This Memorial Day weekend, I had the opportunity to head out to my home state, Connecticut (where I grew up in a small town, Cheshire) and meet a fantastic group of Etsy artisans at The Space, an arts and music venue in Hamden, CT. I was completely overwhelmed by the reception and enthusiasm of the group. I was greeted by 20 sellers, all full of questions and eager to talk about their experiences with Etsy and their ideas. They carpooled (thanks for being eco-conscious!) from the far corners of the state for the afternoon. 

MsKittyFantastico, the leader of the CT Etsy Team, did an amazing job organizing the meeting. The amount of appreciation and admiration the group had for her was instantly clear. She was described as organized, dedicated, vivacious, selfless — and the list goes on.  I was told that she “keeps [the team] together” and “organizes team challenges.” A few people asked me to “please, please name MsKittyFantastico team leader of the year.”  Did you hear that Sarawearsskirts?

Standing (L to R) Lauren (tagliatela), Aja (embellishedday), Audrety (kaboogie), Emily (boutiquegirl), Kelly (colorscapedesigns), Carrie (carrieWdesigns), Lis-el (heartofthefire), Sharon (Morganstreet), Jillian (MsKittyFantastico), Cathleen (Mysticafelicity), Shana (ArtDecade), Paula (peewog), Sue (Sulimos), Liz (LAADesigns), Sitting (L to R) Mary Helen (ScribbleNation), Lauren (Ornametal), Jen (gooseontheloose), Sharon (cozycoleman), Patricia (SilverDragon), Nora (FenrisLorsrai), Beth (bethela)

This group was not shy and was eager to share their thoughts.  Some of the ideas included:

Treasury and front page notification:  The team would like to see an opt-in auto-notification when a seller is featured in a treasury or front page. 

Listing templates:  Start from a drop down menu of previously listed items which would save a tremendous amount of time.  Batch listing and batch tagging would also save time and encourage more listing.

Filters: Shopping filters, such as “ship to my country.”

More specific location information:  Shop local (which they loved) would work a lot better if there were sections for state, province, country, etc.

More marketing content on the Storque: After Sulimos declared that “the Storque is awesome!,” we discussed the idea for even more tools and articles about marketing their shops.

Registries:  Either personal treasuries or gift registries. 

Enhanced profiles:  We discussed ways for shoppers to get to know sellers better. Some ideas included:

• Photos in profile — something a little bigger than the current avatar.
• Links to mentions in Storque or featured on front page — like an Etsy resume or CV.

Unified checkout for buyers:  In the meantime, make it clear that you can check out once if you buy from the same buyer and/or a continue shopping at the same shop button before checkout.

Auto generated member list for teams: Ability for Teams to download a roster of the team to an Excel or CSV doc.

Tents for Craft Shows: It's tag sale season (depending on what part of the country you are from, garage sale season) and a few ladies found great deals on tents for as little as $10.  Keep your eye out!

As usual, I was completely impressed with all of the sellers.  My favorite thing about meeting sellers is seeing new work, or even better, works in progress.  Two sellers (cozycoleman and kaboogie) were busily working throughout the meeting.  Kaboogie, who has been recently featured on the local Connecticut televsion program, Better Connecticut (go here to see the video clip) was finishing up one her cute booties and Cozycoleman was working on a new stitch she has invented for a recent pattern she has listed on Etsy. 

The CT Etsy Team maintains an active blog, flickr group, myspace profile and ning page, where you can learn more about the sellers in the group. I took an informal poll, and 11 of the 20 of the sellers present blogged. Many discussed how their blogs have generated sales from unsuspecting places like California and Australia.  The Team also just received a grant for their upcoming Jewelry Spectacular on June 7, 2008 at the Holiday Inn in North Haven (next door to the Friendly’s I worked at through high school and college). 

Keep up the great work, CT Etsy Team! Thank you to everyone who came.  I hope to see you all at a Connecticut event soon.

To read about more of Beth's travels on the Mega-Beth Tour, go here!