Etsy's Handmade Blog
Mega-Beth Tour: Chicago Edition
Story by bethela
Published on March 21, 2008 in Events 		Photo by

bethela

Beth, who works on the Etsy Business Operations Team, is on the road with a slew of business trips for Etsy, and so she's meeting with Etsy sellers along the way and filling us in on her travels. Thus, we're calling it the Mega-Beth Tour, Beth's professionalism notwithstanding. Here's her latest installment...

Last weekend I headed out to Chicago for the Country Living Women’s Entrepreneurship Conference, an event attended by 600 women entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs.  Before the conference, I met up with a few Etsy sellers to hear their perspectives and get their ideas for the site.


Pictured: ButtonEnvy, thedarkcottage, Marstinia, BrianKennyChicago, Momomatic

This ambitious group got up early on a Saturday to meet me and we had a great time.  I always love meeting sellers, but my favorite part is seeing all the cool things that they make up close — or even better, works in progress.  Three of the sellers were wearing their own designs: ButtonEnvy was wearing one of her bracelet creations made from scrabble tiles (similiar to this bracelet in her shop), momomatic was wearing one of her rings, and marstinia was wearing these great pieces:


Thedarkcottage creates wood art, magnets and jewelry holders and BrianKennyChicago creates original cards and pop-ups (he showed me one of his prototypes and it is awesome.)  You can also check out BrianKennyChicago today in the virtual labs: his shop is getting critiqued.  

We discussed many, many topics, but here are some of the highlights:

Shipping – Shipping is always a hot topic when I visit sellers.  Chicago is apparently at the extreme end of challenging for shipping.   Buttonenvy mentioned, “I kiss it for luck and say please make it.”  When we got to the topic of how we can make it better, some of the suggestions were to create a how-to on how to use PayPal to ship (comment below if we need to add more to these how-tos!) and adding a store policy section for shipping.

Enhanced Profiles – The group was very interested in showing their workspaces and seeing other sellers' studios in the profile section of shops.  Another suggestion was pictures about what inspires the artist to make the items they well.  We love these ideas, too.  We are working towards making the profile section much more dynamic and customizable to help people learn more about you in the coming months.

Shop Critiques – “How in the world do you get one of those?” one person asked.  I asked the lovely Mary (who organizes shop critiques) for her advice on how to get picked.  One way is to volunteer to be critiqued by adding your name to this thread.  You can also show up during the shop critiques in the Virtual Labs. If you can't make it for a Virtual Labs Session you can also check out past Shop Critique articles. You can keep on top of what's coming up by clicking the Shop Critiques "Featured Column" on the Storque.

Alchemy – In general, the group really liked Alchemy, particularly the request a custom item button in the shops.  A few ideas popped up throughout the conversation.   The first was to charge a small fee for each request to weed out the not serious requests, a sort of mini-deposit.  If the person requesting the item accepted a bid, they could put the “deposit” toward the item. Another idea was a way to sort, by expiration or newly requested items.

Promotion – We talked a bit about how to promote your shop, including selecting business cards, joining Teams and sending free stuff or promotional material to very targeted viewers.  One person in the group had great success sending customized items to bloggers, who then wrote about her. They were all excited about our new Cooperative Advertising campaign.   

[Photo by Anna Griffin]

At the conference, I met many dynamic entrepreneurs, including many Etsy sellers.  A few of the sellers I met include Vintage Scraps, follow your bliss, Red Otter and eeniemeenie, who jumped out of the audience to ask me a question, proclaiming to the entire audience she is an “Etsy whore” – meaning, of course, she spends lots and lots of time buying on the site. (The audience burst into sympathetic laughter.)  Another woman I met, LeAnn aka luluology, took what she learned from the conference and went out and bought beautiful new business cards from paperandink.  Now that is action!

I was also on a panel with Heather Bailey, fabric designer and well-known blogger who did a magnificent job capturing the day on her blog.

To top off the weekend, I got to experience Chicago’s St. Patrick’s day weekend, including seeing the Chicago River turn green.  That is a serious St. Patrick’s Day celebration.  Thanks to everyone in Chicago for a fantastic day and for sharing your thought about Etsy. 

Tags BrianKennyChicago, ButtonEnvy, Chicago, eeniemeenie, followyourbliss, Heather Bailey, luluology, Marstinia, meetings, meet ups, Mega-Beth Tour, Momomatic, paperandink, RedOtter, research, seller chats, thedarkcottage, VintageScraps
All articles in Events
Related Items
This article was reported by:
Etsy Admin
bethela
shop . profile . contact

24 comments     Login to add your own!

March 21, 2008 at 2:51 p.m. CrankHeartPony

Hooray! Chicago is awesome! I wish i knew about all these cool conferences!

March 21, 2008 at 3:11 p.m. angeldamico

Sounded great, i wish i could have made it to the meeting, my heat went out, and i was out of town! :)

I was going to add that instant payment would be a great option, if the seller doesnt pay right away than the item goes back in the shop, so we can avoid canceling transacations, and that whole process of relisting the items etc.

Shipping in chicago Does stink. I do everything online through paypal, except through paypal there isnt first class-international, if anyone knows if there is please contact me personally. thanks!
have a great day!
Angel

March 21, 2008 at 3:35 p.m. HumanTouchDesigns

The link for briankellychicago comes up as an error...

March 21, 2008 at 3:51 p.m. PickalaPoopa

Too bad I missed the meeting. Maybe next time. Go Chicago!

March 21, 2008 at 4:10 p.m. RedOtter

The conference was the most incredible experience. I signed up with my sister, NuthatchNotes, on a whim over Christmas thinking that it would be a great opportunity to get advice on how to take the next step with my business. The conference was a high! There were so many talented artists and business women there, the room was filled with so much excited energy. I can't wait to sign up for next years event!

