Adrian Studer says:an hour ago

I have a marketing question for Tindie

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

shoot

David says:an hour ago

i have a few ;)

Adrian Studer says:an hour ago

What do you see in your stats as the biggest external driver of traffic?

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

SEO

Adrian Studer says:an hour ago

I.e. Google search?

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Organic search at the moment

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

That's why it's really important to have a good title and description

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

This is for Tindie as a whole

David says:an hour ago

I have a question about liability. I have a nice little device, but it uses heating element and another uses high voltages. How do I protect myself it such a device causes a fire?

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

We have a massive long tail for search.

spencer says:an hour ago

A 'good description' will also include all the buzwords around your product that might not be exactly your product, but will get people in.

Adrian Studer says:an hour ago

Too bad we can't see the Google search terms in Analytics. At least I can't.

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

However, for specific products, generally the biggest continuous drivers tend to vary

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

GA stopped letting people see that in free version

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Some people have sites with great docmentation and links to tindie

Adrian Studer says:an hour ago

In my experience, other people writing about your project, e.g. in forums, is great for direct traffic as well as Google ranking.

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Some people don't have sites at all, but have facebook pages, or youtube channels that they post product or project videos to and link to tindie

spencer says:an hour ago

My Google Analytics (free version) has a load of info about the traffic that hits my Tindie pages

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Forums is another great one. Either you need to take part, or your products need to impress knowledgable (and chatty) people

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

I was wrong, here's an article about how to see search terms in Google Analytics: http://www.boostsuite.com/seo-and-marketing-tips/use-google-analytics-to-find-your-best-keywords/

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

You can add your own google analytics ID to your Tindie store from your store settings page

Adrian Studer says:an hour ago

I run Google Analytics. Very helpful. But keywords are missing except if you run your Adwords ads

mclien says:an hour ago

So having a facebook page and no own website works better for marketing as the other way around?

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

David :: ultimately you are responsible

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

It really depends

spencer says:an hour ago

@mclien I don't have a facebook page, but my product has it's own website. A lot of my Tindie hits come from my website. ymmv

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

@mclien

David says:an hour ago

do we need to have any certification for products we sell?

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

no, not at a hobby level

anfractuosity says:an hour ago

i was wondering that to, if you need to CE test

anfractuosity says:an hour ago

ah cool

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

we hope to offer certification testing for "maker pricing" later in the year. No promises!

David says:an hour ago

cool. do you know what the limits to 'hobby' level are?

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

*with

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

5 pieces

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

I think we're going to do a separate chat on certification and FCC etc

David says:an hour ago

5 total? ever?

mclien says:an hour ago

@spencer how do you get the information spread. As how do you customers get notice of you?

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

not sure, will get back to you on this David

mclien says:an hour ago

As for certification: Might that vary from country to country?

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

David want to discuss your USB toy with the group?

spencer says:an hour ago

I use Twitter a lot. Often my customers tweet about the exciting new thing they just got, so I retweet. They often blog too and that helps. And I also use Google Adwords, but that goes direct to Tindie not my site

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

@mclien we'll do a separate FCC chat where you guys can ask the qs beforehand so we can have some time to fish out the answers

Benchoff says:an hour ago

@mclien not as much as you would think...

David says:an hour ago

sure, im looking for feedback an an idea (whether its worth pursuing)

spencer says:an hour ago

Shut up and take my money!

spencer says:an hour ago

(sorry... too soon!)

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

HAHAHA

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Ok, we will do another chat about certification. Please note that sellers are responsible for finding out and ensuring that they work within their local laws. This regard to taxes as well.

mclien says:an hour ago

@Sophi Kravitz

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

:D

David says:an hour ago

I have made myself a cool desktop toy. Its a super-geeky USB powered, optical time-of-flight Theramin using a plasma speaker.

mclien says:an hour ago

FCC chat at a later time then?

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

@mclien yup

anfractuosity says:an hour ago

Have you got any vids of it? it sounds cool!

mclien says:an hour ago

@David lout dangerous and with light? COOL

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Yes, there are a few sellers who have gone through it and we'll make sure they are on the chat

David says:an hour ago

no videos yet, maybe i can make one this weekend.

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Videos! they do seem to help with sales.

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Especially how to's or if your product can be used to control something

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

and then your video links back to your Tindie page

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

people click on videos especially in our newsletters

spencer says:an hour ago

Are you looking to manufacture it? Or sell as a kit?

