MattCustomMade

Hi Sam_Cal,

Thank you for your thoughtful responses - we're glad that you were able to use the site properly. Apologies again.

Regarding up-and-coming developments: We have absolutely no desire to act as the production arm of woodworkers. We have built and are continuing to build a transparent marketplace and are discussing and developing functionality and content for CustomMade that our community members and our consumers have been requesting. This is of course a delicate balance and we are always here to listen to your feedback.

We believe in the power of the Internet to help bring consumer and local artisan together. You are more than welcome to contact me directly at matt@custommade.com as we/I would be delighted to hear more detailed feedback.

We're eager to hear from everyone about more topics of interest regarding the Internet and selling your work. We're in the midst of developing more content for "going pro" and want to answer as many questions as possible!

Best,
Matt

Hi PurdueDan! I'll assume you're a Boilermaker fan, but perhaps I shouldn't jump to conclusions.

To answer your question about marketing to consumers of custom woodworking: CustomMade is committed to educating the consumer public on the benefits of buying custom. We have a growing "Media Network" where we distribute our artisans' work via other websites, such as Dornob.com. Through our own Search Engine Optimization efforts, we expect to reach over 1M visitors this year, the majority of which are consumers of furniture and other in-the-home custom products.

Currently our website allows for consumers to contact artisans directly. We are also in the process of developing ways on how to better facilitate transactions between artisans/woodworkers and interested consumers. Stay tuned!

So to answer your question fully - we do market CustomMade to woodworkers because we believe that we offer our members a unique value proposition in helping them gain more tools and exposure on the consumer Internet. But we also have a number of partnerships and marketing initiatives that are solely geared towards increasing the number of potential consumers for custom items. And those initiatives are growing as we're growing.

Hope this helped clarify things!

Best,
Matt

Just a quick note to everyone to thank you for your comments and ideas! This is Matt from CustomMade (to introduce myself). Our team is looking forward to working with everyone at FWW to offer the content you've been asking for (and hopefully more). Our goals are to help and educate, but also to listen and learn from the FWW community. The more feedback, the better!

We absolutely agree with the note about the SSL certificate - not very confidence inspiring at all! The issue was identified quickly and resolved - we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Keep the comments coming!

Best,
Matt