Attention Crafters: Hosting Company Just For You!
Do you have a passion for crafting? Do your friends see your creations and tell you that you should attend craft fairs to sell them, but you just don't have the time, nor the desire to lug all your stuff from location to location and back home again? 
Maybe you should consider setting up an online shop, whether virtual private server or shared hosting. Sure, you could rely on Etsy for everything, but then you need to pay careful attention to your listings in case they expire, pay fees to have items listed and then relisted if they do expire, and pay additional fees if you rely on their new Shop Payment Account feature where customers can use their credit cards to pay directly through Etsy rather than through Paypal. It's a lot of work, and a lot of money you could be spending to have a site of your own!
The best option is to create your own crafters website, but where do you begin? Is there a company out there that specializes in virtual private server or shared web hosting for craft-related websites? Why, yes, there is!
Attention Crafters: Hosting Company Just For You! Crafty Hosting
It's called crafty hosting, a self-proclaimed “small business for small businesses.” They started up a small, crafters website and had issues with the overall experience of going with a big hosting company. So they decided to open up their own, and Crafty Hosting was born!
Crafty Hosting provides shared hosting services that are super affordable starting at $10 per year, with no contracts or setup fees. Bonus! Crafty Hosting allows you to pay for the full year, as most hosting companies do, every six months, quarterly, or even monthly. That's big when you are just starting out and don't have that initial investment towards a year of services! Choose to use your credit card or Paypal account, whichever is easiest.
Attention Crafters: Hosting Company Just For You! Features
Have amazing crafty skills, but not so great when it comes to building or designing websites? Not a problem: Crafty Hosting's got you covered.
They offer customers / crafters 1GB of storage space, 5GB of transfer bandwidth, PHP5, MySQL 5, unlimited databases and email addresses, shared SSL (though there is the option for private SSL for those who desire a shopping cart feature on their site), up to 10 add on domains and parked domains, CGI, Perl, ROR, Curl, GD, Image Magick, Hotlink protection, Webalizer stats and logging, and password protected directories.
If you find that the storage space isn't sufficient for your needs, you can contact them directly for a custom package!
They also offer cPanel, Fantastico, unlimited FTP accounts, and a money back guarantee.
Attention Crafters: Hosting Company Just For You! Service
One of their biggest draws: they offer highly personal service and technical support, something you can't normally get when you are dealing with the big hosting companies.
They also offer site management services, providing assistance with the installation and maintenance of every aspect of your site, from shopping cart to blog.
For those who aren't handy with graphic design, they can help you there too. Crafty Hosting will completely design your site, assist you with customizing and editing templates, as well as edit your graphics and photos.
Attention Crafters: Hosting Company Just For You! Perfect For The Arts & Crafts Industry
If you're looking for a professional website for your craft business, Crafty Hosting is a great, affordable choice. Not only will clients love that you have your own domain unique to your shop rather than having to search through the sea of shops on Etsy or Artfire, you control what every aspect of your site looks like.
Yes, you're paying hosting fees each month, but it sure beats the listing fees you run into with other shops. Here, the sky's the limit with the number of listings you are able to put up, free of charge. Check them out today!
Do you have a crafty business that needs to have its own place on the web? Do you find Etsy can be a bit of a pain? Will you be looking into Crafty Hosting?
So glad I could provide you some useful information, Michelle! From what I read, it isn’t too good to be true. They did not contact me, but I conduced a lot of research and visited a few of their websites. There are no per item fees: basically, they provide the web hosting and that’s it. As long as you don’t exceed the storage/bandwidth limits that you choose upon signing up, you can list anything and everything for no additional fees! If nothing in the store sells, you aren’t charged either. Just the monthly/quarterly/annual fees for hosting services. Of course, if you’re selling items, you’ll need to inclulde an SSL certificate in there too, contact Crafty Hosting to find out the specifics of customizing a package to suit your needs. I’ll soon be switching my Etsy shop over, you can count on that! The fees are KILLING me, especially for the items I need to re-list after they expire.
In a nutshell, this is not a special service, just a web hosting company catering to the crafters and super small businesses. A great place to start for all of us!
Whoa this came at just the right time for me Khristen. I’m off to investigate. I’m a little worried that it’s too good to be true. Did they contact you for this story? Have you interviewed anyone who’s used this service? Are there per item fees? What happens if nothing in the store sells? sorry to be a pest- I’ve been wanting to open a small craft store forever but the fees in both ebay and etsy scared me off. This might be the solution for me. Thanks for the heads up!