The Larper's Corner!

S

strago

Newbie
Hey all,

Well, the tusks I ordered are on their way and supposed to arrive today anyway, so I figured it was time for me to make this announcement for anyone interested; I am really excited about this - and I really hope it proves as helpful as I want it to be!

I am proud to announce a new program for anyone who makes or wants to sell anything LARP related. I've named this program The Larper's Corner, and for the time being will be posting all items in a category on my current website until the website has been updated.

All items will be free to post, and the only cost will be a flat rate 10% off the final item sale to cover expenses. As an added bonus offer, if a buyer spends an equal value on normal retail items from The Larp Realm, that 10% fee will be waived as well, meaning the seller will get 100% of the item sale!

For requirements:
-Your products must be Larp-related and/or handcrafted (sorry, if you want to sell a game console, you'll have to go to Ebay ;) )
-To receive payment for any of your items, you will need to have a Paypal account; don't worry, the fee I discussed above includes the fee Paypal charges to receive funds.
-Any items to be posted will require your own photos (I can post up to four per item), item description(s), and any options such as size or color of the item.
-Please note: Once an item has been purchased and you are contacted, you will hold all responsibility of shipping the item to the buyer, and will be expected to handle any claims from the buyer relating to your items.

Interested? You can send an email to larpcorner@larprealm.com to begin discussion with me regarding your items!

-James aka Strago
Owner, The Larp Realm, LLC
 
Given the decent number of views and lack of responses, I figured I would gather some opinions - is there anyone who would be willing to provide me with some honest feedback on what makes my offer less than favorable? I know there are other options for selling items at a lower overall cost, but the difference between those other options and The Larper's Corner is that I am also covering payment processing, providing entirely free hosting for items until they are sold, AAAAAND, with enough support both from sellers and buyers, will be able to take steps toward giving back to the LARP community. Anyway, to those of you reading this, some honest feedback about my offer would be very much appreciated!

-James aka Strago
 
I didn't think it was a particuallary bad idea, here are my impressions on what might be holding people up from participating.

1.) Crafting is time consuming act of love - A huge number of the leather/boffer workers in alliance do the work not only to make money but also to see their work being used by characters they have at least heard of if not know. I'm not sure many of them want to deal with the average consumer culture we have in America by dealing with random clients as opposed to the interpersonal deals directly with another player/owner.

2.) 10% may not seem like much, but most of the crafts I've boughten from people tend to be very low margin as it is. Payment processing is fairly easy with paypal etc. and runs about 3.5% on the high side, so they have to determine if the listing on your service is worth 6.5% of the gross, which could equal a very high % of their profit margin.
 
Most of the people I know that make their things either have a business already, do it on the side with minimal profit and are keeping prices reasonable, and there are already several outlets available for doing this (like etsy and ebay or just making their own free website and advertising on the boards here).

Me personally, I just make stuff for myself, my son, and my friends at request.
 
Etsy charges 3.5% of the sale price for use of their site.

10% is non-competitive.
 
Thanks for the feedback, those who have posted :) I am going to see what I can do to lower that percentage, but while I do, is 3.5% of the sale price the ONLY expense, or is there also a fee added on for payment processing - can someone clarify that for me? I didn't see a definitive summary one way or another of this anywhere.

For the record, my goal with this isn't profit, but rather trying to offer a home specifically for LARPers to both buy and sell LARP-related wares without any headaches aside from receiving their money and shipping items; I intend to have any profits I receive go toward both a physical store and funding projects to benefit LARP groups and players - large donations, possibly hosting events/workshops for players, and providing low cost solutions for helping games improve - so, choosing to go with me is partially buying in to supporting the LARP community as a whole, once things finally start heading in the right direction :)

Again, thanks for the feedback, and once I have figured out if/how much I can drop the cost, I will certainly add an update!

-James aka Strago
 
Etsy charges $0.20 per listing an item in a shop for 3 months.

Paypal charges 2.9% + $0.30 for each seller transaction.
 
Howdy Folks,

Just wanted to chime in on this, as I am an avid Etsy and Direct Paypal Seller.

In addition to the $0.20 listing fee and the 2.5% transaction fee, Etsy also charges a 4% direct checkout charge. I'm not sure exactly how all of this is calculated into a sale as they are good about hiding these details, but in my experience, either way, it's not a huge difference.

While I certainly appreciate your willingness to bring down your 10% fee James, I for one think it's fair. You'll be covering additional advertising, taking care of setting up all the listings, (once proper info is sent), and providing a streamlined purchasing experience for all of our customers. I.E., they go to The Larp Realm to buy a Latex weapon and then click over and buy a sword frog to match, some bracers, some pouches, some armor, etc, and before you know it, they're completely outfitted, all in one simple purchasing portal.

Now, all of that said, yes, as a budding business owner and crafter, my margins are extremely low, and in most cases I only cover cost, so I'm looking at this proposal more on the lines of paying for my advertising, supporting our community and opening up my customer base, while also getting to promote others. Perhaps someone will search for my stuff, and end up buying yours. I think it's a win-win!

James, I look forward to working with you!

Cheers!

PS: I love all the crafters out there! Keep up the great work, everybody!
 
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