David says:an hour ago

its tiny too, would fit in 5x5x5cm. i can program it to store a few songs too, startrek there, imperial march etc. But its only at breadboard prototype stage. fully working though

anfractuosity says:an hour ago

maybe it could connect to your pc as a sound device too?

spencer says:an hour ago

Have you seen Dave Jones video about pricing? Multiply your BOM by at least 2.5 for sale price. Will it sell for that cost? And will you make enough to be worth your while?

David says:an hour ago

I'm not sure if i do it at all, as a kit or whatever. does anyone think its worth pursuing?

mclien says:an hour ago

General Question to the stuff on tindie: I have the idea of serveral different "geek toy" stuff which is "working as it is", but should be open to invide people to do more with it. Are those typical tindi customers?

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

you mean like you are offering it open source and you are wanting to build a community around the product?

spencer says:an hour ago

Yes, sounds like it's worth pursuing. It's got lots of cool words in it at least! Mmmm... plasma...

David says:an hour ago

hmmm, that would make it about 50 bucks or so

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

@Spencer this one?

spencer says:an hour ago

That's the one. Well worth a view for anybody that hasn't seen it.

David says:an hour ago

I guess it depends on what kind of sales figures tindie sellers are hitting

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

I think people would go wild for an 'optical time-of-flight Theramin using a plasma speaker', but you do need a catchy name :)

mclien says:an hour ago

@David As non native I havend fully grasp what you do withit playing sound and makelight effects along?

Youlian Troyanov says:an hour ago

jasmine, that's great

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

@David What amounts do you need to make it viable?

mclien says:an hour ago

@Sophi more like it should have the potential and let see if it would

spencer says:an hour ago

@david $50 would probably put me off of a novelty thing personally. But I'm sure some people would pay that without batting an eyelid

David says:an hour ago

mclien: no, the plasma spark-gap makes the music

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

Hi everyone. :)

anfractuosity says:an hour ago

David, are you using something like the VL6180 for ToF measurement?

spencer says:an hour ago

Hi Doctor Nick!

Tindie says:an hour ago

Hi @Nick Sayer

David says:an hour ago

anfractuosity: yep, its the only cheap enough ToF device available

mclien says:an hour ago

@David Oh, like the Tesla coil piano on the CCC Camp: very cool. But there must be some protection around it, right?

anfractuosity says:an hour ago

David, ah neat

David says:an hour ago

mclien: i try not to touch the plasma.

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Wow - plasma spark gap music

Arsenijs says:an hour ago

"try"

Arsenijs says:an hour ago

=D

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

phase2682 says:an hour ago

Is Tindie worthwhile to do to make money? or mainly just to pay for a hobby?

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

Anyone else going to MFBA this year? Don't forget the application deadline... 2/12 IIRC.

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

People seem to be quite happy to pay $40 for a one digit lixie - https://www.tindie.com/products/connornishijima/lixie-an-led-alternative-to-the-nixie-tube/

David says:an hour ago

@Jasmine Brackett I would have to make enough money that me wife would accept me using up a half dozen weekends!

mclien says:an hour ago

David: I guess, when selling there should be some kind of protection as part of the design

David says:an hour ago

do people selling telsa coils and jacobs ladder need to supply protection?

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

@phase2682 - In principle, you could just do Tindie full time, but it'll wind up being a job.

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

@phase2682, it's one of those things where you tend to get out what you put in. Unless you can just do the design and outsource manufacture and shipping

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

I think it'll be a nice retirement thing for me when the time comes. Meanwhile, it's a hobby.

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Tindie will be at Maker Faire Bay Area.

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Along with Hackaday

Rob Burling says:an hour ago

Hi everyone. I have a question about logistics... does everyone ship from their homes, or does anyone use a service?

mclien says:an hour ago

@David Could be that depends more on your wife, than on the money you make ;-)

Sophi Kravitz says:an hour ago

:)

Adrian Studer says:an hour ago

@David a few weekends and half of the 2nd bedroom

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

Rob - I ship from home, but I use Endicia for postage.

spencer says:an hour ago

@david I have a friend that does a lot of Tesla Coil stuff and knows a lot more about it than me. He sells a couple of other things on Tindie already, so I'll try to make sure he pops in here next time.

