Thoughts on websites?

Baby Talk
#1

So I’m currently making a website for my reborns, hoping I can gain some sales through it, my reasons being

I stopped using reborns.com, I found with that platform my doll disappears from the front page within half an hour and hardly ever gets back on the front page due to so many other dolls (mostly used), also my dolls were rarely showcased on his Facebook or Instagram page and when I asked Dave about that he said there are so many dolls on the site now that only some get picked at random with be shared across social media so I didn’t see the point of paying the subscription anymore.

I don’t really do tiktok, I have posted a few videos on there but they don’t really get many views so it seems like a lot of work for nothing, Instagram is pretty much the same and I rarely sell through that platform.

I don’t use Etsy because I refuse to pay their ridiculous fees!

So that just leaves Facebook where I sell all my dolls, which is fine but then I’m limited to only customers who actually use Facebook and join reborn groups and there has to be hundreds more who don’t, so that’s why I decided to start building a website.

My question is do any of you have a website or have had one in the past? Do you get many sales through it? Or even many visits to it?

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#2

One of the main issues with Dave featuring stuff on Instagram is there is no clickable link I’m
Not good at copying and clicking it’s to cumbersome on my phone if even possible. He should be featuring more than one at a time and maybe it’s time to do away with the preloved cause that’s all I see for the same price as new or in some cases more than they paid… so it’s weird. I don’t see that dolls are selling through reborns other than it being a place to send your social media followers a place they can buy your baby. Cause he is not marketing them and the dolls that are selling are because the artists are sending traffic from their social media pages :pleading_face:

I’ve had two dolls for sale for three months… they may not be super popular sculpts but they aren’t completely horrible and I’ve seen some sell for the same price that well… :disguised_face:

I think social media is where it’s at unfortunately. You can still sell from reborns.com but your babies won’t show up on the front page or in a search I don’t think. Only if you give a direct link to your nursery :woman_shrugging:t2:

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#3

Oh I have no intention of using reborns anymore, I meant a personal website for an individual reborn nursery?

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#4

I had my own website for a few years and barely get any trafic. Very hard to get traffic if you’re not very known or haven’t a big social media following. That’s why I stick to reborns.com , that’s the only place I sell my dolls. It’s not perfect but better than nothing.

#5

I’ve had my own website through square for several years, I do make about half of my sales through it, however it’s not random people finding my website and purchasing, it’s usually from me posting a baby for sale and including a link to my website. If you get square for payment processing they offer a free website. I purchased my domain name from godaddy and just did a forward so people don’t have to type in the square up/site address that they automatically give you. They type in www.e-borns.com and my square site opens. I do like that people can sign up for notifications on it, so they get an email when I add a new baby to my online store. It’s pretty annoying to set up, but once it’s done it’s easy to update and really useful.

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#6

I have a free website through webnode. I do not think I have ever gotten a sale that way honestly. Not much traffic unless someone is directed there from another site like FB or something. 90% of my sales have been through FB or reborns. The other local or repeat customers. With FB changing so much I am not so sure how well it is going to work for selling much longer as they want you to pay to have your stuff appear in feeds now I think. They are limiting what is shown with this new meta format. Sales are slower overall due to this bad economy we are now in and the reborn market has been flooded for some time now with cheap reborns as well as china knock offs. I am also noticing a lot of people putting their silicones up for sale now too so that market is already getting a lot of flooding. Those selling off their preloved ones and those new to painting. I am not so sure where this is all going but very concerned.

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#7

I just see so many people in reborn groups who have been scanned by a website they found on Google that I figured if they can find the scam sites they can find a legitimate site owned by an artist, perhaps if there were more of them there would be less people getting scammed and we would sell more?