Search results (tags) for: "business"

Five Money Questions to Ask Before Quitting Your Day Job

2009-11-24T14:00:00-05:00

This guest post is by Amanda Steinberg, founder of DailyWorth.com. DailyWorth is a daily email about money for women — delivering practical tips, empowering ideas and the occasional kick in the pants.

I quit my full-time job four years ago to be a full-time entrepreneur. I earn my living running websites like this personal finance website for women called DailyWorth.com. Here are five things I wish someone had told me before I made the financial leap.

1. How much do you need to make, really? REALLY. Life without a stable paycheck has far more expenses than someone working 9-to-5 might realize. You'll need a lot of cash. As a business owner, I'm constantly lusting after marketing dollars I don't have. Consider additional expenses that you'll incur once you go out on your own.

Expenses You May Not Have Planned For

In addition to all of the line items in your existing plans and budgets, consider these expenses as well:

Personal Expenses	Business Expenses
Health Insurance	Legal Fees
Retirement Account (Roth IRA, anyone?)	Product Development Fees
Quarterly Estimated Tax Payments	Advertising
Increased Accounting Expenses	Constant Website Enhancements

Not sure what this all adds up to? Ask someone who knows. Life is expensive. Be conservative when you estimate.

Photo by valedesign

2. Reality check: How much revenue can my company really generate?
Evaluate your market and know what your competitors are earning on average. Better yet, be conservative. Don't collect blog posts featuring glossy success stories and think that everyone experiences the same level of success.

3. Can I cultivate multiple, dependable income streams to support me as I build my business? Now that you have a better idea of what your life and new business will cost in the first year, add 50% to what you think you need to earn. That's your earning target. Why? Because even though you might think you'll earn $4,000 in January, life happens, contracts are canceled, checks don't arrive and WHAM!, the money's gone. Stuff happens, so you'll need to earn more than you think you need to hit your earning targets. Don't think you can earn that much? Good, we're glad you're asking yourself this question now, rather than staring at a credit card statement that's $20,000 in the red.

Figure out where this money will come from.

Take a part-time job or stable freelance contracts. If you freelance, assume you'll only be able to bill clients for up to 20 hours of work per week. It's harder than you think to bill for more than 20 hours as a freelancer. When Nathan Shackles decided to found his own business two years ago, he first started by taking on 10-20 hours per week of extra work, in addition to his day job. “I saved every dime of the money I made from the contract work to provide capital for my business,” he says. One month ago, he launched his new product, ApplicantStack, a web-based applicant tracking and recruitment software for human resources and staffing agencies. While Nathan was able to work full days and extra hours on top of that, that kind of schedule isn’t for everyone.
Identify your most bankable skill. How can you make money most easily? Making money while you're growing your business doesn't need to be glamorous or fulfilling. It just needs to be lucrative. Period.
Line up part-time work before you leave your job. Line it up weeks or months in advance of your transition.
Try to turn your full-time job into a part-time job. Don't burn bridges! You can approach your current employer about reducing your hours or transitioning into a contract position. Given the recession, your boss may be open to ideas that save the company money while giving you the time and flexibility to set up your own business.

4. How much can I save in advance? If you’re leaving a full-time job, start saving aggressively six months before you announce your departure. Commit to making regular, automated deposits. Laura Rangel and Lisa Steen Proctor, co-founders of Karito Kids a multicultural doll company that teaches kids about giving back, started their company with $10,000 each from their savings accounts. Both agree that putting money aside now to help fund your future business is the best way forward.

5. Who do I know that's already done it? A mentor can point you to networking opportunities, troubleshoot financial pitfalls and show you where you're drinking your own Kool-Aid a little too aggressively.

Bottom Line
Don't be delusional. Don't risk your financial well-being thinking you're The Next Big Thing (though I hope that you are). Building a lucrative new business takes time and a lot of cash. By the same token, embracing entrepreneurship doesn’t mean that you have to bleed red ink all over the place. Pursue your dream. Just plan for it with your eyes wide open.

Learn more about smart spending and savvy saving by signing up for DailyWorth.

Holiday Tips for Sellers: Notes on Cyber Monday From DiffractionFiber

2009-11-23T14:30:00-05:00

Beth of DiffractionFiber held a very informative workshop in our Virtual Labs last week on promoting your Cyber Monday sales. Did you miss it? Hopefully these notes will help!

What is Cyber Monday?
Cyber Monday is the Monday after Thanksgiving. Traditionally (or at least how the media markets it), Black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving, is the time for big brick and mortar retailers to offer their huge deals on their wares. And Cyber Monday is the time for Internet retailers to do the same. What I suggest is to offer your deals and discounts the entire weekend, so from Friday through Monday.

What kind of deal should I offer?
Well that’s entirely up to you. People are out shopping in force, but they are also out for a good deal. Obviously, don’t offer more than you can afford. But your prices should have enough wiggle room and mark-up so that you can — on occasion — offer a discount. You can offer a percentage discount, Buy One Get One deals, or free shipping. Regardless of what you offer, make sure that your deals are clearly explained in your announcement and in the beginning of your descriptions. After all, a discount doesn’t mean much to a potential shopper if they don’t know what the price was originally.

How should I provide discounts in my Etsy shop?
This leads me to my next point, mark down ALL your designated listings before the sale starts. I do this on Thanksgiving night when I’m recovering from my turkey coma. That way customers can buy and pay and they aren’t waiting for revised invoices or refunds or anything. It makes their lives easier, it makes your life easier. Tip: Editing your listings and changing the price does not cost you any additional listing fees, and it bumps you up in Shop Local results (provided you have entered your geographical location).

What do I do leading up to the sale?
Plan your marketing strategy! Here are some ideas:

Remember to tag your items with the sale tags Etsy is promoting this weekend! Read this Etsy blog post: Seller How-To: Get Involved With Black Friday and Cyber Monday Promotion to find out more.
If you have a mailing list, send out an email blast on the morning of Black Friday announcing the sale.
Purchase ad space on your favorite blogs. Either directly or through companies like Project Wonderful.
Use social media like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace to get the word out.
Stock up on your most popular items so they can get mailed as soon as possible. That includes packaging and shipping supplies as well. That way you are ready to go!
Look over your listings and be critical of your photos. If you have anything that might need some revision, now is the time to do it. It’s helpful to have a friend look over your shop with a critical eye. After all, you are so close to your listings; what seems obvious to you might be confusing for a potential shopper.
If you don’t already sell internationally, do it now! It's easy, and you open your shop to so many more potential sales overseas. Probably a third of my customers are international. Just pick up some customs forms or order online from USPS or your country's postal website. These customs forms are simple to fill out and can still be used if you're scheduling a pick up. Make sure your international shipping profiles are all set up — it is about making it as easy as possible for your customer. To calculate prices just go to USPS.com and plug in the weight with a few far flung locales.

What do I do over the sale weekend?
Check Etsy often. Make sure everything stays in stock, consider upping the stock numbers prior to Thanksgiving weekend. I know it goes against common Etsy wisdom, but I consider it smart to up your numbers so that if a blog links to a listing, your listing stays as active and doesn’t show up as sold. Be sure to answer any Convos as soon as possible. You don’t want to keep customers wondering and waiting.

How quickly do I need to ship out my orders from the sale?
With, hopefully, an onslaught of purchases coming in, you need to consider how quickly you’ll be able to ship out new orders. Set a realistic expectation for being able to ship out orders. Customers would much rather know up front that they are going to be waiting five days for their orders to ship than to be left wondering. You can post the days you plan on shipping in your Shop Announcement.

What else can I do to wow my buyers?
Will you be offering gift wrapping? Gift tags? Shipping direct to the recipient? Figure all this out now and put it in your policy page. If you are able, I suggest offering all of these at no charge. They are little perks that few people will take you up on but will make you seem more generous and friendly. Nothing is worse than when you look like you are being cheap and trying to squeeze a buck from someone. Just buy some non-denominational holiday wrapping paper like snowflakes, and then whatever is left over I’m sure you can use for your own holiday wrapping.

How do you turn all these new customers into devotees?
First thing is of course exceeding their expectations, making them happy and providing a great product. You can consider including a coupon that is good in the slow months of January/February/March. You can ask if you can include them on your mailing list. Side note: NEVER automatically enroll people in your mailings, ALWAYS ask first.

Make sure you are including a business card in all your packages going out. If it's an item that is conducive to a branded tag or label, make sure to attach it. That way both the buyer and the recipient have your name in front of them for future purchases.

Try PrintRunner.com for hang tags, you can get 250 for $12, full color, fabulous quality. There are lots and lots of options out there for business cards. Moo.com sells small fun cards for something a little different.

What should I expect?
If you are brand new to Etsy with no followers, don’t expect to be blown over with sales. You have to have a following to get that sort of barrage. Think of it as a percentage increase. Just like selling on Etsy any time of year, the more you put in as far as marketing and publicity, the more you get out of it.

More Tips in Etsy's Seller Handbook

New Rules: Support Your Local Economy

2009-11-20T15:00:00-05:00

Stacy Mitchell is a senior researcher with the New Rules Project at the Institute for Local Self Reliance (ISLR), an organization started in 1974 to work with citizens, activists, policy makers and entrepreneurs to help communities improve their economies, reduce waste, manage local infrastructure and provide better overall living environments.

The New Rules Project “challenges the wisdom and inevitability of economic consolidation and works to advance policies that support strong local economies and vibrant communities.” In a nutshell, she works to advance many of the same things that Etsy stands for — handmade, local, independent production, and a connection to communities and producers.

I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with Stacy about the growth of local and independent businesses over the past several years, which many people attribute to both a backlash against “big box” retail and an appreciation for knowing one’s maker. Stacy took some time to talk to us about these issues, and her latest book, Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses, goes into much more detail.

Tell us a bit about the New Rules Project.
The New Rules Project is a national initiative started by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. The project's mission is to make the case that bigger isn't necessarily better — that small-scale production and independent businesses nurture community and create a more sustainable and democratic economy.

Our focus is on changing public policy. If you look at the laws and regulations in place today, many of them actively favor big corporations. Federal farm policies subsidize big agribusiness; local zoning rules favor Wal-Mart; banking regulations aid big banks; and the list goes on.

We're calling for New Rules: public policies that support local economies and build strong, self-governing communities.

How did you get involved in the organization and what do you do?
I started working for the New Rules Project when it was founded in 1997. Much of my focus has been looking at the consequences of the rise of big retail chains, like Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Barnes & Noble. These companies have taken over much of our economy with the promise of delivering good deals, but it turns out that the big-box model has been incredibly expensive. In my recent book, Big-Box Swindle, I document how these companies are fueling many of our most pressing problems, from the shrinking middle class to rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The good news is that there's now a widespread backlash. The New Rules Project has helped hundreds of grassroots groups stop big-box development projects and enact new policies that keep the chains at bay and support local businesses instead.

Even more encouraging, our research is finding growing public support for locally produced goods and independent businesses. Local food is soaring in popularity. Over the last four years, we've seen increasing numbers of new independent businesses, from bookstores to food markets, opening across the country.

Local business alliances — like Stay Local New Orleans, Local First in Salt Lake City, and Portland Buy Local in Portland, Maine — have now formed in over 130 cities and collectively count some 30,000 businesses as members. These alliances are running very creative "buy local" campaigns that are not only changing people's shopping habits, but engaging them in a conversation about community and how to transition to a more sustainable future.

Why should people shop local this holiday season?
One reason is that shopping at an independent business, instead of a chain, generates far more benefit for your local economy. Several recent studies have found that a dollar spent at a locally owned business generates 2-3 times as much local economic activity as a dollar spent at a chain and supports many more local jobs.

Another compelling reason to go local this year is to make the holidays fun again. Who wants to sit in traffic at the mall? It's so much more rewarding to stroll through the small stores in your neighborhood or downtown. You'll not only find unusual gifts that don't come from a sweatshop, but you're bound to run into friends, get into an interesting conversation, enjoy the beauty of historic buildings decked out in lights, take time to savor a hot chocolate at the local café — in short, you'll have a chance to really experience and celebrate the place in which you live.

Of course, you can't always find everything you're looking for in your own backyard, and that's why sites like Etsy and Indiebound are a great way to take advantage of the convenience and diversity of the web while still supporting independent artists and small businesses.

What kind of impact does supporting the local arts have on a community at large?
Buying anything produced locally — food, art, music, fashion — has a sizeable economic benefit for your community. The money you spend stays in the local area and helps to keep your neighbors employed.

These creative professions also contribute to the welfare of the community in so many other ways. They make the places we live interesting. They create focal points for reflection and community.

Artists and craftspeople are great problem-solvers too. As we grapple with big challenges, like climate change, we need their special abilities to help us envision a different way of living.

Do you have any specific examples of cities or towns that are experiencing a positive change?
Thanks largely to the work of Sustainable Connections, a coalition of about 500 local businesses in and around Bellingham, Washington, that community has made huge strides in incubating new businesses, expanding regional food production, and reducing the carbon footprint of buildings.

Local First Utah has changed how residents and elected officials in Salt Lake City think about economic development. A recent survey found that three-quarters of residents want fewer chains in their neighborhoods and more local businesses.

Arizona Local First was instrumental in convincing the state legislature to outlaw the kinds of subsidies that are commonly provided to big-box development projects.

Here in my hometown of Portland, Maine, many local business owners say that Portland Buy Local has made a big difference in terms of galvanizing public support and helping them survive the recession.

What are you doing to support your local community in Portland, ME?
I'm one of many volunteers with Portland Buy Local, which has about 280 members, including local businesses, artists, and nonprofits. We create new poster and advertising campaigns every couple of months that highlight the value of independent businesses and encourage people to support them.

Our posters, which are displayed on hundreds of storefronts all over the city and reproduced as ads in local newspapers, are all designed by local artists, so they are very eye-catching as well as incredibly varied in their style.

Steve Darnley and Arielle Walrath, for example, designed this gorgeous poster (pictured below) for our holiday campaign last year. Sean Wilkinson produced a very powerful graphic for one of our economic messages (shown above).

Poster by Steve Darnley and Arielle Walrath

Etsy seller pineconeandchickadee created this amazing Valentine's Day poster, which was so popular that we turned it into T-shirts that have been selling like hotcakes.

Poster by pineconechickadee

Our latest poster series, by photographer Nathan Eldridge, emphasizes the wide range of products — from the unusual to the everyday — that are available from independent businesses.

How should people get involved with New Rules?
The best way to keep up with what we're doing and learn how you can start some of these initiatives in your own community is to sign up for our monthly email newsletter, The Hometown Advantage.

We publish lots of useful research and information on our website. Take a look and, if you find an idea or an article you like, please forward it to your friends, your neighbors, your elected officials, your local newspaper. We're a small organization, so we need all the help we can get to make our research and ideas part of the public discussion.

Lastly, like any nonprofit, we are dependent almost entirely on donations to keep the lights on and our staff fed. Contributions of any size are gratefully appreciated.

Any Etsy sellers you're particularly fond of?
I adore ferdinandhome — terrific T-shirts, my favorite greeting cards, and fabulous potholders made from vintage fabric.

Another favorite is pineconeandchickadee. I'm smitten with Amy Teh's designs.

I hope my husband is reading this, because one thing I'd be super happy to find under my tree this year is a messenger bag from bobbinstudio.

And, lastly, there's a real gem of a little business in my neighborhood that just became an Etsy seller a few weeks ago: HomegrownHerbandTea. Sarah Richards is a skilled herbalist who has been blending teas for both health and pleasure at her tea shop here on Munjoy Hill for several years. She just made the leap online and her teas are definitely worth checking out.

Further Resources:
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) proposes a set of new rules that builds community by supporting humanly scaled politics and economics. The rules call for:

Decisions made by those impacted
Communities accepting responsibility for the welfare of their members and the next generation
Households and communities possessing or owning sufficient productive capacity to generate real wealth

NewRules.org discusses the importance of rules and catalogs the best. We make the rules and the rules make us.

The Related Items below are all from Stacy's native Maine!

Find Etsy Sellers in Your Town | Read Our Shop Local Series | Check Out the Etsy Maine Team

From Etsy's Merchandising Desk: December Festivites

2009-11-12T14:15:00-05:00

It's that time again, and those of us behind the scenes at Etsy would like to share our merchandising plans for December. As we continue to plan Etsy’s calendar for the year ahead with thematic merchandising, we will be incorporating many of the concepts you shared in response to November's report and continue to welcome your input. It is our goal to create a healthy balance between promotions for traditional holidays, seasonal changes, and lifestyle trends.

Rounding out November

Keep abreast of the November seasonal themes, holidays, dates to remember, and trends we are looking to highlight in November's Merchandising Desk edition.
Promotional opportunities for sellers in November:
- Nominate your favorite birthstones for our November Citrine Guide in this Forum thread.
- Learn how to participate in Friday Etsy Finds emails in this Forum thread.
- Suggest and nominate items for Etsy's Holiday Gift Guides in this Forum thread.
- Stay tuned to the Selling section of The Storque, Etsy's blog, to learn how to get involved with our broader promotional plans for Black Friday through Cyber Monday.

Stay Engaged in December
December sets the stage for a fast-paced approach toward the holidays. However, we'll soon relax and enjoy the company of family and close friends over delicious seasonal treats. Our critical merchandising focus this month will center around the holiday gift-giving season. Below you will find the extended list of topics we'll be looking to highlight throughout the month of December. We're looking for your creative interpretation and spin on each of the upcoming seasonal themes.

Seasonal Holiday Gift-Giving: Find our full list of seasonal gift-giving thematic topics in the newly released Holiday Gift Guides. Reevaluate your line and describe why your items make great gift ideas; take the time to photograph your items in a way that shows the potential uses it could have.
Seasonal Home Decor: Winter and holiday home decor accents, displays, accessories, centerpieces, ornaments, and all the home accoutrement that make us think of a cozy dwelling. Think candles, baskets, wreaths, garlands, furniture, tabletop, quilts, blankets, pillows, storage solutions, rugs, windows, lighting, bedding, and bath. Rich materials and fabrics remain at the forefront of styling options.
Entertaining: Celebrations including dinner with the family, holiday parties, and those notorious over-the-top New Year's galas abound. We'll be looking for creative and unique seasonal tabletop solutions, dinnerware, glassware and bar, table linens, food for your feast, centerpieces, place settings, place cards, invitations, menus, favors, and hostess gifts.
Winter and Holiday Fashion: Vamped up holiday, formal, and party fashions along with warm layers, winter coats, winter accessories, boots, bags, and jewelry all sparkle this season.
New Year's Eve: Ring in the new year in style. We'll be highlighting party options, celebration accessories and party fashion. Keep in mind with New Year's Eve, resolution time is right around the corner. January sneek peek: Health and wellness, relaxation, detox, reorganization, and all that emphasizes a fresh new start.
Calendars and Paper Goods: Thank you card sets, stationery sets, 2010 calendars, and gift wrapping elements.
Shopping Local: With online shopping, comes shipping deadlines. As we near these deadlines, we'll be looking to promote the Shop Local Etsy shopping feature along with other location-based highlights. Make sure your location is up to date in order take advantage of last-minute shoppers in your area.
Boxing Day: Boxing Day is a recognized day of rest in many countries, originating as a day of extending goodwill to those less fortunate. Over time, it has traditionally become known as a shopping holiday for sales and promotions. For many retail merchants, this marketing strategy has become their highest revenue driving day of the year. We'll be hosting a special Boxing Day extended promotion for sellers interested in participating. Stay tuned for details as we get closer to December including how to participate as a seller.
Winter Weddings: Attire, decor, invitations, favors, and gift ideas.
The International Vacation: Global adventures, features on warmer weather destinations, highlights of spring/summer fashion in the Southern Hemisphere.
December trends: The all-encompassing forest imagery including holly, branches, berries, pine cones, acorns, and related animals (deer, squirrels, chipmunks). Boots, pumps, Oxfords, and ballet flats. Winter accessories. Statement jewelry, metallics and sequined clothing and accessories. Gem tones, deep berry, plum, forest green, and classic combinations of red, white, black, green and royal blues. Vintage decor, eco-friendly options, and tribal motifs continue to top the trends this season.
Turquoise is December's birthstone, and December's astrological signs are Sagittarius and Capricorn (November 23 - December 21: Sagittarius and December 22 - January 20: Capricorn).
Promotional Opportunities for Sellers:
- In preparation for our Turquoise Gift Guide, we will be looking for community suggestions and nominations for what items you'd like to see in the guide. Suggest your favorite turquoise-related items in this nomination thread.
- Suggest and nominate items for Etsy's Holiday Gift Guides in this Forum thread.
- Stay tuned to the Selling section of The Storque for additional promotional opportunities through December.

If you'd like to stay engaged and involved with the approaching merchandising themes, interpret them in your own artistic voice. This can be translated in your listings, photos, shop announcement, descriptions, tags, titles, sales promotions and more. We're excited to see your creative interpretations!