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

I think if I were going to try to make a go at Tindie as a full-time job, I'd definitely go down the logistics road - build 1000 of something, package them and use some of the Tindie service stuff to wire the logistics up automatically.

spencer says:an hour ago

@rob I make up all the kits and ship from home

David says:an hour ago

@Spencer thanks, ide be interested to find out how he does it

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

@David Some people do crowdfunding first and then sell on Tindie after

Rob Burling says:an hour ago

Thanks Nick, I'll look them up

mclien says:an hour ago

David: might depend on finished product vs. parts (as a single tesla coil)

David says:an hour ago

im worried i'll need to set up a limited business, and that will eat up any profits

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

I've said before that it would be super-awesome-deluxe if Tindie kinda took a page from the erstwhile Hackaday store and offered logistics as a service to sellers like Amazon.

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

Sellers would send 100 or 1000 of something to Tindie and kick back XX% of the sales price for logistics.

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

Just a thought.

Adrian Studer says:an hour ago

Amazon doesn't do international, 75%+ of my orders are from overseas

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

@Nick Sayer, I manage the hackaday store too, and we're getting all the hardware off there and onto tindie.

David says:an hour ago

to be honest, i'd rather finish the design, and outsource to a manufacturer thought tindie biz, and then have tindie handle the logictics

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Hackaday Store will just have hackaday swag.

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

Yeah - I was sort of just using it as a model.

Rob Burling says:an hour ago

I agree Nick ... it's an additional complication coming from New Zealand ... so I'm trying to figure the logistics side out ...

spencer says:an hour ago

I ship everything from the UK. About half my customers are US, and it takes 2 - 5 weeks for stuff to get there. A US shipping warehouse would make life easier for me and quicker for customers there.

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

@dnhkng that would be great, but we're unable to offer that right now. Also, if we did, Tindie cut would be much more

David says:an hour ago

@Jasmine Brackett yeah, the Quirky model in Tindie would work great for me

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

International logistics is a big challenge. For me, I ship US for free and basically take an equivalent loss on international shipping, but the international shipping cost I must pass on still represents a barrier for some of my less expensive products.

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Ok, so it sounds like we should also do another tindie chat about shipping.

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Logistics and insurance

mclien says:an hour ago

@Jasmine Brackett HHow is the balance between US and internatinal sellers

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

Sellers or Buyers?

Rob Burling says:an hour ago

@spencer do you think that limits your sales or upsets your customers?

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

I absolutely agree that a logistics service for Tindie would take a large(r) cut of the retail price.

spencer says:an hour ago

@nick There have been a couple of your products that I've *almost* bought in the past, but shipping cost to the UK have put me off

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

Oh... there is something I wanted to pass on that I discovered the other day, but I'm not sure it's my fault or Tindie's...

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

It's with the "TSV" order dump.

David says:an hour ago

@Nick Sayer and I would pay it! I rather design stuff than organise logistics and manufacturing

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

Some of the lines in that dump seem to wrap in the middle inappropriately.

Adrian Studer says:an hour ago

@spencer what's you "put off" limit?

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

It makes it hard(er) to mine it for data.

spencer says:an hour ago

@rob I'm not sure if it limits sales (I keep shipping costs as low as I can), but I often get emails asking where there goods are after about 3 weeks.

mclien says:an hour ago

For the international selling: with open hardware it might be an idea to join with others so that we produce eah others hardware locally and sell it locally.

Jasmine Brackett says:an hour ago

We definitely have a lot more US sellers generally, but out of our top 20 sellers they are distributed with half in US, 3 in UK, 1 in France, 2 Australia, and some other places.

Nick Sayer says:an hour ago

spencer: It *definitely* helps to have tracking. Endicia does that for me.

Jasmine Brackett says:44 minutes ago

Send me details @Nick

Nick Sayer says:44 minutes ago

Not all countries track equally well through USPS, but you can often put a US tracking number in the destination country's postal service tracking gizmo and get an answer.

Nick Sayer says:43 minutes ago

Jasmine: of the TSV issue?

spencer says:43 minutes ago

@adrian If it's small and cheap then I don't want to pay twice that cost again for shipping. It's on a case by case basis though, obviously. Desire can overcome

David says:43 minutes ago

@Jasmine Brackett should I make a kit (through-hole parts), or get boards manufactured with smd? what sells better? Or are çomplete 'products'with a case the best sellers?

mclien says:43 minutes ago

(sorry have horrible lag from time to time here)

Nick Sayer says:43 minutes ago

SMDSMDSMDSMDSMD

Sophi Kravitz says:43 minutes ago

refresh to kill lag

Youlian Troyanov says:43 minutes ago

i would like a kit

Nick Sayer says:43 minutes ago

I do really well with "quick kits" - SMD boards with the through-hole parts left off.

spencer says:43 minutes ago

Through Hole! :-)

Nick Sayer says:42 minutes ago

I stole that nomenclature from Chris Howell of the OpenEVSE project/store.

