2015 Recap
- 22 December 2015
- ByAndy Newman
- 5 min read
2015 was a huge year for Big Cartel - not only for our team, but for the army of talented artists who build their businesses with us. Big Cartel turned 10 this year! Like the artists who use our tools, we’re proud to be independently owned and operated.
Hundreds of thousands of makers, musicians, and other artists have joined us this year, and we love that you’re part of our growing community. We cheered as we watched Cards for All People, Mike Mitchell, and many other Big Cartel shops experience amazing, record breaking Holiday Rush weekends.
This year saw the launch of an all-new bigcartel.com, updated with a fresh coat of paint and tons of other improvements and additions. If you’re new here, check out a Tour of Big Cartel, swing by our Examples page to see a sampling of the talented makers you're joining, and see some fun events and projects we support on our Community page.
We couldn't be more excited to start previewing the new Big Cartel admin. First, a brand new Orders area to quickly search and fulfill orders, add private notes, and review order history.
And we keep making Big Cartel for iPhone better and better. Use our app to take Big Cartel with you wherever you want to manage your shop and sell your goods. If you don’t have an iPhone, no need to worry - we’ve got you covered with a beautiful mobile admin to match at my.bigcartel.com.
We released two new themes so you can keep things fresh in your shop, too. Neat was designed by Big Cartel designer Carl DeCaire, and Good Vibes was the latest fun and vibrant theme created by the folks at Ghostly Ferns.
When your business grows, we know you need additional tools to get the job done. This year, we released an API for companies like ShipStation and Printful to make your Big Cartel shop even more robust. This changed the game for ADAMJK, and it can for your shop, too. Check out our new Apps page to see some of the best tools and services you can connect to your Big Cartel shop.
We partnered with Skillshare to bring you great classes to sharpen your design and sales skills. Kate Miss and Melanie Abrantes were amazing teachers, sharing their expertise with aspiring makers everywhere. No hall pass or cash needed here - these classes are free! All you need is a good WiFi connection.
We love browsing through all the beautiful products our shops sell, and we want to show them off to the world. We gave Shop Indie a makeover and it's now home to over a dozen curated guides, handpicked by artists like Erik Marinovich, Nishat Akhtar, Meg Lewis, and many of Big Cartel’s own.
Featuring more than 35 artists from Big Cartel’s roster, Salt Lake City locals got to see this year’s pop-up shop, the Small Box Shop! We stocked goods from some of our favorite independent makers including Blk Pine Workshop, Got a Girl Crush, Scout & Catalogue, OH NO Rachio!, The Good Twin, and many more.
To keep up with all these rad shops, our team grew, too. We added four kind, knowledgeable souls to our Support team, six new people to our Engineering team, our Operations team grew to two, and our Community team added two new folks to the mix. Plus, we’ve added three adorable babies and five sweet dogs to the Big Cartel family!
Our small-but-mighty Support team answered over 80,000 questions this year - that's over 1,500 a week! - and they still have time to put together great resources like our extensive Help site. We're pretty darn lucky to have them on our team.
Thanks for an amazing 2015, but more importantly, for a decade of Big Cartel. This wouldn’t be possible without you being a part of our community of artists. All of us here at Big Cartel come to work every day with smiles on our faces because of artists like you. Thank you.
22 December 2015
Words by:Andy Newman