal with in development compared to e-commerce Silkfair brand appears just on the bottom of the shop in small texts as “Powered by Silkfair”. so, for experienced developers that’s looking for max flexibility, full access to html/css is available. For novices, you can simply use our point and click user interface to make customizations. Each custom shop will be supported by your own domain such as http://www.my_own_shop.com. It is you controlling your business, your destiny.
The option is open for testing, and provides 10 different usable templates to start with, and we welcome 3rd party developers and service providers to develop and/or sell templates or provide customization services.
Longer term objectives, we aim and have started the development in further reaching out with Silkfair marketplaces.
There has been some exciting discussions with other companies, and we’re looking forward in beginning the steps toward that goal in structuring this new business model.
So, in conclusion, our targeting are of multiple angles :
enhance the system to provide better visibility in search;
provide the independent shops so that serious sellers can operate and promote; and lastly, build-up of the Silkfair marketplaces over the long haul, so that even the casual sellers can benefit
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