Has anyone had issues with bigcartel for their website?

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dfarm

Joined
Feb 21, 2008
Messages
274
I have recently found myself at a point where I would like to have a website to list some of my work.

I have looked at several providers like square, bigcartel and the like and it seems like most of them have pretty generic sounding prohibitions on selling "weapons".

I've seen people selling knives on most of the platforms so I'm guessing it's fine most of the time until someone complains about it.

I think I would like to use bigcartel to make my site/store but the prohibition on weapons causes me a little concern.

I mostly make small edc fixed blades, some hunting/utility type knives and culinary knives but I do make a dagger or similar every so often.

TLDR:
Has anyone had their webstore on bigcartel suspended or closed for selling knives?

Also, I'm interested to hear about any website advise, concerns or things to watch out for. I'm not familiar with having a website at all so I'm trying to learn as I go.

Thanks for any help.
 
I use Hostinger and no issues from them on hosting. However, payments are another issue. Stripe stopped accepting my money due to weapons issues. It’s all a PITA.
 
I've used Big Cartel for years and never had any problems, on the contrary, the Big Cartel staff have always been super helpful whenever I've had a technical question. And the technical info already on the site is very well done. If the knives you're planning on selling have names like Zombie Killer, Execution Warrior of Death and Combat Fighting Knife for Killing, you might run into problems. I use names like Snack Chopper and nobody minds - unless they're a snack! :cool:
 
This is timely as I am looking into establishing a website and domain to show my knives.
 
I went ahead and signed up for a year with bigcartel and the mid-tier plan(platinum) because having my own domain name is important to me.

I already owned the domain name through namescheap and getting the redirect setup was super easy once I quit trying to do it on my phone.

I have only poked around on the site (bigcartel)for a few minutes but it looks like it should be pretty straightforward to get things up and working.

The only question I know I have so far is about how pirate ship integrates with bigcartel.

I know it's probably going to be easier to use bigcartel for shipping and labels but with the platinum plan you "only" get 10 labels a month. I've been using pirate ship for a few years and I like everything about it, so if it integrates enough to charfe the buyer the correct price and collect the needed information, I'll probably try to run with it.
 
I would definitely use a desktop computer or laptop and Chrome for setting up Big Cartel. Experiment a bit with photo sizes for uploading. I never use original size (coming from an iPhone 16) I always use "Large" and that gives enough resolution even on big screens.

The good thing about Big cartel is they do not take any % of your sales. You pay a flat fee according to the plan you select and that's it. I started on their free plan but quickly switched to paid plan when I saw how well it worked.
 
Kevin Wilkins said:
I would definitely use a desktop computer or laptop and Chrome for setting up Big Cartel. Experiment a bit with photo sizes for uploading. I never use original size (coming from an iPhone 16) I always use "Large" and that gives enough resolution even on big screens.

The good thing about Big cartel is they do not take any % of your sales. You pay a flat fee according to the plan you select and that's it. I started on their free plan but quickly switched to paid plan when I saw how well it worked.
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Is there an app for your phone that makes uploading pictures easy or is it better to do it all from a computer?

I'm hoping to start getting some things listed today and tomorrow.

Going from "hobby" to "work" at this makes me understand how people justify paying pros to get things taken care of.

If I knew the money was going to come in to justify it, I'd way rather keep making knives and pay a couple of people to take care of the business side and the social media and website stuff. I'm still at the "sell a knife to pay for a years worth of website and see how it goes" stage, so I get to "FA&FO". LOL
 
Keep your dream alive. Just kidding but reality sucks.There is minuscule amount of knife makers that make living making knives. The few that due have incredible wives that have steady great paying job with insurance. 99% true prove me wrong.
 
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I view website design and maintenance along with social media maintenance as necessary evils. They require a bit of time each week and that time takes you away from making knives (grrrr). Trying to balance it all is the trick. Once your site is up and running it’ll be easier to perform the regular maintenance (uploading new items, filling orders, etc.).
Best of luck to you, hope we get to see your website soon!
Jeff
 
dfarm said:
Is there an app for your phone that makes uploading pictures easy or is it better to do it all from a computer?

I'm hoping to start getting some things listed today and tomorrow.

Going from "hobby" to "work" at this makes me understand how people justify paying pros to get things taken care of.

If I knew the money was going to come in to justify it, I'd way rather keep making knives and pay a couple of people to take care of the business side and the social media and website stuff. I'm still at the "sell a knife to pay for a years worth of website and see how it goes" stage, so I get to "FA&FO". LOL
Click to expand...
You can upload photos directly inside your Big Cartel website, just open the product and click add a photo. If you use an iPhone, store your photos in Apple photos on iCloud and can access them from other devices. If you use Android be sure and store your photos somewhere other than your phone.
 
LCoop said:
Keep your dream alive. Just kidding but reality sucks.There is minuscule amount of knife makers that make living making knives. The few that due have incredible wives that have steady great paying job with insurance. 99% true prove me wrong.
Click to expand...
It certainly seems like that in many cases. There's an infinite number of ways to skin the cat that is life, so good for them for figuring out a way to get it done in a way that works for them.
Jeffinn said:
I view website design and maintenance along with social media maintenance as necessary evils. They require a bit of time each week and that time takes you away from making knives (grrrr). Trying to balance it all is the trick. Once your site is up and running it’ll be easier to perform the regular maintenance (uploading new items, filling orders, etc.).
Best of luck to you, hope we get to see your website soon!
Jeff
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It's very true. It's extra frustrating now because it's new and I'm figuring it out. I'm sure it'll be easier once it's just maintenance.

Thank you for the encouragement!
Kevin Wilkins said:
You can upload photos directly inside your Big Cartel website, just open the product and click add a photo. If you use an iPhone, store your photos in Apple photos on iCloud and can access them from other devices. If you use Android be sure and store your photos somewhere other than your phone.
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Thank you. I just figured out that it will let me select photos and it pretends like it's going to work but never does. Lol.

Thanks again for your help.
 
I've found the easiest way to get photos from my phone to my desktop (since I don't have any cloud storage) is to simply email them to myself. Open the email on the desktop, save the photo to your pictures files, and go from there.

Eric
 
Go Daddy is one I have used in the past for various things. Pretty easy to use. Not sure about web hosting for knives, but it was pretty easy for me to use.
 
dfarm said:
SNIP

Thank you. I just figured out that it will let me select photos and it pretends like it's going to work but never does. Lol.

Thanks again for your help.
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You're photos are probably in the wrong format and/or too large. Pics should be .jpeg
 
They were jpeg. They were 4-5mb per pic but my pc is old and slow. I resized them to 2mb and loaded one at a time and they worked.

I have RAM on order to hopefully help with the issue.
 
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