If you make items that would fit well with the themes outlined, try stocking up and listing them in advance to take advantage of potential shipping deadlines and on site features. Do you already have items in your shop that meld well? That's great! Now it's time to revisit those items to make sure your tags, titles, and descriptions reflect keywords shoppers might be looking for this time of year. This is also a great opportunity to revamp your item photography with a new look, if you think they need some work. Check out some great how-to's for item photography to get started.

If your items fall under the main thematic categories we'll be highlighting this month, it might be a great time to consider purchasing a spot in a Category Showcase. For those of you who enjoy making Treasuries, we'll be looking to highlight lists that interpret November and December's themes in a creative and cohesive way, as well as the many innovative and beautiful collections that we normally feature.

Upcoming Dates to Remember:

November is known as Real Jewelry Month, Peanut Butter Lovers Month, and Aviation History Month.
December 1: World AIDS Awareness Day
December 6: Spain's Constitution Day
December 6: Saint Nicholas Day
December 9: Christmas Card Day and National Pastry Day
December 10: Final safe date for international shipping deadlines (save for express and overnight)
December 10: Nobel prizes presented
December 11: Hanukkah begins at sundown
December 12: Poinsettia Day
December 12: Feast of Our Lady Guadalupe in Mexico
December 17: Hari Raja Puasa
December 17: South Africa's Day of Reconciliation
December 18: Final safe date for online shipping deadlines (save for express and overnight)
December 18: Muharram
December 21: Winter Solstice — shortest day of the year
December 25: Christmas Day
December 25: England's Constitution Day
December 26: Boxing Day — also known as the Day of Goodwill
December 26: Saint Stephen's Day
December 26: Kwanzaa begins
December 31: New Year's Eve

Do you have a date to remember that you don't see on the list? Let us know in the comments section below. We are currently working toward incorporating a more detailed calendar of international holidays into Etsy's thematic merchandising plans, so we're eager to hear which dates you would like to see included.

We’d like to hear from you!
We appreciate your support and look forward to your feedback and suggestions in the comments section below.

View More Merchandising Posts | Gift Guides

Etsy International: We're Visiting Europe...Again!

2009-11-12T10:00:00-05:00

UPDATE: Just a friendly reminder!

[The following was originally published on October 31, 2009.]

Etsy International: We're visiting Europe...again! Nous retournons visiter l'Europe! Wir kommen zurück nach Europa!

English

I'm happy to announce that Matt and I will be making a quick trip to Europe this November 16-24. As you may have heard, later this fall we'll be launching localized blogs in Germany, France and the UK.

As part of this trip, we of course hope to meet with many of you. We'll be holding some informal open meetings, similar to what Maria and I did last spring, where people can come to learn more about our 2010 plans, share ideas, ask questions, offer suggestions, and enjoy some time with other Etsy members.

The basic information is below and we'll update it as specific details become available — for now just save the dates!

Berlin: Wednesday, November 18, 18:00-20:00 / Cafe Morgenland (note the day is now the 18th!)

Paris: Thursday, November 19, 18:30-20:30 / Cafe La place verte 105 rue Oberkampf

London: Monday, November 23, 18:00-20:00 / Columbia Hotel

Hope to see you on the road!

Français

Je suis heureuse de vous annoncer que Matt et moi allons faire un petit voyage en Europe du 16 au 24 Novembre. Comme vous en avez peut-être déjà entendu parler, nous lancerons plus tard dans l'automne des blogs locaux en Allemagne, en France et en Grande-Bretagne.

Nous espérons évidemment vous rencontrer nombreux pendant ce séjour. Nous tiendrons des rencontres ouvertes et informelles, similaires à ce que moi et Maria avons fait le printemps dernier, où les gens pourront venir en apprendre un peu plus sur nos projets de 2010, partager des idées, poser des questions, offrir des suggestions et profiter d'un moment passé en compagnie d'autres Etsiens.

Vous trouverez les informations essentielles ci-dessous et nous les mettrons à jour dès que nous disposerons de détails plus spécifiques. Pour le moment, vous pouvez noter les dates!

Berlin: Mercredi 18 Novembre, 18:00-20:00 / Cafe Morgenland

Paris: Jeudi 19 Novembre, Cafe La place verte 105 rue Oberkampf

London: Lundi 23 Novembre, 18:00-20:00 / Columbia Hotel

En espérant vous croiser sur notre route!

Deutsch

Ich freue mich Ihnen mitteilen zu können, dass Matt und ich vom 16. November bis 24. November in Europa sein werden. Wie Sie vielleicht schon wissen, haben wir vor gegen Ende des Jahres blogs in Deutschland, Frankreich und Großbritannien zu veröffentlichen.

Als Teil dieser Reise hoffen wir natürlich viele von Ihnen zu treffen. Wir werden ein paar informelle Meetings abhalten, ähnlich denen von Maria und mir letzten Frühling. Kommen Sie einfach vorbei und erfahren Sie mehr von unseren Plänen für 2010. Es wird auch möglich sein Fragen zu stellen, Ideen mit uns zu teilen, Vorschläge zu machen oder einfach etwas Zeit mit anderen Etsianern zu verbringen. Die wichtigtsten Informationen finden Sie etwas weiter unten. Wir werden gegebenenfalls weitere Details hinzufügen, aber merken Sie sich erst einmal diese Daten.

Berlin: Mittwoch, 18. November, 18:00-20:00 / Cafe Morgenland

Paris: Donnerstag, 19. November, Cafe La place verte 105 rue Oberkampf

London: Montag, 23. November, 18:00-20:00 / Columbia Hotel

Man sieht sich bald!

UPDATED Friday, November 13, 12:00 p.m.

Etsy International Posts | Multi-Lingual Posts

Seller How-To: 5 Tips for Item Descriptions

2009-11-11T16:48:00-05:00

Do you have writer's block when it comes to crafting your Etsy item listings? You're in luck! Optimize your shop with the following five tips for effective and descriptive prose in your product listings. You'll have a way with words in no time!

1. Create an inverted pyramid. The most important information about your item should be first in your description — not only because shoppers want the details on your items as soon as possible, but also because it's a smart way to optimize the way your description displays in Google search results.

Tip: Always use the Google search results preview.

2. Short paragraphs and bullet points are your friends. Visitors to your shop might be looking for a specific size or material, so make it easy for them to glean that info from your descriptions by cutting out superfluous language and making good use of bullet points. Think about your descriptions as a way to answer your buyer's questions (within reason, of course). Here's a forum thread, 20 Questions Your Buyers are Asking, to help you get an idea of what those questions could be.

3. Keep an eye on your web analytics results. (Find out how to set that up in the Seller FAQ.) Keep a list of the keywords visitors searched for when they found your shop and write with these keywords in mind. Remember that your tags are keywords used by Etsy Search, but your most important tags and materials should also be scattered throughout your descriptions so that internet searches (through Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc) can find you too! These sites are more likely to pick up keywords from your descriptions rather than your list of tags.

4. Just like a good therapist suggests, use "I" statements. Speaking in the first person will help you connect with your visitor on a personal level — and isn't that what they are looking for when they come to shop on Etsy? Show a bit of your personality! Think of your item descriptions as you would when meeting a new friend: you want to be polite, but you also want to be your natural self.

5. End with a link. Did you know you can copy and paste Etsy URLs in your descriptions and they will function as a hyperlink? Use this to your advantage. If your visitor has read your item description and is not biting, don't let them float away off the computer, to another website, Etsy shop or back to their search results. Instead, give them a link to learn more about you, see your entire shop, check out your policies or even a link to send you a conversation.

Want more tips? Check out these links:

Writing for an Online Audience | Seller Handbook

Etsy Statistics: October 2009 Weather Report

2009-11-10T16:00:00-05:00

Here are some facts and figures for our marketplace during the month of October 2009.

The stats:

$17.7 million of goods were sold by our community in October; roughly 11% higher than September's $16 million.
That represents 1,065,475 items sold for the month, 10% higher than September’s 967,037.
1,659,220 new items were listed in the month, 8.6% higher than September's 1,527,969.
203,012 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, up 13,210, or 7% from September.
610,284,313 page views were recorded on the site this month.

(Sources: Etsy and Google Analytics.)

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Etsy community in October!

Curious about how other months compare? Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

The Etsy Seller Handbook: All Our How-To's About Selling

2009-11-04T21:45:00-05:00

Sellers!

Below you'll find a handy index of all the useful How-To's about selling on Etsy. We're calling it the Seller Handbook, and we first posted it on the Storque in September of 2007. We'll be adding all new how-to's for sellers to this index and bumping up the post when we do. In this way it's a living document.

You can also search the Storque tags for "Seller Handbook" for a chronological list of all our published how-to's related to Selling.

Your Shop 101: How-To's for Getting Started on Etsy
Start with this one: Etsy Success for Beginner Sellers!
Please also see the Setting Up Shop Help Guide, Selling Dos and Don'ts, Selling FAQs, Listing an Item Help Guide, Etsy Guide to SEO.

[image by Artsy]

Photography How-To's

[image by CarolinaCottage]

Etsy International How-To's (plus How-To's translated into foreign languages)

[image by T woHiddenHeads]

Alchemy and Custom/Reserved Listing How-To's

[image by moxiethrift]

Shipping How-To's

[image by missplum]

Advertising How-To's
Please also see the Showcase Help Guide.

[image by Earmark]

Business and Pricing How-To's

[image by NewDuds]

Promoting & Marketing How-To's

[image by DancingMooney]

Craft Show & Events How-To's

[image by photohale]

Gallery Go-getter Series

[image by MiNDJACKET]

Social Networking, Blogging, Podcasting & Video-making How-To's

[image by growbots]

Handmade Code (Third Party Applications from the Etsy Developer Community)

"Etsy Addict" iPhone Application
Craft Cult (a site that let's you track your hearts and where you've been featured, plus more)
ColorMatch from 26OliveStreet (a tool that suggests items that fit along your color palette)
EtsyHacks (a suite of tools for sellers — "Copy Listing" is particularly handy)
Morecloth (an application that lets you browse fabric on Etsy by color)
Sellit.com (a service that helps you spread the word about your shop)
Soopsee (an easy-to-use website building service that enables you to feed in your Etsy shop, blog, etc.)
Tag Finder Tool from Craftweasel.com (one of this developer's many applications the Tag Finder gives sellers insights into what tags might be appropriate for their items)

[image by houseofharriet]

Legal Info for Artists

[image by jessgonacha]

Tagging How-To's

[image by Anda]

Team Tips Handbook

See all the how-to's relating to Teams, groups of sellers who self-organize by location or craft.

[image by iheartmoustaches]

All about Etsy & Site Features

We have to close comments here because the page is taking too long to load! So if you have additional tips, please post in this Forum thread.

