Big Cartel

Do you want to start a webshop for your creative work? Then use Big Cartel. Big Cartel is run by artists and designed for artists. In the broadest sense of the word. Not large companies, but small groups of creatives or just individuals are Big Cartel’s target audience.

What is Big Cartel?

Big Cartel is an e-commerce software focused on the arts. Creative works and merchandise are sold through Big Cartel web shops. Big Cartel does not charge commission amounts for this. So the profit from the sales is yours as the seller. The cost is relatively low. Gold is free. Platinum and Diamond are paid options. For this, you pay a lot less than for other e-commerce software.

Webshop for the creative

A free option also gives you fewer options. Per product you get only 1 photo for example. For Platinum or Diamond, these are 5. Platinum has more options than Gold. For example, Google Analytics, inventory tracking and bulk editing capability. These options are also there for Diamond. The difference between Diamond and Platinum is the number of products you can offer on your webshop. These are 50 at Platinum and 500 at Diamond. For Gold, these are only 5. It is always possible to do actions for your shop and track shipping.

Impact on SEO

Although Big Cartel lets you know little about the SEO, it is possible to have an impact on the SEO from within your web shop. You ensure a better position in search results for your shop with a number of points. These include metadata, the URLs for your product pages and the speed of your page. Metadata ensures relevance. Easy and recognizable URLs get visitors. And fast pages generally already come up higher in search results.

My advice

As a small business owner or artist, Big Cartel is what you need. Focused on small-scale sales and aware of intellectual property. Larger e-commerce software is unaware of the values involved in the arts and creative industries. For a large business or selling non-proprietary products, Big Cartel is not what you need.