Frequently Asked Questions

ArtFire is an online marketplace and community that brings together buyers and sellers of artistic goods; we currently provide a home for handmade goods, fine art, vintage, certain designed items, traditional craft supplies and maker made media. ArtFire was built as a marketplace for artisans by artisans to celebrate the unique individuality of artists and crafters around the globe. ArtFire is the complete e-commerce solution for all artists looking to sell their wares online.

Yes! We are headquartered right here in the US. We have facilities in sunny Tucson, AZ which happens to be one of the greatest burgeoning art communities in the US (but we're not biased)!

All ArtFire sellers pay a commission on sales (Final Valuation Fee, FVF) to sell on this venue, and our Standard plan includes an Item Listing Fee (ILF). Monthly paid plans with larger inventory caps, reduced commission rates, a premium tools are also available. To learn more about our plans and to get started, please visit our Start Today page.

ArtFire sellers receive periodic email newsletters covering site updates and topics. You can also find updates in the Staff Announcements section in the ArtFire Forums or in the ArtFire section of the ArtFire Blog. We can also be reached via service@artfire.com.

We offer many great selling tools and features such as a CSV Item Importer, Coupon code creation/management, Global Product Editor, Listing Variations, Google Shopping Boost and more! Come join our community and hop in the Community Forums to chat with mentors, play games, join promotions, and get expert selling advice.

ArtFire offers 3 types of seller accounts: a Standard/Per Item plan, A Popular Shop plan and a Featured Shop plan.

To join our community of talented artisans, simply click the Open Your Shop in the upper right corner of the ArtFire homepage using the user icon dropdown menu, or directly via our Start Today page. You'll be walked through the process of setting up an account and see the account options that are currently available. Remember, your user name will be your shop name and cannot duplicate another shop name on the site. Your user name may not have spaces or non-alphanumeric characters as this will cause the URL for your shop to break.

If you created a shopper account when you first signed up, you can become a seller by logging in and clicking Open Your Shop link in your user options dropdown menu. This will walk you through our seller registration process. Once upgraded , you will be able to list items and customize your shop. IMPORTANT! Your user name will become your shop name. Shoppers can easily change their user name on the Account Info page, sellers cannot change their user name without special assistance from ArtFire's staff. Make sure you're happy with your username before upgrading and becoming a seller.

Sellers on ArtFire pay fees via credit card, debit card, or PayPal account. When you sign up for a seller account you'll begin either a monthly subscription that bills on the same day of the month that you signed up or pay as you list and make sales. So, if you signed up on the 4th of the month, your account will be debited on the 4th of every month, and if you're on the Per Item plan, you are billed periodically as you list and sell. If your card expires or is declined, we will contact you to assist you in setting up another card or updating your credit card information. You can Submit a Dwongrade/Delete account request at any time; requests take effect on a seller's next scheduled billing date.

All financial information is sent directly to and stored by Braintree Payment Solutions, a Level One PCI compliant processor. We do not record or store any of your financial information in our systems. You can view your subscription and billing information in the Billing Info section of your My ArtFire.

You have two URLs available to you. You can use either myshopname.artfire.com or http://www.artfire.com/users/myshopname, where "myshopname" is your user name.

It is a good idea to change your password from time to time. You can do this as often as you would like. Simply log in to your ArtFire account and click on the Account Info link under your My Account section found on the left side of your my ArtFire. There you will see the Change Password section where you will need to enter your new password twice and then click the Save button.

To change any other editable account information, please log in to your ArtFire account and click on the Account Info link under your My Account section found on the left side of your My ArtFire. There you will be able to change your password, address, full name, gender, email address, and birth date.

Yes, but we can't transfer any of the information from one account to another. You will lose all of your feedback, sales and purchase information, listings, etc. You will have to start from scratch on your new account.

Also, you will need to provide a new email address for your new account as email addresses can be used only once on the site. We have worked hard to limit the ability for disreputable sellers and buyers. For this reason it is not possible to reuse an email account if it was used on a previous ArtFire account.

Each member is allowed one free shopper account. Members may have as many seller accounts as they wish. ArtFire seller accounts have the ability to list and sell items for sale on the site in addition to having all of the features and options that a shopper account has.

Though we hope you are happy with ArtFire, if you would like to cancel your seller subscription please check that you remove any items in your shop, and email us via service@artfire.com to let us know if you are wanting to move to the free shopper level, or completely delete your account and information from the site. If you choose to downgrade to a shopper account please be aware that there are no refunds for partial months, you will keep your seller account features until the date of your next billing cycle. Please note, downgrades can take up to 3 business days to process in some cases; if you wish to downgrade your account please submit your request a minimum of 3 business days prior to your next billing date in order to prevent any future billing on the account.