If you'd like to write a how-to for the Seller Handbook, pitch to the Storque editors.

Talking Product: An Update on 2009 Site Feature Priorities

2009-11-02T15:00:00-05:00

Hi friends,

Welcome to the latest installment of Talking Product. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these posts, they are part of a regular series from my colleagues and me. Our CEO, Maria, started this series last year with her Talking Shop posts. In 2009, we’ve offered more posts by disciplines: Talking Product, Talking Marketing and Talking Tech. In June, all of us got together for a talkfest that we offered up as an audio podcast to more personally communicate with all of you about what’s happening at Etsy.

I am excited to offer you this latest update that covers the last few months. It also presents an overview of our priorities for the remainder of this year and into early next year, as well as a few general Product Team updates.

As a reminder from my previous updates, our first and foremost priority in recent months has been improving the shopping experience. We believe that among the most valuable things Etsy can do for sellers is attract buyers to the site, get them shopping and keep them coming back. While there is much work ahead and this will be a constant focus for us, we’re excited about some of the changes we’ve made so far and about the upcoming features we have in the queue.

So, what we have been up to lately?

Search

As I’ve indicated in past updates, improving the search and discovery experience on Etsy has been our top priority. We’ve made important strides in our efforts to improve Etsy's searching and shopping experience. Here are a few highlights:

Now when you perform a search on Etsy, you will often see links for recent popular related searches above your results. These related searches are actual searches recently performed by Etsy shoppers. They serve as suggestions for shoppers to refine their initial search or to stimulate ideas for successful similar searches. Related searches also offer sellers ideas to effectively tag items.
We made improvements to the way subcategories are suggested during the item listing process. Now, only those subcategories relevant to an item's top-level Category are suggested as item tags. This adjustment is helping to make the Category browsing experience more relevant.
We gave shoppers the ability to filter their search results by Category. This new feature provides shoppers a quick and easy way to narrow and refine their search results. Many Etsians tell us that this enhancement makes finding just the right item on Etsy easier and faster.

Checkout

We continued to work on making Checkout as smooth as possible, especially for new buyers. Our A/B testing framework allows us to test Checkout changes with a small percentage of shoppers, to make sure the changes will be understood and actually improve the user experience, before rolling the changes out to all shoppers.

We enabled new buyers to register on Etsy as a part of the regular Checkout flow. This was an important change since previously new buyers were required to leave Etsy.com in the middle of the Checkout flow in order to complete registration. The old process often resulted in buyer confusion.
We're currently A/B testing removing non-essential elements from the header of Checkout pages to focus shoppers on completing the Checkout process.

Seller Tools

Over the past few months, our new shipping tool with regional shipping options and the ability to rearrange items in your shop moved from the beta testing phase to full launch.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

In the last couple of months, we’ve devoted a fair amount of attention to SEO. With the help of our friends at SEOmoz, Etsy developed a stronger SEO strategy and implementation plan. The most significant changes of the last few months are:

Giving sellers more control over your shop page title, Item listing page titles, and Section page titles
Canonical tags for improved search engine ranking for these pages
Updating shop URLs to be more search-engine friendly as well as changing to 301 redirects

We focused on shop and item listing page SEO and launched improvements, including tools to help sellers preview how their shop home pages and item listings will appear in Google search results. We believe that these changes are, in part, responsible for the continued strong traffic to Etsy.com.   In partnership with SEOmoz, Etsy also created the Etsy Guide to SEO.

SEO is an ongoing effort, and we'll continue to make improvements. We are grateful to Etsy sellers who actively participated in our Virtual Labs sessions on this topic and to those who are diligently using the guide to improve traffic to their Etsy shops.

Community

We recently launched a redesign of the Community Hub. The goal with this redesign was to provide clear, more immediate access to information for the Etsy community about important news, events and activities occurring on Etsy.

Many of you have asked us to communicate frequently and with as much relevant information as we can. Prior to the launch of the new Community Hub, Etsy had only one blog, The Storque. To date, The Storque has served as a resource for Etsy buyers, sellers, staff, and the general public. It showcases a lot of terrific content and information, but the content that’s most relevant to Etsy sellers is not always easily accessible. The Community Hub is a step in the direction of focusing our communications on distinct audiences. We appreciate your patience and your feedback along the way and hope that you find the new Community Hub useful.

What is in store for the remainder of 2009 and early 2010?

As the year winds down our main focus is on keeping the site stable for holiday shoppers. Starting mid-November and going through December, we will go into a bit of a code lockdown so as not to disrupt the buying and selling experience on Etsy. During this period we will only release changes that will not risk the performance and user experience of the site. This is a common practice for most ecommerce sites and one that we believe is critical. With that in mind, some of the updates below will launch before this lockdown while others will launch early next year. Also, some of the changes might only launch to a small subset of users, and then over time we’ll expand to all users. We’ll provide updates on the specific timing and plans for each of these items via the Forums, Community Hub, and The Storque as we get closer to each launch.

Search and Discovery

Many shoppers, especially those new to Etsy, don’t know what they’re looking for when they arrive at the site. Maybe they are searching for a gift, or they know they’re going to find something they love at Etsy, but they’re not sure what. In addition, some Etsy shoppers describe their search experience on the site as “overwhelming” while others describe it as “addictive.” We’re looking to convert those who may feel overwhelmed into addicts. We believe a key to that lies in enabling shoppers to refine search results in various ways.

To that end, many of the features currently in development will be designed to give visitors a better view into the kinds of unique items available on Etsy and help them more easily refine the results displayed. We know that shoppers who perform a search on Etsy are significantly more likely to buy something than those who do not use the search function.

One feature in development is what we call Search Suggestions. This means that we'll suggest relevant search queries as site visitors begin to type a query into the search bar. These suggestions will be specific to Handmade, Vintage, Supplies, All Items or the Category page from which you search. The suggestions will be derived from Etsy’s search logs and will be displayed in a dropdown box as is the practice on many heavily trafficked ecommerce sites. We believe this functionality will help shoppers more quickly and easily discover items of interest on Etsy.   We're also dedicated to improving the overall search experience by focusing on improved handling of misspelled search terms, the page shoppers see when they perform a search with no results, and more.

Checkout

We remain focused on making Checkout as easy as possible for all Etsy buyers, especially new buyers. We're working on a project we call Guest Checkout, which will enable new buyers to check out on Etsy without first choosing a username and registering on the site. This type of functionality exists on many ecommerce sites and is generally an expected option for shoppers. By introducing it on Etsy, we intend to remove hurdles in the Etsy Checkout process.

International

Many buyers and sellers have asked for an easier way to communicate prices in currencies other than U.S. dollars. We plan to introduce a currency calculator on item pages so that shoppers can quickly (and without leaving the page) calculate prices in currencies other than U.S. dollars. The actual transactions will still occur in U.S. dollars.

Google Product Search

Many Etsy sellers use their Etsy shop RSS feed to schedule uploads of their items to Google Merchant Center, for placement in Google Product Search.

Later this year, Google is changing how sellers on marketplaces like Etsy upload items for placement in Google Product Search, and we're working with Google on a solution that will allow Etsy to automatically upload items from your shops into Google Base if you choose to opt in to the program. This functionality will be launched in beta form to a small group of sellers and will gradually roll out to the entire Etsy seller community. More details on this initiative will be announced soon.

Help

As mentioned in my last update, we have been working to launch a new Help site to make it easier for our members to find information more quickly along with a new set of internal tools for Etsy's Support Team. We’re pleased to report that this is about ready to launch. Please stay tuned to Etsy’s blog, The Storque, the new Community Hub, and to the Forums for further details.

Updates From the Etsy Product Team

We’re delighted to welcome Michael Craig to the team. Michael joins us as our design director focusing on user experience design. Among other things, he will focus on creating design standards for the site. Welcome, Michael, a.k.a. mcraig71!

We’re also thrilled to welcome two new babies to the team. Congrats to Beth, a.k.a. bethela, on the birth of her very cute son, Rowan! (MCR, who heads up Etsy's Sys Ops Team, and his wife also had a boy!)

We love to hear from you. You can find the Product Team on Etsy:

Sean is sean11
Tom is kutty
Eric is ericds
Beth is bethela
Amy is amydec
KC is okaysee
Jen is jendoo
Michael is mcraig71
And I’m saralouhicks

Lastly, but most importantly, we appreciate all of your input that you provide in the Forums, Storque blog comments, and in emails to Etsy’s Support Team regarding improvements and suggestions for the site. We take the suggestions from our community as one of the greatest considerations in determining our product roadmap, and we’re personally committed to make progress against them. We understand that it may seem that many long-requested features have not been prioritized, but we want to stress that we are listening, we appreciate your suggestions, and we are making progress.

There’s more ahead so please stay tuned. I’ll be back at the beginning of the year with another Talking Product post that provides an overview of our priorities for 2010. As always, your feedback is important, so I look forward to a continued dialogue around our priorities.   Thanks!

About Us: Neelam Hasni a.k.a. Neelam12

2009-10-30T13:30:00-05:00

Neelam, a.k.a. Neelam12, is our web analytics guru. Neelam dives into the numbers and helps us make sense of what is happening with site traffic and activity on Etsy.com. She works on the Marketing Team and is a relatively new hire at Etsy, having starting in the spring of 2009. Let's welcome her to the fold!

