Handmade Verification Artisan Application

Submit your Artisans Cooperative shop for Handmade Verification peer review. All artisans join our marketplace as “Unverified.” Those who complete the review process may earn the “Verified” label for benefits and greater visibility on the marketplace.

Please do not submit more than one voluntary Handmade Verification Application per tax ID.

Handmade Verification is voluntary for new artisans and required for artisans whose shop has had three (3) or more community enforcement reports. Details about the Handmade Verification and Enforcement processes, including your right to appeal the results of this review, are located in our Handmade Policy.  

All information you provide in this application will be kept confidential. The information you share in this form will be used for the purpose of verifying your shop as handmade. This information will be accessed by the selected Peer Reviewers and Artisans Co-op management. Peer reviewers are fellow artisans who are other members of the Coop; they have been trained in handmade verification, and have signed a non-disclosure agreement in which they agree to keep personal and business information confidential. However, we still encourage artisans not to divulge any trade secrets in this application.  

This application takes around 10 minutes if you have already gathered your photos. Before you begin this application, we recommend you gather the following photos, in any way that makes sense for your craft: 

- 1-2 photos of your workspace or workshop (or equivalent: for example, an artisan who doesn't have a dedicated studio space can take a photo of their shared workspace or of the bead box they use while multi-tasking at their kids' sports practice).

- 1-2 photos of your material storage (or equivalent).

- 3-10 photos representing your handmade process: the major stages of production of a product, including the finished product, that best represents your craft and/or your primary product listings. (For example, photos of a product in stages of production for a digital illustrator might be screenshots that demonstrate the different layers of a drawing in your preferred drawing program.)

- At least ONE photo of your workspace or process must have evidence of a recent date by including a piece of paper with the following written on it in the photo(s):

     1) your name

     2) the words "Artisans Cooperative"

     3) the date

Optional: For artisans whose handmade process has already been “verified” by a reputable third party, there is a shortened application. Third-party verification means that someone else - such as a videographer, writer, photographer, media outlet, museum, book publisher, or craft guild/organization - has already documented your handmade process. For example: if an artisan has been featured by their local newspaper, who published an interview demonstrating that the work is handmade and included photos of their workshop, they can simply provide a link to the article. We expect this only applies to a small percentage of our applicants. If you have a reference like this and believe you qualify, please complete our Established Artisans Application. If the evidence is insufficient, those artisans will need to complete this Peer Review Application anyway. This alternative is only eligible for Voluntary Reviews, not Enforcement Reviews. 

No hablo inglés / Je ne parle pas anglais. If you do not speak English or feel more comfortable in your native language, please use translation tools such as Google Translate for the multiple-choice questions. For paragraph answers, you may answer in your native language. We may have to use translation tools to interpret your replies, but we will always seek to verify with you anything in the translation that we don’t understand or that doesn’t make sense.

Please answer the questions truthfully and as thoroughly as you can. Dishonesty, false answers, willfully misleading information, or similar deceptions may be grounds for removal from our marketplace, in accordance with our Terms of Service. 

Mature Content / NSFW (Not Safe for Work)

Our Mature Content / NSFW Policy defines what Mature Content / NSFW is, outlines what is allowed and what is not allowed, and provides specific and mandatory requirements for artisans listing these items.

Your answer about NSFW content does not affect your shop or Handmade Verification but is a screening question for Peer Reviewers who may not wish to view NSFW content. 

I. Part of our definition of "handmade" is that the work is subject to the workmanship of risk, which essentially means that at some point in the process, the artisan could ruin the work.

II. Another part of our definition of "handmade" is that the products are “authentic original works produced with the care, dexterity / skill, and judgment of the artisan."

III. Production 

This question has to do with the final products for sale, not the materials you use during production.

If you produce some of the items that you want to list on the Artisans Cooperative marketplace with outsourced production of any kind, please answer “no.” Your work may still qualify as Handmade.

Please answer only for the products you’re putting on the Artisans Cooperative marketplace, not for any other selling channel you may use.

Reminder that this application will be kept strictly confidential, and access to its information will be restricted to the artisan submitting the application, the selected Peer Reviewers, and Artisans Co-op management.  

Please take a series of photos that demonstrates your handmade process.

You may interpret these photo assignments in any way that makes sense for your craft. For example, photos of a product in stages of production for a digital illustrator might be screenshots that demonstrate the different layers of a drawing in your preferred drawing program. Or, an artisan who doesn't have a dedicated studio space can take a photo of their shared workspace or of the bead box they use while milti-tasking at their kids' sports practice.

Upload each of the photos with either a filename that briefly introduces the photo.

- 1-2 photos of your workspace or workshop (or equivalent).

- 1-2 photos of your material storage (or equivalent).

- 3-10 photos representing your handmade process: the major stages of production of a product, including the finished product, that best represents your craft and/or your primary product listings. 

- At least ONE "process" photo must have evidence of a recent date by including a piece of paper in the photo(s) with the following written on it: 

1. your name
2. the words "Artisans Cooperative"
3. the date

For example: