I got some notes from FYA directly to clarify the whole Zip code schmeggy. I have been a busy, so late as it is:
To quote FYA, " 1. There are two FYA Dealer Locators on the site.
a. The Art.com Promotion Dealer Locator is on the FYA Home Page.
Only dealers who chose to participate in this particular promotion can be found in this locator.
b. The master FYA Dealer Locator can be found in the "Art & Framing" page, accessible from the FYA Home Page.
The Locators are programmed to run according to geographic location, not priority. When a customer enters their zip code the nearest five FYA Dealers will come up. If there are only four dealers in a given area, the program will randomly pull a shop in that area which accounts for the one shop repeating from time to time. There is no set priority level if the zip code is NOT a purchased zip code.
If the zip code entered by a customer is owned (purchased) by an FYA Dealer, then only/her shop will appear."
The letter went of to say:
"2. In January, FYA Dealers will be given a fully enabled e-commerce website that will have all of the functions of the FrameYourArt.com site, plus some extras. FYA is handing over a million dollars worth of
software to every FYA Dealer. These Web sites will have the personal domain name of each gallery. The average cost to host a site of this size, equipped with a shopping cart and gateway merchant account is well over $99.00 per month - not to mention the actual cost of developing a site. This will be available at no additional charge for our dealers -
it is one of the many many benefits of an authorized dealer.
3.This weeks (of a few weeks ago) electronic magazine features an FYA dealer who has really taken the tools we have provided and increased his bottom line significantly. He is quoted that if he continues his sales trend through the year, just by using our free art tool, he will add $18,000 to $24,000 in sales. To date, he has over $6000 in FYA related framing sales.
4. FYA is serious about taking its members to the 21st Century with not only print-on-demand technologies, but access to an exclusive image bank whereby they will have beautiful images to sell - not only at no cost, but available through a digital file which can be sent electronically and printed "in house". No more dead inventory, no more shipping, no more dollars tied up.
5. Our Educational Seminars, the Buyer's Club, Artlister (secondary market art listing service) are all free to our dealer's. Artlister.com alone is a service that can save a dealer thousands of dollars in
marketing, gross profit margins and cash flow, not to mention a new found customer base.
For an over view of our services, that reach far beyond the zip code territories, please go to
http://www.fyadealer.com/e_zine/index.html for our archived electronic magazines. These are mailed to our dealers on a bi-weekly basis.
We at FYA will continue to put value into the hands of our dealers, they are very important to us. "
All that being said (if you even bothered reading that far, and if you haven't ripped the computer monitor off the desk yet), I seriously think anyone interested in the FYA goings on should visit
http://www.allartportal.com/ezine/press.html I would post the contents of the press release, but it is copyrighted.
I wait to see what Grumblers think of the FYA company response, and of the latest doings of FYA. I've got some opins of my own, but I'll hold those back for now.
this should be real interesting