Fun Facts:

She's a Jersey girl. She recently decided to move to New York City, and it was cute how shocked she was by Manhattan rental prices and the lack of space you get for your money.
Neelam is the third youngest of four sisters, and one of her sisters is her roommate.
SarahSays wants to be her BFF. They had met each other a number of times randomly before Neelam started working at Etsy. It is their destiny.
Mike B says both of her parents are renowned archaeologists.
She once seriously considered being a secret service agent after watching Rene Russo in the movie In the Line of Fire.
She loves watching I Love Lucy reruns.
Nizzi claims that she definitely had some Britney songs in her music selection for Etsy's 4th birthday party.
Anda has two words: "frat girl."
Michelle thought it was awesome that Neelam shouted the seller's name "VulvaLoveLovely" loudly enough for everyone to hear in an all-company meeting the other day.
Danielle loves how Neelam says something really important or crazy but in the most "yeah whatever" kind of way.
Adam stressed how much she loves shopping, and Christina notes that she admitted to fantasizing about having a sugar daddy to escort her on shopping binges. Anda added that Neelam, Ian, and Matt all stalk gilt.com obsessively. Christina then gets her to do a fashion show for the Marketing Team.
Adam has observed how she'll cut a piece of pizza in half, pretend like she's only going to eat that half, and then eat the whole thing. Mike B is also suspicious of her coy eating habits: "She's been bringing in healthy lunches since we moved to this office. Like a plastic container with two slices of turkey and a cucumber..." Then she'll be the first to rip into the package of Double Stuf Oreos.
Bernadette recalls the time Neelam said to her, surprised, "I didn't know Sweeney was an Irish name!" Mike B made it The Quote of the Week.
She had a funny realization moment when she figured out that "decor8" is pronounced "decorate" and not "decor...eight."
Nizzi adds that Neelam lives near Magnolia Bakery and has been known to bring cupcakes in on request.
Ian from Etsy Hacks did a little research and according to Wikipedia, "Neelam" means "sapphire."
Nizzi is always trying to get Neelam to speak Gujrati with her so they can have their own secret Etsy language that nobody else at the office would understand, but she's too polite for that.
Christina says Neelam has a major crush on Anderson Cooper... and the guy from Mad Men.
Adam says she loves pop culture and celebrity trash. But, she was trying to tell him something about Jon Stewart and couldn't remember his name. She was grasping for it, "You know, he's a comedian, he has his own show...?"
Whether or not she's a "fancy dresser" is under debate. Vanessa recalls Anda being surprised when Neelam wore jeans one day, because she seems like she's dressier than that. But Nizzi says that for some reason, we're not good enough for her to wear high heels to work, but she puts them on when she goes to meet her former Bloomingdales colleagues.
Her hardest day at work was when she was working in Macy's one summer in college and had to work all day in the gift wrap department without any training on wrapping gifts.

Too bad Neelam didn't rerun this Halloween costume at last night's office party!

Obvioulsy, Neelam developed her poise and professionalism at a very young age.

Etsy has had quite a growth spurt, and we have the awkward pictures to prove it. We've been posting a series of About Us pieces to help you get to know the Etsy admin. You've seen the admin badge, and maybe you're a bit curious about the person behind it! For more on Etsy's mission and about the company, please see our About page. (The link is in the little blue footer of every Etsy page.)

Some of Neelam's favorites below...

Etsy Minneapolis Meet Up: October 15, 2009

2009-10-28T15:00:00-05:00

UPDATE from Maria and Ian:

Hello Minnesota Etsy sellers (and one from Wisconsin!),

Thank you so much for your recent warm welcome in Minneapolis. Ian and I enjoyed meeting all of you, and we appreciate that you took the time to join us at Nye's. We're especially grateful to the members of HandmadeMN, a Minnesota Team — led by Kelly of kellybot and Toni of WildDogStudio — who presented us with a giant burlap bag of gifts made by members. As promised, I waited to dig into the bag until I could share its contents with everyone who works at Etsy. We did so today and were simply delighted and awed. Thank you!

Thanks, too, for the Dossier which has been read and studied by many of us at Etsy. This is an incredible collection of sellers with their wishlists and ideas for Etsy.

We are incredibly grateful for your support and thank you for selling on Etsy. You can see more photos here.

[The following was originally published on October 6, 2009.]

Hello Twin City Friends,

This is Maria, Etsy's CEO, and I will be in Minneapolis next week for the American Craft Council Conference. Kelly and Toni from the Minnesota Etsy Street Team (Handmade MN) helped me arrange an informal meet up next Thursday evening. I look forward to an open dialogue with those of you who can make it about the opportunities ahead and what you'd like to see from Etsy.

I’ll be joined by Ian Malpass, a.k.a. indec, Etsy's Quality Assurance engineer (QA). Ian lives just north of Minneapolis, by way of the United Kingdom. (He's got a killer accent!) Many of you may be familiar with Ian from his EtsyHacks tools for sellers, and you might otherwise know him as ehax.

Light snacks and drinks will be served. Please RSVP here so we can let the nice folks at Nye's Polonaise Room know how many to expect.

Here are the details:

Time: Thursday October 15, 6-9 p.m. Central Time

Location: Nye's Polonaise Room

612-379-2021

112 East Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55414

Here's a Google Map.

Post in the comments if we'll see you at the meet up!

See More Posts about Etsy Meet Ups | Shop Local Minneapolis

About Us: Jesse a.k.a. eetzee

2009-10-16T14:00:00-05:00

Jesse Hertzberg, a.k.a. eetzee a.k.a. Gonzo, is the Business Development Team at Etsy right now. This means he gets to talk on the phone a lot and make deals. A New York City native son, Jesse brings his enthusiasm and sportsmanship to Etsy's Brooklyn office. He's always got something up his sleeve and knows how to "make it happen."

Fun Facts:

Jesse was a one-time professional soccer player. Christina notes that he's been gearing up for the World Cup in South Africa for forever. He sometimes wears soccer cleats to the office.
He sold Matt and Anda hook, line and sinker on those MBTs fat shoes.
When Anda made him his avatar photo, she emailed it to the wrong address and got a message back from a random girl who wrote, "I think you meant to send this to someone else, but thanks for the hot guy in my inbox."
Neelam says on the outside, he's a hardcore negotiator, but he'll agree to anything for some cupcakes.
He's the one who wrote Pete's name in bubble letters with a heart around it on the chalkboard next to Pete's office.
Liz reminded us that Jesse forgot to get his wife a birthday present, so he baked her some cookies.
Matt claims that Jesse was a theater geek in high school and in college. Matt says he almost got the part of Wayne in The Wonder Years. He does great impressions, especially Ronald Reagan and Crocodile Dundee.
Anda once saw him get kicked out of a bar.
He was allergic to the sun until he was nine.
Colin from Men at Work sang at his bar mitzvah.
His favorite TV shows are Airwolf and 21 Jump Street. Matt says Jesse tried unsuccessfully to make Airwolf his nickname.
His intense crush on Olivia Wilde during the Handmade Moment contest made everyone slightly uncomfortable.
Vanessa suspects that he gets really nervous public speaking even though he claims not to be.
Anda points out that Jesse is in meetings more than any other Admin in the history of Etsy. "If you look at his calendar every day, there will be like a 15 minute open space, during which I think he hangs out over next to Matt trying to get him to go 'shoot hoops' after work with him or something."
His three-year-old daughter Lila is absolutely adorable. Adam thinks those pipe cleaner flowers on his desk were made by her.
Whenever we get a random business coldcaller or email, we send it to Jesse.
Jesse grew up above a pizzeria in Manhattan.
Adam notes that Jesse looooves his labcoat. He sported a bowtie for the Handmade Moment Contest judging.
Matt says he has an idea for a TV show about "an adult Punky Brewster type who works at an Internet start-up."
Christina says that if Jesse were a Simpsons character, he'd be Mr. Bergstrom, Lisa's substitute teacher on whom she had a crush.
Neelam recalls the time Jesse stepped in Dottie's poop and dirtied his converse sneakers.
Neelam says he thought he was so cool by turning his big computer monitor vertical and thought everyone would do the same thing but none of us did.
Jakob and Jesse know each other from plays. They're really tight.
Jesse likes to give hugs.
He has some embarrassing Bowie story about Suffragette City, but I couldn't follow what he was talking about.
As Vanessa was compiling these Fun Facts, Jesse came around and gave everyone homebaked cookies as thank yous for helping him with the Handmade Moment Contest. And then she felt really bad.

It's so weird to see crazy long-haired Jesse! These days, this guy has to get a haircut every other week.

Tiny little old man Jesse puts on his game face. Adorable!

Etsy has had quite a growth spurt, and we have the awkward pictures to prove it. We've been posting a series of About Us pieces to help you get to know the Etsy Admin (and for us to get to know each other). You've seen the admin badge, and maybe you're a bit curious about the person behind it! For more on Etsy's mission and about the company, please see our About page (the link is in the little blue footer of every Etsy page).

Some of Jesse's favorites below. Yes, he's a cuff links man...

Quit Your Day Job: laralewis

2009-10-12T16:30:00-05:00

Lara of laralewis has been able to successfully quit her day job in the teaching field and move her family closer to her hometown as a result of her Etsy success. Lara swears by a daily list of goals and was able to make quitting her day job a reality by planning ahead and making life changes that contributed toward her dream. Today Laura provides some of the most practical, useful and detailed tips for running a successful business that I've ever come across in the Quit Your Day Job series; you're in for a treat!

How did you originally get into the business of making things?
I have such busy hands that I am always making or creating something. It wasn’t until just recently that I thought I could actually make a business out of it!

When you first started selling on Etsy, did you have dreams or goals of eventually quitting your day job?
No, not at first, but I have dreamed for a long time of moving back to my parents’ hometown to be closer to my family. With teaching jobs becoming scarce and the economy being what it is, I didn’t think it was possible to be able to afford to quit my job and relocate. However, that was about three months before we actually did! Once we made the decision, things happened pretty fast.

Did you do anything to prepare ahead of time?
Yes! Here are the nitty-gritty details; I hope I didn’t forget anything!

My fiancé, Jesse, and I reevaluated our monthly budget and started to utilize Quicken to manage our finances. This made a huge difference when we realized where our money was going, and we stopped doing things like eating out and all those other little extra things that add up.
After we looked at our budget, I figured out how much I would need to make if I was actually going to quit my day job. Then I added in the expenses needed for us to move and cut out the money we’d be saving from me working at home instead of driving to work every day. This gave us a goal to work towards.
I buckled down and worked extra hard in order to pay off debt that I owed. This is really important, because there will always be slow periods. You don't want those extra bills hanging over your head.
I met with an accountant to make sure there wouldn’t be any nasty surprises at tax time. He also helped me keep track of expenses that I didn’t realize were tax deductible!
While I still had my steady income, I stocked up as much as possible on supplies.
Right before our move, we traded in both of our cars for one smaller and more economical vehicle. I called our car insurance company and lowered our rate based on our only having one car, and it being driven so much less.
We still clip coupons like maniacs and plan meals in advance. You’d be surprised how much money the Sunday paper coupons save.
We’re much thriftier shoppers. If we can fix something rather than buy another, we do, and if we need something, we always hit up places like Salvation Army before going to the retail stores.

What are the most effective ways you have promoted and marketed your Etsy business? What's your best marketing tip?
Most importantly I feel it’s crucial to stay visible, and these are the three main ways you can do this:

Take great pictures of your products and you will inevitably be featured in Treasuries, homepage collections and The Storque. Also, fans will blog, Tweet, and Facebook about you like crazy. I use an “old” digital camera and I don’t own a tripod, so I can tell you with certainty that you don't need anything fancy to do this. Here are some tips I have learned that have helped me:

Photograph in natural light and turn off the flash.
Find the sunniest location in your home to set up your shots.
Only shoot in filtered sunlight, because otherwise the shadows are too harsh. If you need to, stretch a piece of tracing paper over your window where the sun streams in.
Take a piece of cardboard and wrap it in aluminum foil. Use it to reflect light onto your subject.
Don't go too crazy with your backgrounds, but definitely choose something that tells the story of what you are trying to sell. When in doubt, go neutral.
Set your camera on macro and after your camera focuses, pull back just a smidge before you take the picture. Take several shots and use various angles.
Set up your pictures knowing that you might want to crop them to a perfect square to look best in your thumbnails. Pick your best one as your "money shot!"

