A Conversation with Marmalade

Written by Kara Nelson

If you’ve thought about opening up your own online shop recently, chances are you’ve run into the problem of art theft, dropshipping, and/or generative AI. Many e-commerce platforms try to combat the congestion of these products being featured on their websites, however are not always successful. 

A few months ago, I discovered a new platform called Marmalade; a website dedicated to promoting handmade and human created products to help assist those who may need help getting their foot in the door. I was incredibly impressed by this! There aren’t a lot of websites right now that are willing to help artists promote their merchandise, or don’t have any form of marketing entirely. 

I reached out to Marmalade for a Q&A to see what their team had to say about their website, you can read it below!

For those who don’t know the website, what is Marmalade? 

Marmalade is a platform designed to help people discover handmade and hand-designed items. Our goal is to create a marketplace without AI and dropshipping, preserving human art and creativity!

Talk a little bit about the design choices and aesthetics behind the site! 

We knew from the start that we wanted to create a platform that was cute and easy to use. We have incorporated as many images of our mascot, Marmalade Kid, throughout the website. Coming from a technical background myself, I am used to corporate and, honestly, quite boring websites, so I really appreciate memorable and unique designs. For example, we try to keep a lemon motif throughout our icons and colour palette. Massive thanks to our artist for hand drawing every single design!!

When did your team come up with the concept and how were you able to go from idea to reality?

I came up with this idea around a year ago and it was a really slow process turning it from just an idea to an actual platform. It started off understanding other artists’ frustrations. Personally, after going to a “handmade” market and purchasing what turned out to be a dropshipped crochet keychain, I realized how much AI and dropshipping has infiltrated creative spaces. As someone who crochets, I was shocked that I couldn’t tell it was dropshipped, so I wondered if other people without a creative background could tell the difference.

I reached out to many sellers and handmade buyers to understand their experiences with the current market. This helped me with brainstorming various solutions that I could actually implement. Once I had an idea of what the solution could be, I spent around 8 months building out the whole website and the rest promoting it on social media! There were many learning experiences along the way, but I’m so grateful to all the people who helped me get here 🙂

A lot of people use websites such as Etsy, RedBubble, and Ko-fi to try to start their business, without realizing that there are a lot of background fees or lack of marketing. How does your website assist artists in starting their shop?

Marmalade is currently not an e-commerce website, so our main goal is to help promote seller’s existing shops! Many alternatives to Etsy, such as Ko-fi and Shopify, require the seller to direct all the traffic to their own sites, which is honestly quite difficult. I personally struggled a lot when I first started posting, so I know how frustrating it is to feel like the algorithm isn’t on your side. Our goal is to offer an alternative traffic source for those who no longer want to rely on Etsy.

Your website is very clear that there is no AI or dropshipping allowed. With the rise of AI and art theft, how is your website able to prevent people from these?

We have a verification process that all sellers are required to go through. We do our best to ensure that all items are handmade or hand-designed, and if we have any questions, we follow up to make sure everyone on the site meets our values. If anyone slips through the cracks, we will take immediate action as authenticity is incredibly important to us.

Do you have any words for aspiring artists who may want to sell their work on your website?

Apply as soon as possible! Since we are a super small team, it takes quite a bit of time to go through all the applications, so there may be a bit of a wait depending on how busy we are before you can be fully onboarded. Also, please reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns! We try our best to respond in a timely manner 🙂

If you’re interested in creating a profile with them, you can visit https://marmaladehandmade.com/, and be sure to visit their instagram (marmalade.handmade)! Happy selling!