If you are a shopper and you would like to entirely delete/remove your account from ArtFire please send an email to service+downgrades@artfire.com with the subject line DELETE ACCOUNT. Please include your username in the body of the email and send the email from the email address on file with your account. Shopper accounts will be removed as soon as the email has been received and processed.

If you have an active Seller account and you wish to delete your account you must first request an account downgrade via the process described above in order to ensure that their billing will be properly canceled. Once a downgrade request has been submitted you can submit a delete request via email to service@artfire.com from the email address on file with your account, using the subject line DELETE ACCOUNT and including the account's username in the message body. By default delete requests are processed at the end of your current billing cycle, to have an account deleted immediately please include that request in the message body. Please note that partial refunds are not available for unused portions of subscription time.

Emails from ArtFire may have ended up in your Spam folder, check there and if you find an email from ArtFire be sure to mark it as Not Spam and/or move it into your inbox.

Certain email clients like Gmail use tabs to segment incoming mail by default. An email from ArtFire may have ended up under the Social or Promotions tab.

Double check to make sure that ArtFire has your current and correctly spelled email address on file.

Finally, if you are still not receiving our emails, you can contact service@artfire.com and we will try to assist you.

As part of the ongoing process to increase the appeal of ArtFire to buyers, we are asking that you fill out your shop by completing certain steps before listing products. Our market research has shown that sellers who complete these key elements are more successful. Market research also indicates that without these elements buyers have a high degree of uncertainty when deciding whether or not to purchase from a seller.

Before you can list your items live on the site, you will need to enter your address, choose an accepted payment method, upload an avatar, upload a banner, and complete your bio information and shop policies.

Click on each of these requirements located in the Your Studio Setup Progress box found in the upper left corner of your My ArtFire dashboard page (the page you land on when you login).

To learn more about changing colors, adding banners and shop information, please visit our shop setup help guide.

Public profiles are very important because they help buyers and other artisans get to know you. ArtFire is working to build a community, and a community is made up of many diverse and fascinating individuals. We want to know about you!

To set up your shop bio, please navigate to your My ArtFire About page and click Bio link, you'll end up on your "My Bio Page". All members should upload an image for their Artisan Bio Pic. (Your bio pic does not necessarily have to be an image of yourself, though buyers do like connecting to the artist.)

You will also need to fill out the Short Intro, Interest Keywords and the About the Artisan section. You can also fill in the gallery images and captions along with links to other places you want people to be able to find you online.

Your avatar is your public face on ArtFire. It can be anything, as long as it complies with ArtFire policies and terms of use (nothing vulgar, obscene, illegal, offensive, etc.) You can add an avatar by logging in to your account and visiting the My Avatar page. Avatars are typically displayed at 140x140px, upload an image of this size to ensure consistent results.

You can sell a variety of creations on the Artfire website. Artfire can easily be your one stop shop for handmade creations and supplies! First and foremost, there are prohibited items. Here's our PROHIBITED ITEMS list:

Firearms
Explosives
Dangerous Chemicals
Any item that, which in whole or in part, is subject to a recall.
Stolen Items
Fireworks
Adult material, erotica, or pornography inclusive of any material unsuitable for children under the age of 18.
Drugs
Alcohol
Tobacco
Mass produced electronics
Protected antiquities
Real estate
Ivory or animal products from endangered species collected illegally
Motor vehicles, or parts for motor vehicles or recreational vehicles
Items that violates Terms of Service or Terms of Use
Any item or service that violates applicable local, state, federal, or international law in regard to manufacturing, distributing, advertising, or transporting said item.
Items not in your possession or items you don't intend to deliver.
Illegal, counterfeit or contraband items of any sort.
Items, materials or products which are copyrighted, trademarked or patented by another party.
Pirated materials.
Replica items, including designer items.
Personal data or information.
Items or products that carry or transmit hidden code or signals with the intention of causing harm or tracking personal or transactional information of any sort.
Misrepresented items or products.
Harmful, harassing, intimidating or defamatory materials, products or items.
Hazardous materials, products, or items.
Prostitution or other similar services.
Any product or service that Artfire.com determines to be inappropriate, harmful, fraudulent, or illegal.
Mature items intended for adults due to language or imagery that falls outside of the traditional acceptable standards for broadcast television that are not properly identified as mature in the listing process.

If you need assistance in finding an appropriate category for your listings, please review our Terms of Use item decision tree, located in section #13 of our Terms of Service.

To edit one of your products you'll need to be logged in to your account. When you're logged in and viewing one of your product listings, you'll see a Seller Tools box with links for managing the product. You can also edit items via the Active Items page in your My ArtFire control panel. Editing an item loads up that item's content into the item listing page, make your changes or additions and be sure to hit the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page when you're done.