Frequently Add New Items/Renew

I have found that customers will regularly “check in” on your shop to see what you’ve been up to. Keep your store fresh, and your customers interested, by regularly adding new items.
Facebook Connect is a great new feature! I also Tweet and blog about items I am excited about and explain a little more about the impetus behind them.
Renew items that might be in a category that is broad and/or trendy. I know this is highly debatable, but I don't think there is a perfect time of day to list or renew items. Just try to be consistent.

Provide Excellent Customer Service

Customers who are happy with their purchases will tell their friends and family, blog about you, include you in their Treasuries, etc.
Treat customers how you would want to be treated. It’s the golden rule! Provide quick responses to their queries, ship as quickly as possible, use beautiful packaging, and include a little thank you note. Make each and every one of them feel special, because they truly are!

What have you found to be an unsuccessful promotion?
I honestly feel that if something brings in just one new customer or brings a little more attention to my store, it was a successful promotion. However, what works for some, might not work for you...so do what you feel most comfortable with!

Walk us through your typical workday.

I’m up before the birds to say goodbye to Jesse as he heads off for work and to get our teenage daughter ready for school. After they leave, I sit down with a cup of coffee and check for messages, print receipts, and make a daily goals list. If I don’t make lists, nothing will get done because I am so easily distracted.
Usually the mornings are spent creating new items and listing them in my shop, while jotting down lists of supplies I need to reorder. I email back and forth with my mom a lot because she also works from home.
Around lunchtime I practically attack the poor mailman when he arrives to see if I have received any new supplies. Then I continue to make and list new items. Because I can multitask like a pro, I am also doing laundry, answering emails, blogging, Tweeting, sketching new designs, and squeezing in food and drink somewhere in there.
By mid-afternoon, I start packaging any sold items to go out in the late afternoon mail run. I also start thinking about dinner because when my daughter comes home, she is like a hungry Velociraptor and there had better be food ready.
Jesse prints out my shipping labels, puts them in their envelopes, and delivers them to the post office. He’s the best! Then we all sit down to dinner, go over homework, talk about our day, and they patiently listen to me blah, blah, blah about my business.
After that, Jesse goes to work on his college classes, and my daughter and I spend time being silly together. If it’s not too late, we will take long walks on the trails surrounding our home, and being the nerd that I am, I love taking pictures of the various trees and wildflowers we see.
After that, I’m back in the studio stocking up on inventory, ordering supplies, working on new designs, answering emails, etc. until around 11 p.m. when Jesse drags me back out and tells me it’s time for bed!

What do you enjoy most about not having a day job? Is there anything you miss?
What do I enjoy most? Where do I start?! Being “forced” to simplify, we have actually found that our lives are greatly enriched. Now that I am working from home, and not driving 100 miles a day to get to work, I can spend more time with my family. Now that we've moved closer to my grandparents, I love that I can be there when they need me. Also, fellow teachers will appreciate that I now don’t have to wait until planning or lunch to go to the bathroom! I do miss my friends with whom I was lucky enough to work and I truly miss my students. I am so proud to have once been part of the teaching profession and have the greatest respect for those who make it their life work.

What's the hardest part about running your own business?
You can’t walk away from it! I think about what I can do to improve constantly, and I’m a really tough boss. Also, with working from home, it’s hard to not get distracted by things like the dishes in the sink and other housework to be done. It can be really scary, too, knowing that I am the only one responsible for my success. Yikes!

If you could go back in time, what advice would you give yourself? What advice would you give someone else?

Take a class with your local Small Business Development Center early on. It’s free and they provide excellent advice.
Get organized right from the start with an excellent filing system and create a spreadsheet to track sales and taxes.
Plan ahead by organizing a studio and shipping area that can handle the workload of a bigger business. If you’re not there now, you will be eventually, and you will save yourself the trouble of having to rearrange by starting big!
Google your business name from time to time and see what comes up! Use Google Analytics to see how traffic is being directed to your page, and upload shop content to Google Base. Buy a domain name for your shop even if you don’t plan on using it yet; along the same lines, establish an account with the major social networking sites, so someone else doesn’t grab your name first.
Try not to compare yourself to others, it will just make you feel bad and prevent you from developing your own style. Most importantly: Don’t give up!

What goals do you wish to accomplish in the coming year for your Etsy business?
I have been working on some new illustrations, and I hope to open another shop soon to offer paper goods and prints of my artwork. (*Cross fingers*)

Is there anything else you'd like to share?
My most heartfelt thanks to Etsy, my customers, my family, and friends who have all been so supportive. Without all of you, I wouldn’t even be in this position to share this story, and I only hope I can pay it forward to help someone else!

Thanks to Lara for sharing her story. Have your own questions to ask? Come on by and chat with her Wednesday, October 14 at 5 p.m. ET in Etsy's Virtual Labs.

You can see some of Lara's beautiful work in the Related Items. Check out previous Quit Your Day Job posts here.

Etsy Statistics: September 2009 Weather Report

2009-10-12T15:16:00-05:00

In this month's edition of the Etsy Weather Report, we share some September 2009 figures with you.

The stats:

$16 million of goods were sold; roughly 7% higher than August's $15 million.
That represents 967,037 items sold for the month, 7% higher than August’s 905,492.
1,527,969 new items were listed in the month, 5% higher than August's 1,454,017.
189,802 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, up 3,865, or 2% from August.
560,495,644 page views were recorded on the site this month.

(Sources: Etsy and Google Analytics.)

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Etsy community in September! We're keeping close watch on the site as we move into the holiday shopping season.

Curious about how other months compare?
Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

Seller How-To: Entrepreneurial Tips From DailyWorth

2009-10-07T17:30:00-05:00

1. Network From Your Desk

Network. Walk into an event or a lunch ready to rub elbows, shake hands, introduce yourself and exchange information. Opportunities are everywhere. Be ready to recognize and seize them. It means putting yourself out there to fail — or, more likely, succeed. Learn more tips here: Network From Your Desk.

2. Sell Your Friends

Celebrate the success of others. When someone you know — a colleague, a friend, even a professional acquaintance — succeeds in getting what she wants, be a cheerleader. Announce her success on Twitter or Facebook.

Good karma. Good business.

3. Be Phoney

You know what you want. You've been scheming for months. Now it's time to go the extra mile to show that you're serious. Here's a timely tip: don't hide behind your email. Whether you're seeking a new supplier or a new customer, pick up the phone and call. Call someone who knows someone who knows someone. More reading on this subject: 10 Tips for Telephone Success.

4. Deal With Doubts

You're juggling a day job with your business and feeling overwhelmed by both. At times like that you may wonder why you thought you could bring your dream into reality. What were you thinking? To be honest, if a lot of entrepreneurs knew what they were getting into, they might have run away screaming instead of starting a business. The thing is, dreams don't go away that easily. You may try to dismiss them, but they're always in the back of your mind.

Doubts will never completely go away. They're part of being human. So don't wait for them to disappear before you embrace your dreams; keep believing in them and visualizing them. You'll be surprised at what you will accomplish. It takes courage to step out of the crowd and create a business out of an idea. Working on a full-time job and a business will take every ounce of belief that you have in your dream -— and the reward will be beyond what you could have imagined. Check out this post for more steps on Dealing With Doubt.

5. Aim Higher

You know that saying, "Careful what you wish for, you just might get it?" Here’s a twist: Careful the amount of money you seek to make, you just might earn it.

According to “Client Attraction” coach Fabienne Frederickson, a recent survey of 200 women about income revealed just how low women are aiming. In her survey results, women entrepreneurs said they aim to earn $50,000-$75,000 per year. But judging from their professions, Frederickson determined that many respondents had the potential to earn far more.

All of this invites the questions: Why are you aiming so low, and what constraints are you placing on yourself? Shame on you. Seriously, no shame, but umph. Triple your goals. What's the worst that could happen? You could earn half of your goal, and still be better off than when you started.

These tips (and more) will also be featured in our Etsy Success newsletter (sign up here!).You can find out more about Amanda and DailyWorth over at DailyWorth.com.

Seller Handbook | Art of Pricing | Your Shop 101

From Etsy's Merchandising Desk: November With Friends and Family

2009-10-07T13:15:00-05:00

It's that time again, and those of us behind the scenes at Etsy would like to share our merchandising plans for November. As we continue to plan Etsy’s calendar for the year ahead with thematic merchandising, we will be incorporating many of the concepts you shared in response to October's report and continue to welcome your input. It is our goal to create a healthy balance between promotions for traditional holidays, seasonal changes, and lifestyle trends.

Rounding out October

Keep abreast of the October seasonal themes, holidays, dates to remember, and trends we are looking to highlight in October's Merchandising Desk edition.

Stay Engaged in November
November marks a seasonal transition from the harvest into the cooler winter holiday season. Our critical merchandising focus this month will center around the holiday gift-giving season. Below you will find the extended list of topics we'll be looking to highlight throughout the month of November. We're looking for your creative interpretation and spin on each of the upcoming seasonal themes.

Dia de los Muertos: bright colors, skulls, international motifs, and party decor.
Seasonal, harvest, holiday, and winter home decor: candles, baskets, furniture, tabletop, quilts, blankets, pillows, storage solutions, rugs, windows, lighting, bedding, and bath.
Items made from or incorporating rich and raw sturdy fabrics, fibers, and yarns: cashmere, industrial felt, silk, raw silk, wool, burlap, and canvas.
Autumn and winter entertaining leading up to Thanksgiving: creative and unique tabletop accoutrement, dinnerware, glassware and bar, table linens, food for your feast, centerpieces, invitations, menus, and hostess gifts.
Winter fashion: warm layers, boots, bags, accessories, jewelry, legwear, and emerging industry trends.
Autumn and winter weddings: attire, decor, invitations, favors, and gift ideas.
Holiday gift-giving: mothers, fathers, teens, children, coworkers, friends, the person who has everything, the host or hostess, pets, personalized and custom gift options, stocking stuffers. November is your time to shine with items that would make great gifts. Plan ahead and be sure to include why your item makes a great gift and who it might be for in the item description.
Paper goods: holiday card sets, thank you card sets, invitations, 2010 calendars, gift tags, and favors.
Cyber Monday: Cyber Monday is a shopping occasion gaining a reputation as the best day of the year to find sales while shopping online. We'll be hosting a special Cyber Monday promotion November 30 for sellers interested in participating. Stay tuned for details as we get closer to November including how to participate as a seller.
November trends: woodland, tribal, wintry motifs, metallics, winter hues of gem tones, reds, whites, silvers, greens, and blues. Vintage objects repurposed into decor and storage solutions along with eco-friendly options are topping the trends this season.
Citrine is November's birthstone, and November's astrological signs are Scorpio and Sagittarius (October 24 - November 22: Scorpio and November 23 - December 21: Sagittarius).
Promotional Opportunities for Sellers:
- In preparation for our citrine Gift Guide, we will be looking for community suggestions and nominations for what items you'd like to see in the guide. Suggest your favorite citrine-related items in this nomination thread.
- Stay tuned to the How-To section of The Storque for promotional opportunities through November.

