i-fete.com - The World's Premier Online Flea Market

Frequently Asked Questions

How does the vendor application process work?

There are nine steps in the vendor application process:

The vendor must complete the .
We review each application carefully to ensure that the vendor can meet all i-fete requirements.
We may ask for additional information, by email, based on the information submitted on the application and we request that you respond promptly to avoid delays.
We will notify all accepted applicants, by email. If you are not accepted for any reason, we will attempt to explain the reason for our decision and offer you the opportunity to re-apply once those issues are resolved.
Once accepted, we will send you the Vendor Agreement and other procedural information, which you must sign and return as soon as possible.
We will email you the product information sheets that must be completed in order to input your products into the i-fete database. These sheets will ask for information such as product name, product description, price, shipping information, and corresponding photos. We cannot begin inputting your information until all information has been provided.
Upon receipt of the product information, we will begin inputting your products into the i-fete system. This may take several days or more, depending on the number of vendors we are currently working with. We input all information in the order in which it is received, so it will be beneficial to get your information to us as quickly as possible.
After your virtual store is complete, you will be sent a link to the store, which will not be visible yet on the i-fete website. We cannot make your store "live" until we receive confirmation, from you, that everything is accurate and that you agree to adhere to the information, prices, and descriptions displayed in your store.
Once confirmation is received, we will upload your store to the i-fete website, and it will be viewable by i-fete customers.

How much does it cost to become an i-fete vendor?

The basic set-up fees vary, depending upon the number of products you sell. For most vendors, the average cost is around $60, which basically covers only the time required to input all of your products into the database. However, we will work with you in anyway possible to make an i-fete store affordable for you. After set-up, i-fete will retain 10% of all sales. These fees cover the expenses of processing credit cards, marketing, site administration, and customer relations.

We chose a sales-based fee structure for a purpose. After reviewing some other options, we noticed that some of the sites, that charged an annual fee, were not dedicated to the continued maintenance and promotion of the site. For some, it seems that they collect the fees and don't pay much attention to the site for the rest of the year; many links were broken, the sites were overrun with external advertisements which detracted from the vendors' offerings, and there were no major marketing initiatives to attract and retain customers. We reasoned that, unless a company's success is directly tied to that of their partners, this is likely to occur. We developed our sales-based fee structure for two primary reasons. First, if you don't sell anything, you don't pay anything. There are no annual or monthly maintenance fees or hidden fees of any kind. Second, and most importantly, our success is directly linked to you. If you don't sell anything, we cannot survive as a company. So, we are dedicated to helping you attract customers and make sales.

10% may, at first glance, seem high. But, there are several costs that will go into making this site a success that must be taken into consideration. First, credit card fees range from over 2% to over 3%, thus our actual fees should really be stated as less than 7-8% plus credit card fees. Second, there are other major expenditures related to this operation including (in order of budgeted expense): marketing/advertising, personnel (to answer phones, update vendor information, handle customer disputes, accounting/reporting, etc.), website upgrades and improvements, and business services (such as webhosting, phone charges, fax services, etc.). Further, our fees are less than e-Bay's and we offer more support. Our goal is to make a online retailing available to everyone regardless of your computer knowledge and business management skills.

Why should I choose i-fete over e-Bay?

First, you don't have to choose. You may continue selling on e-Bay while you are an i-fete vendor. In fact, we encourage you to continue using other venues to sell your products. We do, however, offer several advantages to e-Bay. In terms of cost, the average vendor will spend nearly 12% on e-Bay and PayPal fees, combined, as opposed to the 10% that we charge (which includes credit card processing fees). We limit your competition, making your products more visible to all i-fete customers; on e-Bay, you may be competing against hundreds of vendors with similar products. On i-fete, you will typically be competing with fewer than ten, as we have instituted limits to the number of total vendors on the site and the number of vendors per category. We also provide customer relation services; the customers will never contact you directly and we will work with you to resolve any issues that may arise. Finally, we provide full back-office support by accepting orders, managing your product database for you, answering the phones, creating and implementing marketing plans, and providing you with monthly reports that indicate your sales, returns, and customer satisfaction metrics.

What if I already have a website?

Great! If you already have a website, you understand the continually increasing number of people that currently shop online. This number is growing on an annual basis and will continue to grow in the foreseeable future. As mentioned above, we encourage you to continue selling on other venues, including your own website. We do believe, however, that you will see a drastic increase in internet sales by joining the i-fete team. As a website owner, you know how much internet marketing can cost, especially when you are trying to compete with larger organizations. Chances are, if you are like most small business owners, you have a limited budget for marketing activities. We, on the other hand, pool the resources of many vendors and are able to dedicate a substantial amount to marketing expenditures, driving more people to the site, which will in turn drive more sales to all of our vendors.

What is a "Store Front" page?

A "Store Front" page is what makes i-fete unique and what makes browsing possible for our customers. Each vendor, has a Store Front which consists of a banner, six top-selling products, and links to various categories within your site. The banner is where you draw customers in. In many cases, this may be a special deal or sale. Others may use this area to highlight features of their products, such as "Hand Made". The six top-selling products are just that, the six products that customers have purchased most often, from you. The categories are one of the ways that a customer can decide to enter your store...essentially, they've moved from walking by to walking in. After viewing your banner and a sample of the products you offer, they can choose to enter your virtual store by clicking on any of the categories that you have available or the products on your "Store Front" page. Check out this screen shot for a visual explanation:

I like the idea, but what if I don't want to deal with shipping?

We understand that many vendors, especially those who don't currently sell online, may not like the idea of having to package and ship their products, but don't let that stop you. Complete the application and answer "I'd Rather Not" when you get to the question about shipping your own products. Depending on your situation and your products, we may be able to ship for you.

What makes i-fete better than the other hundred places that I could sell my products online?

We are not necessarily better than any other options, but we are certainly different. First, we offer features, highly beneficial to our customers, that are currently unavailable on other websites. These features will draw customers in and keep them coming back. Our primary benefit to consumers is that they can browse the entire i-fete website in less than an hour, while looking at products from 50 different vendors. Once they are done shopping, they check-out one time, make one payment, and have one company to contact if something is not completed to their satisfaction.

Second, marketing is a HUGE factor in the success of any online retailer. You cannot simply create a site and expect people to come find you. You have to get out there and get yourself in front of the customer. This can be expensive, especially for smaller sites, which is why the big companies like e-Bay and Amazon have been unbeatable in this regard. Our marketing program was designed by an MBA in Marketing and will compete with these bigger retailers. In fact, we guarantee that a significant percentage of all net income will be dedicated to continued marketing programs, to ensure your long-term success as an i-fete vendor.

Finally, we will not bombard our visitors with external ads, which would only distract from our vendor's products. We do not anticipate having any external advertisements on the site for the foreseeable future (we do, however, retain the right to do so). Our goal is to keep people on the i-fete site to purchase from the i-fete vendors. While external links could provide an additional source of revenue, we are here to help you increase your sales, and not to promote external sites. This is why we created a sales-based fee structure. Our success is directly linked to yours, if you do not make a sale, we cannot survive. As such, we are wholly dedicated to helping you succeed.