A PayPal Premier or Business account is necessary to receive your payments through PayPal Express Checkout. If you have a standard PayPal account you can upgrade it now for free via your PayPal account dashboard.

To learn more about creating shipping profiles, please read through our Creating Shipping Profiles guide.

Discovery

Your items will be listed in ArtFire categories, as an example Jewelry > Rings > Statement >. Each category can be browsed by shoppers and categories are sorted randomly by default. Shoppers can choose to resort categories by price, views, and listing age. Categories can also be searched so that search results are only items listed in the that category.

On Site Search

Based on the contents of your item's title, description, and tags, your items can appear in search results for buyers when your items are relevant to a buyer's query. The default search on ArtFire is based on relevancy. Older items have the same chance to show up in searches as new items. It's important to title and describe your item accurately using the words and phrases that a prospective shopper might search for to find an item like yours.

Searches also provide a method for filtering by category so make sure your items are categorized as correctly and accurately as possible.

Your Shop

All of your listings will appear in your custom ArtFire shop. Your shop can feature additional shopping methods like your own custom categories for shoppers to browse and a search option that searches your inventory by default.

Rather than re-list a sold product, you'll have an inactive item with a QTY of 0 that you can add more stock to and reactivate via the Inactive Items page.
The easiest way to locate the item you are needing to update is by selecting the "Updated" sort by filter, then entering the new quantity for that listing, as well as make any other edits to the item.

While browsing ArtFire, you will likely find many items of interest, but don't have the ability to buy right now. Adding an item to your Favorites list lets you easily find it again later. You can add an item to your favorites list using the heart icon that shows up when hovering an item thumbnail image or by using the large heart button on any item page.

You can add any ArtFire shop to your Favorite Shops list. This list gives you an easy way to get back to and start shopping with your favorite shops. You can add a shop to your Favorite Shops list using the Favorite this Shop button an any item or shop view page.

If you find an item that you believe is miscategorized or prohibited you can use the Report This Item to ArtFire link found on the right side of the item page beneath the item details and suggested items sections. You may also simply email us via service@artfire.com with a titel or link to the item. You'll need to be logged in to an ArtFire account to report an item.

If you have purchased an item while logged into your Buyer or Seller account and would like to leave feedback for your order, please log in to your account and visit the My Purchases page. This page gives you a list of any completed orders that you haven't left feedback for yet, and provide the option to leave a rating.

If you purchased an item as a guest shopper, you can create a free Buyer only account and send service@artfire.com an email asking for your old order to be linked with your new account. Make sure you register your account with the same email address used with the order and include the order id number in your email.

If you are a seller and wish to leave one of your buyers a feedback comment, please log in to your account visit the My Recent Orders page. Navigate to the order you wish to leave feedback for and click the Leave Comment link to leave a note for your buyer. If your buyer is not a registered member on ArtFire, the feedback link will not appear on that order. NOTE: Unregistered members cannot give or receive feedback.

While creating a new topic or using the Advanced Reply function click on the Insert button in the editor toolbar. The Image button looks like a small light blue Polaroid photo with a white border, when you hover your mouse over it for long enough it says “Insert Image. Enter the URL that points directly at an image (the url will end with .jpg, .png, or .gif) and hit OK. You'll see your image added to the body of your reply.

There are a couple things that may be giving you trouble.

First, double check your username and password to make sure you are typing them in correctly. Remember, passwords are case sensitive. Please ensure you do not have caps lock on.

If you haven't done so, click on the Forgot Password? link on the login page and follow the steps to reset your password via email.

If you're still having trouble, send us an email to service@artfire.com and include as much information about what you've tried and any error messages you might be getting.

If you forget your password, it's no problem! This happens to all of us. Simply go to the login page and click the Forgot Password link (you might have to scroll down if you are visiting with a lower resolution device). Enter your email address and we will email you a confirmation link that you will need to click to enter our password retrieval process. Once you've click the link in your email, you will be asked for the answer to your security question. You will be logged into your account once you have successfully answered this question. If you do not have a security question set up, please contact customer service at service@artfire.com.

Please make sure to carefully choose and type in your ArtFire user name when signing up for your ArtFire account. After registration, changing a username requires staff assistance. If you've found that you're not happy with your username you can email us at service@artfire.com and request a username change.

In order to see your new images, you may have to clear your cookies and cache. The old images are still stored on your browser, so your browser is not pulling the new images from the server. To speed the propagation process up, press F5 or go into your browser's internet options and clear your cache and cookies there.

In order to see your new banner, you may have to clear your cookies and cache. The old banner is still stored on your browser, so your browser is not pulling the new banner from the server. To speed the propagation process, press F5 or go into your browser's internet options and clear your cache and cookies there.