The CraftStar Update: LOTS OF SALES AND NEW FEATURES!

Hope you're enjoying the summer - which seems to be flying by! It's very busy at The CraftStar -  Free month membership promotion, new features and lots of sales! Sales are booming for July – a notoriously slow time of year for any e:commerce site.  We think our success is based on a few changes we’ve recently made. We’ve added a new way to shop on The CraftStar front page:  The CraftStar Collectives.  These are aimed at shoppers who know what they want, and don’t have a lot of time to go looking for it.  So, we’ve created Collectives for them.  What’s a Collective?  It’s a themed shop, with a variety of members in it.  These are driving sales to the shops participating as each listing within a Collective has a live backlink to the shop - shoppers are using those to find more of what they want. Example: For more information on The Collectives and to decide if you want to participate, please read this:  http://thecraftstar.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-craftstar-collectives-new-way-to.html While we started with 5 Collectives (Holidays, Greeting Cards, Quilts, Earrings, and Bath and Body), we’ve now added: Pets, Kids, and Art. Seeing the success of these, we suggest that you backlink to your shops in each of your listings.  For example:  To see more of my handmade jewelry, please visit: http://shopname.thecraftstar.com You can easily make this link live, by highlighting it, clicking on the right blue icon in the description box, and pasting the link there. The PR team that we’ve hired and all The CraftStar advertising we’re doing, are both making a big impact which is very exciting.  And of course, our team who spend their days and nights promoting you and your shops!  Your help with this is crucial to your success, and we’ve made that even easier for you …. The techs are working hard at adding new features, which are also helping with awareness and traffic on The CraftStar!  You may have noticed this new window that pops up when listing an item - making it really easy to share on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr. And .. due to popular request, we’ve added a DUPLICATE LISTING functionality.  You can choose whether to copy the listing with or without the images. We’re now doing BNR’s twice a week – Mondays and Thursdays at 8pm EDT / 5PDT.  With The CraftStar chat rooms, these are a great way of getting to know your fellow sellers, catching some great items with coupon codes and making sales!  Now ... we’ve added a new twist to it, with a LIVE broadcast!  We tried it for the first time last week, where sellers jumped in and out of the LIVE HANGOUT to talk about their items, their art, how they make it, find it, create it … it was a lot of fun!  We’ll be doing lots more of those.  If you haven’t joined us in a BNR, or even if you’ve never done a BNR, try to join us!   I had never participated in one before we started them here on The CraftStar and it’s so much fun. We’re running a promotion right now for new users signing up … a month free, unlimited listings of course, and the ability to run more than one shop from a single log in!  If you know anyone who’s considering The CraftStar, please send them this link: https://www.thecraftstar.com/Signup/WELCOMEVINTAGE/ I think that’s enough for now … please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions, suggestions, or just want to have a chat! With best wishes Bethan and The CraftStar Team PS. We’re constantly updating our Facebook page with news and info … so if you haven’t LIKED us yet, now would be a good time to do that!  https://www.facebook.com/thecraftstar