If your items fall under the main thematic categories we'll be highlighting this month, it might be a great time to consider purchasing a spot in a Category Showcase. For those of you who enjoy making Treasuries, we'll be looking to highlight lists that interpret October and November's themes in a creative and cohesive way, as well as the many innovative and beautiful collections that we normally feature.

Upcoming Dates to Remember:

November is known as Real Jewelry Month, Peanut Butter Lovers Month, and Aviation History Month.
November 1: Dia de los Muertos
November 1: All Saints' Day
November 11: Veterans Day
November 16: Button Day
November 20: Twilight, New Moon Movie Premiere
November 26: Thanksgiving (Canadian Thanksgiving is October 12)
November 27: Black Friday
November 30: Cyber Monday

View More Merchandising Posts | Gift Guides

Etsy Success for Beginner Sellers

2009-10-01T13:15:00-05:00

Welcome to selling on Etsy! When you're getting started, it feels like there are so many things to do for your new shop. You'll also want to check out the Seller Handbook — it contains links to lots of great articles to help you sell. Other posts to get you started include Welcome to Your Online Presence and A Beginner's Guide to Starting a Shop on Etsy. Consider this article the quick-start guide, with the most important things to consider for getting your shop in top shape!

Your Name

Having a great, memorable name is one of the more important things you can do to brand your shop and encourage sales. Having a shop name that people remember will encourage them to find you again! You want it to be easy to pronounce, easy to spell, interesting, and it should speak to your style or what your shop is about. Shorter tends to be better than longer. Avoid common words like "designs" or "creations," as well as number strings and consonant strings that don't sound like a word in your name — these make your exact shop name hard to remember. Avoid generic-sounding names; something unique, different, or unusual will be more memorable. As Danielle says in this post, "Make sure it's 'Google-able!' Sure the name 'FriedChicken' might be memorable, but if you go to Google and search 'Fried Chicken,' your shop will be a needle in a greasy (yet delicious) haystack!" Do some research on the Internet to make sure that another company doesn't already have the same name.

What shop names have drawn you in? What about these names interested you? Think about this in your brainstorming for the perfect name.

Your shop name and your Etsy username are one and the same. While you can't change your shop name on Etsy, if you don't like the name you have, you can start a new shop. Simply register for the new shop, and then put a link to your new shop in the Shop Announcement, item listings, banner and Profile of your old shop, and then list your items in your new shop. Here are some more tips on shop names.

Shop Setup

The Shop Setup Help Guide will give you step-by-step instructions for getting started.

Banner: If your shop was in the physical world, your banner would be the sign above the front door. Choose something that looks professional and that will give shoppers a sense of the mood or feel of your shop and makes them interested to scroll down to see more! Here are instructions for creating your own banner. If you have nice product photos, you can use these in your banner if you like. If you're not a great graphic designer, you can save time and frustration by buying a ready-made or custom banner from an Etsy seller.

Photo by rikrak

Avatar: If you plan to use the community spaces such as the Forums, Chat, Virtual Labs, or The Storque, a well-lit, well-cropped 75 by 75 pixel photo of your most interesting item can make a great avatar. It's the equivalent of wearing your pieces when you go out, and it advertises your shop while you are interacting with others. The other sellers and Admin (Etsy staff) in these spaces have the power to feature your items in Treasuries, on their own blogs, and around other spaces on Etsy, so show 'em what you've got!

Avatars by: spiderbite, beadsinthebelfry, greeniemarie, shrimpsaladcircus, studioelan, tissage, magicjelly, ThePaperAddict

Shipping: Set up Shipping Profiles in Your Etsy > Shipping Options to save time while listing. Ship internationally — international orders comprise a big chunk of the market on Etsy! Here is a good Forum thread for U.S. sellers on how to set up international shipping. More shipping and packaging how-to's can be found here.

Shop Policies and Profile: Fill them out! Policies define the rules for your shop and can answer buyer questions. The Profile page personalizes you; Etsy shoppers love that they buy directly from the artist, so tell them about yourself and your craft to get them interested in your work. Having these sections filled out will help build trust for your buyer, especially if you are a new seller and don't have feedback yet. Here are some tips for your Shop Policies and Profile Page.

Item Photography

Item photography is perhaps the most important aspect of your shop. On Etsy, you have one main photo and you may upload four additional photos. Use them all! Here are some tips below and explore these posts for further, in-depth suggestions.

Lighting: Use natural lighting. Either morning or early evening light works best. Avoid direct sunlight and harsh mid-day lighting. Inside, near a window, or outside (but not in direct sunlight) both work well. If the lighting is still a bit dark, increase the EV balance on your camera menu. This increases the "whiteness" in the photo. Avoid using the flash. If the photos look washed out, turn away from the sunlight.

Photos by ecosilver, moop, locallibrary

Backgrounds: Shoot against a background that will complement your item. Think about color: What color background will create the mood that you are going for? If you're going for a sophisticated look, perhaps your dark brown item will look great against a pale brown background — think tone-on-tone, but make sure that your item stands out and is not swallowed by the background. Funky? Maybe try a color that is opposite on the color wheel, so a pale orange for your blue item. Modern items might look great with neutral colors, while natural and bohemian looks might look great next to natural materials such as plants, stones, etc. Maybe you'll have a collection of backgrounds with your color palette, and you can choose the best one for each item. Simple white backgrounds can be great for just about any type of item as well, and this will put the focus on your item.

For smaller items like jewelry, try placing these on props such as papers, old books, and tabletops. You may have a variety of materials in your home that will work well.

Photos by msbelle, SeaUnicorn, stamp

For larger items, look around the inside and outside of your home for good locations. Think interesting architecture, beautiful natural settings, walls with interesting textures, or even plain white walls. Is there a location nearby that would look great — perhaps a church, library, or abandoned building that would capture the mood of your items?

Photos by NHWoodCreations, sarahseven, arlenewatson

Consider including a photo that shows the item being used. This will give the potential customer important information, such as what the item is and how big it is. It will also allow them to envision the item on themselves or in their home.

Photos by CombustionGlassworks, MiaBeads, woodtec

Close-ups: Use the macro mode (flower icon) on your camera when shooting close-ups of jewelry and other small objects. This creates a sharp outline of your item. If the photo is blurry, try adjusting the zoom, or getting closer to or farther from your subject.

Angles: Most people start out taking product photos in the same way: They take the photo directly above, say, a piece of jewelry, and surround it with white space. You can make your photos more dynamic by taking the shot from a variety of angles and distances, and then choosing the one that best complements your item. Take a look in the Gift Guides to see how sellers have created interesting shots by using angles.

Photos by ZerbenaBoutique, firewoodfurniture, kjoo

Cropping: Photos that crop in interesting places create movement in the photo. It may allow you to get closer to the item for a detail shot. If your item is symmetrical, do we need to see the entire thing to understand it? Or would cropping off 1/3 of the item let us see more detail and look more interesting?

Avoid crops that are too "tight." This is where just a bit of the top and bottom of the item are cut off — it looks squashed! Take the photo from a bit farther away if this is the case. Even better, turn 3D objects like handbags a bit to the side for a more forgiving crop. Try taking 2D objects like notecards diagonally — this makes the photo more interesting, and will almost always make for a nice crop.

Etsy will automatically crop your photos for the thumbnails when you upload them. Consider while you are taking your pictures that vertical shots will crop mostly from the top, and a bit from the sides, and vice versa for horizontal shots.

Photos by shoofly, makalewakan, atelierBB

Grouping: Try arranging small items such as pouches, soaps, notecards, and cookies into a group shot. This can make the photo look rich and beautiful. Be sure to specify in the listing how many the customer will receive with their order.

Photos by SucculentsGalore, palomasnest, SunshineandRavioli

What is it?: If at all possible, show what the item is in the gallery (first) photo. If it's not possible, put what it is in the first few words of the title so that it is not cropped out when the customer is browsing in "gallery" (large photo) mode.

Additional photos: Your potential customer can't touch your item or try it on. Show them everything they want to know in the photos!

Show size by showing the item next to an object that everyone knows the size of. Human hands, flowers and objects that it would "belong" next to (such as a decor object on a bookshelf next to vintage books or some foreign money spilling out of a pouch) are great. Avoid unattractive items like paperclips and pennies unless they make sense. What does it feel like? Show the texture of your yarn or baked goods with a macro shot. What flavor or scent is it? Some blueberries and vanilla beans next to your blueberry-vanilla soap will look gorgeous and convey to your customer what it smells like.

Your descriptions may have some great ideas about what you might show in your additional photos. If you say in your listing that your scarf also makes a great belt, then show a picture of that to drive the point home!

Photos by karenssoaps, dolittledesign, OnTheRound

Upselling: Would the item be perfect with another item in your shop? Show two necklaces worn together to encourage your buyer to get them both! Would your art prints look great in a grouping of three? Show the customer a photo of that to get her excited! Even better if you offer a small incentive such as free shipping for additional items. Just make sure to be clear about what exactly is for sale with this listing.

Editing: Use a photo editing program to touch up your photos if necessary. Gimp is a free download that you'll love if you know how to use Photoshop, Picasa is a great all-around free program for mid-level skills, and an online photo editor like Piknic is perfect if you're not particularly computer savvy. If the photo is too dark, increase the brightness *and* the contrast. You can do this using "curves" in Gimp.

Getting Exposure

Categories: One of the best hidden gems for getting more exposure for your items is placing them in the correct Category. If your items will fit into more than one Category (for example, Knitting and Accessories), try putting some in one and some in another for maximum exposure. Once you have chosen your Category, choose from the related tags and/or look in the Category Browser to see what subcategories are available. Add any that accurately describe your item exactly as written into your tags, and your item will appear in all of them. Do the same with any sub-subcategories beneath the subcategories that you've chosen.

