Designer Information

Please read the following information carefully and completely before applying.

Our Philosophy:

Scrapbooker's Playground is committed to fairness, quality, friendship and fun. Our goal is to provide high quality products to buyers at a fair price, while allowing the designer to keep as much of their profits as possible, to interact in a spirit of friendship, honesty, and mutual respect, and to provide an exciting and fun-filled environment in which to do that. Our commitment to you, the designer, is that we will make every effort to provide you the best venue possible, with guidance and tools to help you succeed in your design business, whether you consider it a hobby or a serious money-making endeavor.

We also believe in providing the consumer with many various resources for their scrapbooking pleasure. Traditional kits and embellishments are a central element in that. But many other resources are of interest to scrappers, including clip art, fonts, design resources, and imaging program tools.

We also believe that, while many scrapper's are primarily interested in scrapping their children and families, not all scrapbooking is for or about children. While we do believe we are and will remain a "child friendly" site, some content may not be considered so by those who hold the very strictest view of the term. Please be sure you have studied our offerings carefully, and that you will be comfortable offering your products with us.

In addition to this, not all scrapbooking is about making scrapbooks. Many of our customers are looking for designs that can be used for other types of paper projects, such as stationery, greeting cards, candy wrappers, etc. We believe that it is to everyone's benefit to broaden our scope to include this segment of the crafting world.

And finally, we do not believe in limiting the topical content of the products offered in terms of religious, ethnic, or cultural bias. No discrimination will be practiced on this site regarding content of this nature. Content depicting hate, racial bias, cruelty or violence in anything other than obvious historical terms will not be acceptable however.

If you are in agreement with the philosophy as outlined here, then please read on.

Benefits for Designers at Scrapbookers Playground:

• Unlimited Space for your products
• Personal web space
• Your own Blog
• A private mailing list to keep in touch with your customers
• A talented layout team who will help show your kits off to best advantage.
• The ability to have multiple images to show off your products.
• The employment of proactive marketing strategies, to assure your products and the store receive maximum exposure.
• Unlimited free support from staff to help you market your products yourself.
• Personal admin panel puts you in full charge of your products, allowing you to add, edit, remove, or place on sale any of your products at any time you wish.
• Association with an establishment that stresses quality
• A staff of caring and conscientious people who will do everything possible to make your experience here rewarding and profitable.
• The opportunity to be involved in an exciting and rewarding project, and to be a part of its growth.

Standard Features:

All plans come with the following standard features:

Personal Storefront: All plans include a dedicated storefront page with a URL that you can use for marketing purposes, and bring people in directly to your products. On this page you can give information about yourself, and provide a URL to your own personal site if you wish. You will be given your personal storefront URL once you have at least 10 products in your inventory.

Blogs: All designers will have the opportunity to have a blog if they want one. Blogs are easier to keep current than web sites are, and they get into search engines more quickly. Having a blog can give you a lot more exposure very quickly.

Banner ads: All store pages will display banner ads in 3 places; the bottom of the page, and in the left and right sidebars. Each plan includes placement in at least one placement rotation. Some plans include all three, for maximum exposure.

Disk Space: All plans include unlimited server space for your products.

Featured Products List: All designers will have at least one product in the featured products list at least one week per month.

Fees, Commissions, Seller Plans, and Store Participation:

Over the last couple of years, we have learned a lot about what works and what doesn't work. We have recently redone our set of designer plans so that there should be one to accommodate everyone. Your commission structure as well as your site benefits are individually determined by the level of involvement you are willing to commit to in order to help the site grow, and consequently to help your own personal business grow.

The more you choose to participate in our various programs intended to bring in customers, or help in some way to market or manage the site, the better your commission structure will be. This involvement can include things like a monthly contribution to our Kit and Kaboodle club, weekly or semi-weekly contributions to our member area, holding crops and chats, and/or being active in our forums and our Yahoo list. This also entails keeping a reasonable supply of new products coming into the store.  

If you choose not to participate in any reasonable way to site growth, you may still sell your products here, and your commission to us will be 40%. The percentage charged to you will be determined on a monthly basis. You will choose a level based on how active you intend to be, but if you do not follow through in any given month, then your commission will default to the basic 40%. If you have a problem due to happenings in your personal life, just talk to me, I'm a reasonable person.

Exclusivity:

In general we do not require exclusivity. However, it is highly recommended. It has been proven quite well over the last year that people who are exclusive here make higher sales here. Exclusivity allows you to concentrate your efforts into your designing, rather than spending hours packaging your products to comply with the requirements of different shops. It is also more  productive to focus your marketing time on one place, rather than have to create and post ads for several places.

Exclusivity also allows you to feel more involved and gives you a vested interest in the shop. Your time and efforts are much more productive being concentrated in one place rather than in trying to spread yourself too thin.

Payment Options:

Setup Fee: There is no longer a setup fee charged.

Commission Fees: Commission fees will be deducted from your total profits for the calendar month, and the remainder will be paid to you on or about the 7th working day of the following month. You may choose to receive your earnings via PayPal, or by check. If you choose to be paid by check, a $5 service fee will also be deducted for check processing. You may have funds held until earnings reach an amount set by you if choosing to be paid by check. PayPal payments will be made monthly at no additional charge.

We thank you for your interest in becoming associated with our online community!

Thank you again for your interest. If you would like to apply for designer status at this time, please fill out the Designer Application, or contact us  if you have further questions. We look forward to having you join us.