gypse
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Registered: 12/05/04
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| | 10/31/05 at 10:14 PM | Reply with quote | #1 |
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Jewelry Artist Direct - Information for Artists
established 11/1/05
Application Form
What is JewelryArtistDirect.com?
Jewelry Artist Direct is a shopping portal dedicated to showcasing all types of hand-crafted jewelry by independent jewelry artists with shopper friendly ecommerce sites. A highly diverse selection of jewelry types will enrich the shopping experience and benefit all participating jewelers.
JewelryArtistDirect.com (JAD) is affiliated with The International Guild of Wire Jewelry Artists, a non-profit organization. Fees collected for the mall are dedicated to the direct expenses of maintaining and promoting the site, with empahsis on advertising and search engine placement. Marketing will be targeted to jewelry shoppers.
JAD supports the guild's mission to increase public awareness of wire art jewelry and to put it on a level playing field with other types of art jewelry. The web site is maintained by guild volunteers.
What does it cost?
You must apply to JewelryArtistDirect.com and be accepted by the selection committee. You do not need to make a payment until you have been accepted.
Guild Business Members - $50 per year - no additional fees.
Guild General Members - must upgrade to business level prior to inclusion.
Non-Guild members - $50 per year for inclusion in JAD.
There is no requirement that you be a guild business member to be in JAD, but from a practical standpoint, you might as well be. The cost is the same either way and it makes everything so much easier from an adminsitrative standpoint.
Click here for more information about the guild.
Fees paid to JewelryArtistDirect.com by non-guild members are due once per year and are non-refundable. If you join JewelryArtistDirect.com first and later decide to join The International Guild of Wire Jewelry Artists, that will be treated as a separate transaction at the prevailing guild membership rates. When your renewal for JewelryArtistDirect.com comes due, verify that it indicates you are now a guild member.
What Are The Requirements?
Our requirements are put in place with the intent of making this a great shopping experience.
- A working, shopper-friendly web site featuring finished jewelry handcrafted by the artist owning the site. Text on your home page, your about us page, etc should make it obvious that you are the person making the jewelry. Jewelry should not be sub-contracted, produced in quantity by employees, etc.
- The site must provide a direct shopping experience. Jewelry must be available for sale and a method of purchase provided. Shopping carts are highly encouraged.
- The site must be an independent web site with a domain name that can be directly linked to from JewelryArtistDirect.com. Top level domain names are highly encouraged. Check the bb topic "Getting on the Web" for help in getting your own independent web site.
- Stores on Auction and/or Mall sites such as eBay, RubyLane, HandCrafted Jewelry Mall, 1-of-a-kind, Etsy, etc. will not be approved for inclusion in Jewelry Artist Direct. Similar groupings with indexes including other unapproved artists will also be denied, such as ArtSpan subdomains with the prominent ArtSpan banner heading (ArtSpan sites with your own domain name are ok). JAD approval is granted to individual ecommerce sites. These other venues do not restrict access to that one, specific site and the additional artists that can be accessed have not been approved for inclusion, nor do they contribute to JAD advertising. Those venues already have the marketing pieces in place for their store owners that JewelryArtistDirect is bringing about for the individually owned sites.
- Pop-up/pop-under advertising is prohibited.
- 3rd party advertising contained in the site may not play a prominent role at the top of pages (especially the home page), but may be placed in discreet locations that do not interfere with the jewelry shopping experience. Acceptance of sites with 3rd party advertising is at the discretion of the Selection Committee.
(3rd party advertising does not include displays of jewelry related logos, awards, etc.)
- If accepted for inclusion in JewelryArtistDirect.com, you must add a link back to JewelryArtistDirect.com from your site, to help improve the search engine listings for the shopping portal. The preferred placement is on your home page, but it may be on your links page.
(Logos/html codes can be found here.)
It benefits all JAD participants to have JewelryArtistDirect.com obtain as high of a page rank as possible. When we link to your site and you do not return the link, it results in page rank "leakage". You must link back to stay included.
- Links within the site must be maintained and working.
- Sites that suddenly become parked, revert to "under construction", become link farms, can not be found, or othewise cease to be a good shopping experience will be dropped from JAD. No refunds will be made. If your site is dropped for these reasons, you will need to re-apply for inclusion once you have it ready to go again.
- Sites with lengthy download times may be refused, at the discretion of the Selection Committee.
- Sites with "frame-popping" code play havoc with features like the site tour. IGWJA reserves the right to exclude accepted sites from JAD features when they do not work and play well with one or more of those features.
- Site owners need to keep up with improvements to JAD and verify that they are meeting additional requirements for JAD mall features, such as the website tour, the gallery tour, and search.
- Applications to JewelryArtistDirect.com will be reviewed by the Selection Committee to verify compliance with the requirements. IGWJA reserves the right to excercise its discretion to refuse inclusion to any web site or to drop web sites that change direction/purpose/venues after being listed. If you are a JAD member and would like to be a member of the JAD Selection Committee, please let us know.
- Updates to your original mall application, including contact information, business name, web link, etc can be made by sending an email to info@JewelryArtistDirect.com..
- Stores that have been dropped because of lack of payment, because their link stopped working, because they changed in character from the time at which they were approved, or because of any other reason will need to re-apply and go through the application process again prior to re-inclusion.
- Accepted sites will be added upon receipt of appropriate payment, verification that you have placed a link to JAD on your site, and receipt of your images for the gallery tour.
APPLY TO JEWELRY ARTIST DIRECT
Please limit site descriptions to 240 characters max - including spaces - not including state/province & country. Submitted descriptions may be shortened or otherwise edited by the Guild if required.
Have 3 images for the gallery tour ready to send in if you are accepted. One image can be no larger than 300 pixels wide by 265 pixels tall. The other 2 images can be no larger than 220 pixels wide by 265 pixels tall.
Acceptance Expiration!
If your site is accepted into JAD, you need to promptly add a link to JewelryArtistDirect.com from your site. You may need to make appropriate payment (or join the guild). And you need to submit the 3 gallery images. Please take care of these items promptly!
JAD acceptances expire 60 days from the email notification from the selection committee. If you have not taken care of the link, payment, and the gallery images by then, your acceptance expires. If you still wish to proceed with JAD, you will need to re-apply once you are ready to take care of these things and be re-approved. Re-approval is not guaranteed and will be done in accordance with the then current guidelines.
Limited Opportunity
Please note, it will be necessary to cap the number of mall participants at some point, to keep the shopping experience positive and manageable. At that point, as vacancies arise, replacements will be selected from our waiting list. Guild members may be given priority placement.
What Else Should I Know?
The shopping portal's success depends upon it being a positive experience for the shoppers and for you. Start by thinking about the jewelry you make and the customers you want to attract. Write descriptions focused on those customers. Learn about SEO (search engine optimization) and use it on your site to help your products come up in the search results. Once a person clicks on your link and goes to your site, provide a good shopping experience for them on your web site.
A good shopping experience includes clear navigation paths on your website. Things you can do to help make people feel secure making an online purchase at your site include:
- providing secure payment methods
- providing an easy to find, clearly stated returns policy
- providing easy to find, clearly stated shipping rates
- providing an easy to find, clearly stated privacy policy
- providing easy to find, clearly stated shipping rates
- providing easy to find contact information
- providing an easy to find "about us" or "artist info" section that makes it clear that
you personally make the jewelry sold on your site.
In general, think about sites that are easy for you to shop on and try to emulate their good points.
Questions may be posted on the forum or sent to info@JewelryArtistDirect.com
Revised 3/08/08
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