| Projects | Funds Needed | Intended Outcomes |
| Marketplace Technology | Goal : $30k | More features, accessible interfaces, improved searchability, and custom development capacities. |
| Data Infrastructure | Goal : $15k | Built-in business management features, data sovereignty, reduced burden of labor cross-team operational activities. |
| Membership Dashboard | Goal : $5k | Accessible and intuitive membership information, communications, and cooperative work, all interactive within our marketplace ecosystem. |
| International Sales | Goal : $50k | Securing sales and enabling shipping outside of the United States & Canada. |
Marketplace Technology Development Project
Funding Goal : $30k
Our 2023 Marketplace Tech Plan utilized hosted e-commerce to get our marketplace launched in only seven months, using off-the-shelf technology, like Shopify and Webkul’s MVM, to get us to revenue as fast as possible. Our 2024 Annual Survey results implied that the marketplace is ready to close the beta test, and non-members are being onboarded to prepare. While functioning acceptably well for now, there are some things that left to be desired. For these reasons, with recommendations from our advisors, we’re using open-source technology supported by cooperative partnerships to continue towards our goal of a better handmade marketplace.
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- The most priority feature to our artisans is improved tags, collections, and categorizations for Discoverability.
- While supporters are able to add products from multiple vendors to their carts easily, Artisans want more controls in configuring shipping, managing orders, and effectively communicating fulfillment of multi-vendor orders. We need more intuitive tools for designing storefronts, managing product listings, and ensuring reviews are being solicited and made prominently visible.
- Our capacity to develop and refine our features is controlled by third party developers of our existing off-the-shelf technology. Funding supports our ability to take ownership over our marketplaces development and responsiveness to the needs of our members.
- We’re seeking $30k to replace our off-the-shelf technology with solutions that enable critical feature development while beginning development of a hand-built-in-house marketplace platform.
Click for Marketplace Technology Project Goals
| New Product Taxonomy | Custom Refined Search | Artisan Defined Tags |
| Multi-Vendor Order Management | Partial Order Fulfillment | Shipping Configurations |
| Design Tools | Management Tools | Visibility of Reviews |
Data Infrastructure Development Project
Funding Goal: $15k
Our Marketplace Technology goals require us to evolve our internal Data Infrastructure and ecosystem of tools. We are architecting a self-hosted, open-sourced, co-op powered infrastructure capable of comprehensively securing, managing, automating and visualizing data for membership equity accounts, marketplace transactions, Cooperative transactions, and public relations.
| Self-Hosted | Open – Source | Integrated |
| Custom Access Permissions | Built to Scale | Custom Automations |
| End-to-End Encryption | Community Development | Data Visualization |
Membership Dashboard Development Project
Funding Goal : $5k
Developing an accessible, intuitive dashboard that interfaces directly with our website and provides members with personalized membership information, general communications with the cooperative and other members, and the ability to participate in equity-earning activities was our second most highly-ranked feature requests from our membership.
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| Membership Management | Equity Tracking | Business Resources |
| Robust Messaging | Integrated Ticketing System | Member – Only Updates |
| Membership Activities |
International Sales Development Project
Funding Goal :$50k
Our membership represents 4 continents and 19 countries. We are working towards registering, filing, and maintain compliance is all the relevant tax jurisdictions in order to our all members beyond the United States and Canada sales and shipping in their localized markets.
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| Training Team Members | ||
| Conducting Research | ||
| Registration & Compliance |