In a small, rented commercial office at East Broadway and South Pantano Road, an arts and crafts explosion is taking place — on the Internet.
And if John Jacobs, a Sahuaro High School graduate, and his partner, Tony Ford, a former local radio station manager, have their way, they're going to fan the World Wide Web flames with their growing Internet site and make it glow.
In November the pair initiated ArtFire.com, a Web site for sellers and buyers of handmade items. Since then the site, which is still being tested and revised on an almost daily basis, has caught fire with users, according to Jacobs, 31, and Ford, 33.
The two met while earning master's degrees in business from the University of Phoenix.
The site, manned by 15 employees including Jacobs and Ford, attracted 1.2 million unique visits last month and more than 18 million page views. A unique visit is when a computer user connects to the Web site at least once every 24 hours. And, according to Alexa.com, an Internet tracking site, ArtFire's growth among global Internet users has increased by nearly 200 percent in the past three months.
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"ArtFire is an experiment on how to do things differently," said Jacobs, company president.
Jacobs invested $1 million from another Internet business he owns to start up the company. ArtFire sells ads to supplement the income from user fees.
The site is free for buyers who can peruse the 200,000 listings of all kinds of handmade arts and crafts. Some sellers pay the top rate of $12 a month while others pay nothing if they sell 10 items or less a month. Sellers ship their own products.
"We're trying to take care of the mom-and-pop sellers," said Ford, executive vice president of marketing, who had managed KXCI-FM, a nonprofit community radio station.
For one local seller who recently began listing her jewelry, ArtFire has been a good deal.
Lori Foster sold three pairs of earrings within four days of posting her first pictures on ArtFire, which more than paid her $12 fee.
"That was pretty impressive," she said.
The decision to sell on ArtFire was based on the site's friendliness and low fee, she said.
Foster, who had not sold her crafts on the Internet before last month, said she turned to the Web to supplement her income. She and her husband operate a construction company that specializes in underground sewer and water lines and storm drains.
For its monthly fee, ArtFire helps sellers promote their wares on the company's Web site, www.artfire.com. In addition, ArtFire uses current technology and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to further promote the artists' studios. Sellers are free to promote on their own as well.
Ford and Jacobs are optimistic about ArtFire's future. They expect to break even within a year and increase the number of sellers from the current 25,000 to 100,000.
In addition, they started a second Web site, HandMadeNews.org, which is devoted to feature and news stories about the arts-and-crafts world. The company also produces videos and radio segments, all from its offices at 7739 E. Broadway.
Jacobs spun ArtFire off a company he owns, which sells arts and crafts supplies on the Internet. He said he recognized a growing dissatisfaction with his customers selling their products on the Internet.
Some sites charge too much and are too restrictive, he said, and they are unresponsive to their customers, sellers and buyers.
"People aren't used to calling or Twittering the CEO and getting an answer within an hour," said Jacobs.
Jacobs is especially proud that ArtFire is Tucson-born and created by Tucsonans, some of whom graduated from the University of Arizona.
"This didn't come out of the Silicon Valley or the East Coast," he said.
The early success is the result of daily, continuous attention to the site and its users, Jacobs said.
"We take that as a very serious trust," said Ford.
● Contact reporter Ernesto Portillo Jr. at 807-8414 or eportillo@azstarnet.com
