Shared Creation

A little while ago over on the Shared Creation Magazine I mentioned a service that makes selling Art and T Shirt designs easy. It is called redbubble.

Yesterday I built a profile on RebBubble and it seemed sensible to share this step in selling images to you. This is how it went.

Firstly two things become instantly apparent, the sign up process is streamlined, and the design is very much in the style of a modern information sharing site. I found myself comparing it to the feel of using Friendfeed. This is a good thing. Friendfeed is a fine example of power through simplicity . I was pleased, Rebubble had past the first test. It has a clear and easy to follow design and the minimal information is taken. I really like this minimalist view to collecting data. It is suggestive of a company that wants to professionally provide a service without collecting excess information that can be used for goodness know what. Of course I do now know exactly what Redbubble does with your personal data, but the attitude of their sign up feels good.

Ok with signup a breeze the next step was to load up some artwork. This had to be done one image at a time, using an interface that is not similar to using Flickr.  Ok so one image at a go is not a lot, but the idea seems to be based on you uploading quality and quantity. Redbubble is designed to sell your best, not horde the rest. So the one at a time equates to a reinforcement of that principle.

Now its time to set your price. Always an awkward moment this. It takes time to learn a new market so initial price setting on sign up is hard. There is a reasonable answer to this little problem on Redbubble. A base price is set for all goods and you decide on a percentage profit for yourself. Everyone starts at the same price and then decides how much to take. There is a standard percentage mark up, and selecting this gives a good starting level.

If all of this sounds clean and easy – that’s because it is. RedBubble has impressed because it has learned all the good lessons from modern social websites and avoided many of the traps that older longer established and harder to use sales sites hit. In other words it is standing on the shoulders of giants to create a good user experience. This is the key to the modern web, above all else a web site has to be easy to use , its operation has to be transparent and it has to look good. Redbubble hits all of these marks, making it a good example of new breed.

So setup is easy – how about sales handling. Well no sales yet but I’ll let you know how well the money handling goes when it is time.

In the meantime I intend to upload images, join in with a new community and see how things go.