If a designer sells her stuff through one of the consignment shops, what's to keep the shop owner from skimming off the top of the individual's sales. Is there someway to assure that what the designer recieves reflects what was actually sold. I hate to be such a cynic and my first instinct is to trust, but it seems it would be very easy for an owner to defraud designers of what's coming to them.

LaWanna

LaWanna,
Well, that would be embezzinlg, and it's a crime. I know quite a few of the bigger websites have shopping carts that you check to see how many kits you have sold. You could always caluculate what you think you have coming to you and if it's different you could check with the website owner. I would think that if any website owner did this they would be going out of business real quick, I'm sure that all of his/her designers would leave. You also sign a legal agreement between you and the website. Any other thoughts on this ladies?

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Becky
I Do Whatever My Rice Krispies Tell Me To.

It seems that if the owner were defrauding the designer, it might be difficult to detect unless you had some way of knowing that the sales reports were accurate.

I was wondering what if I encouraged each purchaser to register the products via a private e-mail address in exchange for a free bonus specific to the product. Then I might have a way to roughly keep up with sales separatly from an offical sales report.

LaWanna

Forgive me LaWanna, if I am off base, I don't design or sell so I have never been in your shoes. But do you even want to do business at sites where you suspect the owner would defraud you? There are so many designers out there I am sure that they could be approached for referrals of sites that are honestly and diligently run. And I would suspect that the vast majority fall into this category but maybe I just have a PollyAnna outlook and a high regard for what I have seen of the community as a whole. From a less optomistic viewpoint, even doing the math, an owner would have to skim like crazy to make it worth their while to jeopardize their entire endeavour because they would go down like the Titanic if anyone ever got wind of it. I like your idea of a freebie bonus for registrants but it might make you a bit crazy figuring out what the statistics all mean--ie/ someone like me who buys the kit but never gets it together enough to remember to e-mail you for a freebie.

lawanna,
does your site have a design team or creative team that might be getting product free or at a discount? if so that might contribute to your "invalid sales $" just a thought. maybe yoru site owner can provide info on revenue sales vs promotional or non rev sales? good luck

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Wendy Armstrong (aka Scrap'N Girl)
my photography site: WendyArmstrongPhotography dot com

It sounds like you should sell your stuff on your own site. Then you won't have to worry abt fraud or owner skimming.

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><> LeeAndra <><
CREATING FOR
Miss Hunibuni :: Rachael Giallongo :: Mandabean
Two Little Pixels :: Chirpi Creative
April guest for Kelly Thompson and Scarletheels

YIKES!! Please don't misunderstand me. I have NO reason to suspect anyone of anything.

My question was one of a very general nature. I guess what I should have asked is what can be done to provide designers with a way of validating sales records. Even very honest people can make honest mistakes. I actually do have a high regard for the members of this wonderful community, but doing business requires a bit of a different perspective.

It would be nice for the designers to have a way to get into the shopping cart system and view their sales at any time, not just for security purposes but also for marketing reasons. Of course, I don't know how practical this is from the site owners' perspective.

As for having my own site. That sounds good, but is not a very practical option for me right now.

I think asking for some references might be the best option at this point. And perhaps asking purchasers to register the product. That would at least give me a rough estimate at minimum.

LaWanna

Honestly, I think LaWanna has a very good point. When I was selling I was very surprised to find out that the stores don't notify you immediately upon each sale. That's just something I expected. I was not notified until the end of the month what my tallies were and then they were just that, tallies. I was not told who, what, when, why, etc. I understand that is probably jsut a shortcoming of the software all of the stores use, but I was disappointed. I understand that we all hope and pray that the store owners are honest and report every penny, but what is the guarantee of that?

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