Jasmine Brackett says:42 minutes ago

If you can make a kit that is not too hard or hackable, then that appeals to a certain market.

Jasmine Brackett says:42 minutes ago

Complete products work for a different set of buyers

Nick Sayer says:42 minutes ago

SMD was invented as a way to decrease the tedium (and therefore cost) of assembly.

Adrian Studer says:41 minutes ago

Not exactly a kit, but the RPi HAT variant of my product sells a lot fewer units than the plug & play USB version. Except for Germany for some odd reason.

Nick Sayer says:41 minutes ago

One thing I don't do a good job of is pricing kit vs assembled. I wind up taking a huge loss if you correctly price my time.

David says:41 minutes ago

but SMD it not nice to sell as a kit. even counting parts to pack in the kit would be tedious

mclien says:40 minutes ago

how much of the tindie "products" are open hardware btw

Nick Sayer says:40 minutes ago

Oh, no, never sell an SMD kit. People generally don't have the ability to deal with that.

Nick Sayer says:40 minutes ago

@mclien all of mine are.

Jasmine Brackett says:40 minutes ago

a complete desktop toy that's finished and presented nicely and can be plugged straight in to music will work as a gift or 'must have' for more people

spencer says:39 minutes ago

The variety of customers on Tindie is as varied as the products. Some would only suit being complete cased units. Others partial assembly. Others are sold to people that love to solder and hack about with things.

Nick Sayer says:39 minutes ago

But the "quick kit" is good for everyone. There's a lot less for the end user to have to assemble, and the designer isn't hobbled by through-hole parts availability and sizes.

David says:39 minutes ago

true, but then I'de have to do a kickstarter. The injection molds would cost thousands, which i cant afford upfront

Jasmine Brackett says:39 minutes ago

but there is a lot more involved to a consumer level item

Nick Sayer says:39 minutes ago

Laser cut cases FTW.

mclien says:38 minutes ago

Thanks Nick, I also so was interested in the "over all balance" of tindie stuff

Nick Sayer says:38 minutes ago

Take a look at my GPS clock

Jasmine Brackett says:38 minutes ago

so kits are a good way to test out the waters.

Nick Sayer says:38 minutes ago

I have zero modeling and case design skills, but I have friends with a laser cutter.

David says:38 minutes ago

for the microcontroller, I was thinking of using the arduino nano clones. they are 'through-hole' and are so cheap...

Nick Sayer says:37 minutes ago

They designed and make the cases for my GPS clock, and I think they are a *winner* :)

Jasmine Brackett says:37 minutes ago

The majority of people currently come to tindie for boards or components for projects they are trying to make, or for kits of projects they are interested in.

Nick Sayer says:36 minutes ago

Another good idea for cases are extruded aluminum cases with board guides inside. I got one designed for a 50x80mm board and use that for my GPS Disciplined Oscillator product. That idea came from EEVBlog.

Nick Sayer says:36 minutes ago

And you can make front and rear panels for those kind of cases with PCB fab. OSHPark boards make *really pretty* front/rear panels.

Adrian Studer says:35 minutes ago

I second to look for existing enclosures.

Jasmine Brackett says:35 minutes ago

We are seeing more end product items being listed as well, and the people who buy those tend to want latest gadgets

Jasmine Brackett says:35 minutes ago

or tools for making

mclien says:35 minutes ago

BTW: Is anybody here making aliving of selling on tindie (since that kinda was the greater topic) [Jasmine excluded ;-)]

spencer says:35 minutes ago

I bought a Muffsy Phono Preamp kit https://www.tindie.com/products/skrodahl/muffsy-phono-preamp-kit/ and that suggests which extruded aluminium case to use. That approach works really well for that kit

David says:34 minutes ago

adrian and nice: can you link to your products?

spencer says:34 minutes ago

@mclien Yes :D

Nick Sayer says:34 minutes ago

http://store.geppettoelectronics.com/