March 21, 2008 at 4:59 p.m. paola72

Ohhhh...I feel so sorry that I could not attend the meeting.
I would like to have more opportunities to promote my shop.
It would be nice to see some kids stuff on the front page or in the featured seller interviews.
Thank you for inviting me,
Paola
Sassy Owl

March 21, 2008 at 5:25 p.m. cookoorikoo

i'm curious how people were picked to come. i would've loved to have been there but hadn't heard anything about it.

actually, i had 7 different etsy sellers for dinner last saturday night and no one mentioned a thing. so, again, just curious...

March 21, 2008 at 5:44 p.m. VintageScraps

cookoo- left you a convo of information!
Great article- thanks for mentioning me :) It was a great weekend, very helpful for someone just starting out, and Beth did us proud!

March 21, 2008 at 5:52 p.m. momomatic

It was a pleasure to meet both Beth and all the sellers. I've been impressed with Etsy from the get go - but meeting Beth left me even more pleased with the company. She was so great about listening to all of our suggestions. Thanks!

March 21, 2008 at 5:56 p.m. sofiamasri

What a great article!

And, yes, the USPS in Chicago frustrates me to no end...

March 21, 2008 at 6:41 p.m. marstinia

Many thanks to Beth for making the time in her busy schedule to meet with us and discuss my favorite topic: Etsy! It was great to have the opportunity to meet other sellers from the Chicago area and share our ideas and experiences, as well as get some insight to what makes Etsy tick and some of the plans for the near future.
And I must say, those mustachios are pretty darn fetching!

March 21, 2008 at 6:54 p.m. CircaCeramics

Dang - This would have been an excellent opportunity for active team members to meet with you Beth!

If you're planning on doing this again (I see it's being called the "Mega-Beth Tour :) ) It might be an excellent idea to contact the team leaders in that area so that they can put the call out - You'd be surprised how quickly we can gather :)

Nancy
Chicago Style Crafters Team Co-Leader

March 21, 2008 at 6:57 p.m. crochetgirl

I haven't had any trouble shipping out of Chicago, just receiving packages takes forever. I use Paypal to ship all domestic and trek to the PO for international and always use custom forms and I've never had an issue.

Issues that are important to me:
1.How do we get tied in with the fashion programs that the city and Mayor Daley promote?
2.Advertising in Chicago- co-op programs for ads on buses and trains - you know those ads you stare at to avoid eye contact with anyone :) Newspaper ads in the reader and red-eye. Just some ideas.
3.Definitely a shop policies/shipping page for each shop. Personally, that's more important than a link to someones favorites.
4. A way to respond to negative feedback so people looking at your score can see the whole story.

I too am interested in how people were invited to the meeting. It's kind of off-putting when a select few are contacted and most of the Chicago street team aren't. Wouldn't that be the first place to start? I didn't hear about until someone mentioned it on another forum. I don't mean to sound snotty I just care about the success of this site and feel that there are many established indie business owners here that can give a lot of insight on things.

March 21, 2008 at 10:52 p.m. MelissaSue

the etsy chicago street team meets once a month to discuss a lot of these same things. you can keep track of when our next meeting is by checking out our website. if anyone from etsy is ever in the area we would love for you to attend one of our meetings!
etsy chicago street team, chicago style crafters, representing.

www.chicagostylecrafters.com

March 22, 2008 at 1:31 a.m. bethela

Yes, the next time around I will reach out to the local teams (I have in the past - not sure why I didn't do it on this trip)... I hope that one day soon either me or someone for our team will out by you for your next meeting.

Thanks to everyone above who has written their ideas. Keep them coming.

Beth

March 22, 2008 at 9:29 p.m. CorkandCotton

I read about this conference on Heather Bailey's blog site first, and was so excited when she mentioned etsy and meeting Beth.
Sounds like this was a lot of fun and informative.

March 22, 2008 at 11:35 p.m. vintagedaze

I certainly have had issues with some USPS personnel, but I've been selling online for seven years and have shipped more than 5,000 packages from Chicago. Only once was a package ever lost--and that was in Canada. That's not to say some packages haven't taken strange journeys! But I find our postal system no different from any other U.S. city.

Etsy is our venue for selling, but shipping is our own responsibility. What I believe etsy can do, however, is improve Checkout to allow buyers to add optional insurance. Also etsy could create a zip code based shipping calculator for U.S. purchases. We inevitably lose money when we quote a middle ground shipping charge, then sell to a Zone 7-8 buyer.

Thanks always,
Sandra

March 23, 2008 at 11:29 a.m. Protege

Great Article! Some great ideas here! Thank you Chicago!

March 23, 2008 at 12:31 p.m. GlassCat

I would love to have known about this too. Was it posted somewhere and I missed it or is it a secret?

March 23, 2008 at 2:55 p.m. shoozles

Yeah!that is close to my neck of the woods too. Great article. Good to see our Marstinia :)

March 23, 2008 at 7:39 p.m. VintageScraps

Hey- If anyone else "Pitched" to CL editors, I would love to hear about how it went for you! Convo me-
Meg

March 26, 2008 at 11:56 a.m. elektrajewelry

How about doing a conference in NYC

March 30, 2008 at 2:28 a.m. StudioYTE

I am really sorry to have missed this meeting with Bethela and local Etsians - hopefully there will be another one soon!

April 3, 2008 at 11:11 p.m. simplysavy

So soory I missed this and meeting fellow Chicago Etsians. Glad it went so well and you enjoyed yourself in Chitown during St. Patty's Day.

BTW, I love ButtonEnvy. Her stuff is so fun.

Previous Page | Next Page