Kinda like the same place where you start with the Glowforge 
jumping in and doing.
I took advantage of the trial period they offer just to make sure that I liked the platform.
It can be really simple… just pick a template, add your products and it’s mostly there. If you stick with the default templates, everything is pretty much through a graphical user interface - no coding.
May I ask who the ‘they’ was ?
John
Shopify
Thanks, jb, bookmarked.
John 
Great! Thanks!
Me!
I will do pretty much ANYTHING to avoid having to talk on the phone. It is the #1 reason why I hired an assistant – to talk on the phone for me so I don’t have to. So if you want to get a message to me quickly, you’d better be willing to text me. Or you can call and talk to my assistant, who will then text me. 
Enjoying the reading but I think I should have emphasized the word custom.
I’m not looking to sell a bunch of generic items to a broad audience, I’m looking at making highly customized items for a specific group of (relatively wealthy) customers… 
right there with you though I tend to think calling is neither faster nor easier. If I have to call a client it eats up 15 minutes of my time easily assuming I get them on the first try and it’s not phone tag. Usually in 5 minutes or less of my time I can get the same answers via text or E-mail.
And …?
How does that negate any of the above? I can find products for the affluent in all of the above channels.
I can say this… I would be way less likely to buy from someone whose only presence was on Facebook. 
The bigger the ticket, the more trust you’re going to have to instill in a customer. A Facebook presence alone doesn’t justify that trust level IMO.
Totally agree. I expect a permanent/quality web presence if I’m shopping online for pricier items. Your site/presence should reflect the clientele you want. Based on what you’ve shared, you’d be wise to set up a good looking site with high quality images, even if you want to do custom or one-off work. If you’re looking for millennials, add in Instagram.
Thanks–but I am not worried about Amazon Handmade at this time–not on it (yet).
For others thinking of Facebook–after I posted my comments earlier about having had a shop on it, I CLOSED it. They started requiring SSN and banking info–I barely trust FB with my name, I’m not giving them that detail. Was nice when it was OK to use PayPal link, but guess they want to take the cut on the transactions now, too (likely since lost the $ coming from Cambridge Analyitics).
The PRO for Etsy is it is a marketplace–potential buyers go to Etsy and can search. There’s now even a forum for requests, as folks do post they are looking for a person to make a halloween costume or something. So lots of changes within their own SEO & fee structure, but still a pretty good, but don’t recommend using it as only way to try to sell.
Do Amazon Handmade items show up in a typical Amazon.com search? For example, if I search for a jigsaw puzzle, will yours show up in the mix or I have to go to a special Amazon Handmade storefront?
I couldn’t tell you positively. I understand that possibly if you have a popular enough item, it may show up in general search - that’s just hearsay though. Other than that, you have to search within the Handmade category.
I have no idea what sales rank your item has to be to show up in the general results. I have several individual products that are shown to be in the top few thousand most popular of XXX,XXX (woohoo haha) that don’t show up if i search through the app.
I could sell those in a general category vs Handmade, but I’d have to either buy UPCs or figure out the ASIN stuff. One day I might try a few and see if it works better. Valid UPCs cost money to do. I think ASIN is free to generate.
I can’t find your things on Amazon, even using the name of your company. One time (and I can’t remember how, now!) I got it to pull up your Wimberly Puzzle Company Handmade page, but there were no puzzles, just the name of the company and a little photo of you with your camera out in the bushes – and now I can’t find it again.
That doesn’t seem very helpful of them. 
I just did the searching. But I put everything into vacation mode earlier… so I don’t think I actually have any listings at the moment.
Duh!
Yes. I have a lot of vinyl products that show up in general searches but that took a lot of keyword optimization and really just time/sales. Amazons engine is highly sales driven (so is Etsy’s) so good sellers show up high. I’ve been on Amazon since November 2015 and have had thousands of sales of my vinyl products. I’ve had decent success with my CNC products and hope to add Glowforge stuff soon as I just got my machine.
However, the problem with Handmade items showing in normal search is not everybody realizes that Handmade has a different set of return/refund policies than normal Amazon so they’re shocked they can’t return their custom decal because they don’t like the way it looks.
And to add in to earlier discussions, I run a FB page (no selling though), Amazon, Shopify, and a few other social media accounts for the business. We had Etsy but the market for vinyl was so saturated it was costing us money and Amazon had our full time part-time attention (me and my wife do this on the side). All avenues serve a purpose. Shopify also has a POS component so we can take payments (incl credit cards) at craft fairs through Shopify, which makes things easier.
For those that do things strictly by the book, the app also collects the proper sales tax for the location you’re selling in (useful for those on craft fair circuit etc.)
And good to know on the search results! I stupidly searched after I had put things in vacation mode 
I love the sales tax part. In WooCommerce, I have to manually enter the gazillion sales tax rates or subscribe to an expensive subscription.
