Ashley and I headed down to Washington, DC last week to attend eTail, an e-commerce conference.  We were privileged to see Rob Walker, author of “Buying In: The Secret Dialogue of What We Buy and Who We Are”, speak at the conference.  We were pleasantly surprised that he highlighted Etsy as a prominent example of a positive movement where consumers have decided to participate.

The finale of our trip was a round table discussion with a dynamic group of sellers—some veteran, some new—and Sara, an active buyer from Crafty Bastards DC. The discussion was a nice mix of ideas for Etsy and sharing shop tips and promotion ideas with each other.  We had a few experts in our midst:

Shoofly is featured this month in How Magazine’s special issue focused on handmade design. The article is titled "Paper Market: If you indulge your creative jones by designing your own stationery, you're not alone. Online outlets like Etsy are helping designers sell their handmade products. Meet 7 people who are doing it well."

Scenicartisans was on DC’s local Fox News coverage (second video) of the Washington Glass Studio where he does his glasswork.

To learn more about how to pitch yourself to local press check out DIY PR: Local Press.

Some of the suggestions that arose in this lively discussion included: 

Ability to change name: One person told us she had changed her shop name three times, which meant closing one shop to open another each time.

Easier to get a Treasury:  “I just can’t get one.” 

Videos in profiles: Videos would be a great way to enhance a profile and show products in a different and compelling way.

Judaica section:  “The Rosen Group, Niche Awards and many other quality craft shows consider 'Judaica' its own category. It would be great if Etsy did too!”  It was discussed that it would be especially helpful for those who want to attract wholesale as well as retail. And not to mention, “There are a lot of temple shops that like to buy handmade crafts.”

Listing templates: A few of the sellers mentioned that they are cut and pasting anyway.  A template would make the whole process a lot easier.

Notification when in a Treasury: Notification is “totally not spam,” one seller exclaimed.

Ability to delete items:  If you sell an item elsewhere, the ability to completely delete the item from your shop, not just make them inactive.  “It clutters my inactive section.”

Vacation Mode:  This is a feature that launched a lengthy discussion. Many were worried about leaving their shops for a few days.

Rearrange items in shop:  Ability to arrange items in your shop in another way besides chronological order.  This would be great to create color stories and other relevant groupings.  One seller mentioned she holds listings while she waits for other items to finish to put them in the “perfect order.”

In addition, some of the new features they really liked were the new separate policy section in shops, drop down categories when listing and the ability to rearrange photos in listings.

Thank you to all the DC sellers who came out to visit with us.  We enjoyed meeting you and appreciated your candid thoughts and ideas for Etsy.

Photo at top: Back Row (left to right): AStichtoWear (Allison), bethela (Beth), pileofcraft (Sara), shoofly (Rania), scenicartisans (Sean); Front Row (left to right): geltdesigns (Rachel and Liz), finchmetal (Jill), LizzyJdesigns (Liz), thesoapseduction (Patrice).  Special thanks to winenutnyc for the Megabeth t-shirt made by Spiritwear that he had designed using Alchemy.

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