Tags: Tags, along with titles, are your search terms. Using keywords that buyers will search for will help put your item in front of them! Here is an article with a list of types of tags to help you brainstorm.

List Regularly: Right now, the default for Search and Categories on Etsy is reverse chronological order — newest on the top. If you have several items to list, try to space the listings out a bit. Here's a super-secret hack that a seller figured out if you want to make your listings go live later: create your listings, and go to page 5 of the listing process. Copy the URL from the address bar, and email it to yourself. You can then return to this later and click "FINISH." Test it first to be sure you are doing it right before prepping a bunch of listings!

Renewing: Renewing normally refers to reactivating a listing that has expired. Some sellers figured out that they got more hearts, views, and sales on days when they listed an item. When they did not have an item to list that day, they renewed an item. Renewing will move your item higher in the Category Browser and search results, and it costs the same amount as creating a new listing. We recommend that you only use this method if it is effective for you. (Learn more about how renewing works technically on Etsy.) Before using renewing as a technique for gaining exposure, first get your shop into tip-top shape and have "enough" items in your shop to promote!

Showcases: The Showcase is Etsy's advertising program. The Main Showcase is linked from the homepage of Etsy, and there are Showcases for each Category, the Gift Guides, and The Storque. Additionally, there are regularly specialized Showcases throughout the year. As with renewing, you will want to get your shop into great shape by using the tips in this article before you purchase a Showcase spot for maximum benefit. Having good item photos, descriptive listings, and enough items to make the promotion worth it are most important.

Getting Featured: Your item may be featured in several places around Etsy: in Treasuries, which are chosen by Etsy members, and on the homepage, Gift Guides, Etsy Finds emails, and The Storque (Etsy's blog). The key to getting featured in all of these locations is having great item photos, using tags well, and being an active member of the community. Additionally, you may look at the merchandising articles each month to learn about upcoming themes and holidays that will be promoted. Use this information to help you tag your listings, or as a reminder of upcoming events for which you may want to create items. If you are featured in the Gift Guides, and you are able to make more of the item, you may increase the quantity of your listing so that your item stays in the Guide when it sells!

Your Items and Product Assortment

Creating a cohesive shop: Create a great assortment of products that work together. Think about the types of items that are sold together at retail stores. Some examples are: a women's fashion shop, a baby shop, a crochet shop, a home goods shop, a bath and body shop. This is not to say that you should *never* have items that don't at first seem to go together in your shop — there are a few sellers out there who are making this work because their aesthetic binds all their items together. The point is to be intentional about what you are selling.

Think of every item listing in your shop as an ad for all of your other items. Every time a customer finds one of your items, now they have access to the rest of your shop. Will that customer who is looking for a baby shower gift who you've brought in with your knitted baby hat want to stay to browse in your shop? If your other items are more baby clothes, accessories, toys or children's art, she most likely will. If she has to sift though your dish towels and nature photographs, she may lose interest, no matter how lovely they may be! Consider focusing on what you find most interesting or what's most popular in your shop. You may set up another shop for your other interests, but be aware that it is a lot of time and effort to try to market two shops. You may be better off focusing on one shop.

Having a cohesive shop will make it memorable! If I see a fabulous, feminine vintage-style necklace in a shop full of jewelry of a wide variety of different styles — everything from fun 'n' funky to sophisticated — I will probably not remember the particular shop. Conversely, if that same necklace is surrounded by jewelry in a similar style with an appealing color palette (and photographed in a similar way), it is much more likely to stick in my mind.

You may be worried that this will limit your creativity. Au contraire! you might find that this frees your creativity. It is very enjoyable to create a look and style that is uniquely "you" and to share your vision with the customer. Your style can (and probably will) change over time...but at a given moment, try to have a style that can be summed up in a few words. As you bring your unique style to your product photos and descriptions, your shop itself will become a work of art. Try it!

Photos by theblackapple, paradisehilldesigns, ruffeoheartslilsnoty

What to sell, and how to stand out from the crowd: There are so many wonderful shops on Etsy, that many newbies wonder how they can make an impact. Here are some tips for making your shop shine:

What to do in crowded markets: If you notice that there are lots of others sellers with items similar to yours, say, children's hair bows, you may try creating the items in a different and surprising material, or creating a new style of hair bow to stand out. You may stand out with fabulous photos, a great shop assortment, and lots of items for your buyers to choose from.
Find a niche: Better yet, find an undeserved niche to establish yourself in. Look around in the Categories and subcategories for inspiration...are there any where you might make a mark? For example, if you can make great gifts for men, you will find a market that is hungry for new sellers!
Create a new product, or find a new way of making something that's been around for a while. Some great examples are neawear, who became Etsy-famous with her "Wall Wear," a modern art incarnation of cross-stitch samplers, and girlsavage, who reinvented taxidermy as "Feltidermy" — stuffed animal creatures on trophy boards.

Relisting: Successful sellers use the "relisting" technique to create a profitable business. If you sell an item and can make the same item again, you can "relist" it by using the link at the top of the sold item page. This copies your listing and costs the same as a new listing. You will save time since you do not have to make, photograph, and create a description for your item before selling it again. Try to make items that you will be able to make again. If you prefer to only make one-of-a-kind items, be sure to price them accordingly (read: more expensively).

Pricing: Check out this series of articles for help with pricing. Most Etsy sellers who are new to retailing set their prices too low. Many find that they sell more when they raise their prices! Your price gives your customer a hint of the quality of your item, so make sure you are selling at a fair price! Ask for the price that your time and skills are worth. You will want to consider your material costs, fees and other costs associated with selling, and time spent making items, creating listings, and communicating with customers. You may consider using a combination of pricing equations and then comparing these prices with what the items would sell for in a boutique, or how successful sellers are pricing similar items.

Other Tips

Set up your shop stats: go to Web Analytics in Your Etsy. You will also want to set up Site Search to see what search terms shoppers are using to find your items on Etsy. See #2 on this article for instructions.
Enter your items into Google Base so they appear in the Google Shopping results. It only takes about 20 minutes!
Optimize your Etsy shop for Google.

Helpful Links

Etsy Hacks: This site provides time-saving tools that give you special functions for your Etsy shop, such as the ability to copy one of your current listings, or the ability to upload up to five photos at once while you are listing.

Craftcult: View your hearts in an easy-to-see list format. Also, see when you have been featured in the Gift Guides, The Storque, and on the homepage.

What are your top tips? We'd love to hear them in the comments of this article! ...But there are so many comments now, it's slowing down the page load. So please join the discussion in this Forum thread.

Prep Your Shop for the Holiday Rush: 2009 Seller Workshops

2009-09-24T10:29:00-05:00

Looking at the upcoming calendar can be a daunting prospect for Etsy sellers this time of year. If you're wondering how to optimize your shop to appeal to the coming influx of holiday shoppers, you're in luck! We've created a series of live workshops in our Virtual Labs, hosted by your fellow Etsy sellers and Etsy Admin. We'll talk about everything from developing the perfect gifts that will fly off your virtual shelves, to making sure you're prepared to ship all of those items.

These workshops are sure to whip you into shape for the holidays! Most will be held on Thursday afternoon at 4 p.m. ET in Etsy's Virtual Labs. Core tips from these sessions will also be shared in the Etsy Success newsletters, so be sure to sign up here.

Wondering how our online workshops work? Have a look at this blog post to get a quick understanding of Etsy's Virtual Labs.

Sept. 24, 2009 at 4 p.m. ET

Product Development and Photography

Hosts: Daniellexo & MaryMary

Topics covered:

Product development brainstorming session
Colors and styles that will be hot this season
Tips for photography and tagging from a merchandising expert

For more info, check out these posts on creating great products.

Sept. 28, 2009 at 9 p.m. ET

Creative Ways to Gain Exposure

Host: Amy from Pikaland

Brilliant ways to gain exposure
Building a solid reputation
Start thinking outside the box!

Recommended reading: Creativity, Competition and Copycats by Pikaland.

Sept 30, 2009 at 8:00pm ET

Oct 1, 2009 at 3:30 p.m. ET

Oct. 1, 2009 at 4:30 p.m. ET

Bigger Than a Breadbox: Photography for Medium to Large Items

Host: Amby from JulipBags

For more info on JulipBags, check out this Quit Your Day Job interview.

Photography for 2-D Artists

JenKiaba will cover taking photos of paintings, prints, collages and drawings.

Jewelry Photographing for Etsy

Host: Rhonda from ProlifiqueJewelry

For more info on ProlifiqueJewelry, check out this Quit Your Day Job interview.

Oct. 8, 2009 at 5 p.m. ET

How to survive your first Holiday Season on Etsy

Host: Aja from SagittariusGallery

Topics covered:

Question and Answer session for newbies
Making your first sales on Etsy
Lots of tips and insights for your first holiday season

Check out SagittariusGallery's Ultimate Newbie Guide.

Oct. 15, 2009 at 4 p.m. ET

Tagging, Titles and Descriptions

Hosts: Daniellexo, HeyMichelle, MaryMary, JulieinCharge

Topics covered:

Using tags to get noticed
Creative descriptions to woo buyers
Optimizing tagging, titles and descriptions for SEO

Recommended reading: Guidelines and Tips to Tagging on Etsy.

Oct. 22, 2009 at 4 p.m. ET

Promo Mojo: Get Recognized This Season

Host: Jen from JStephens13

Topics Covered:

Spice up your shop
How to coordinate your look and get recognized
A complete look, from your shop banner to your packaging
Etsy friends who can help
Where to get labels, banners, tech help and packaging
How to get the word out there

For more info on JStephens13 check out this Quit Your Day Job interview.

Oct. 29, 2009 at 4 p.m. ET

Brown Paper Packages Tied up With String

Host: Kristal from RikRak

Topics covered:

Beautiful, budget-savvy, eco-friendly DIY packaging ideas
How to make a great first impression with your package
How to efficiently organize your packaging supplies
Packaging and shipping materials and shop branding

For more info on RikRak check out this Quit Your Day Job interview.

Nov. 5, 2009 at 4 p.m. ET

Shipping Tips

Host: TBA

Nov. 12, 2009 at 4 p.m. ET

Make the Most of Cyber Monday

Host: Beth from DiffractionFiber

Topics covered:

Product tips
Having a sale
Promoting
Customer service and more

For more info check out these videos from DiffractionFiber's last workshop.

Nov. 19, 2009 at 4 p.m. ET

Customer Service for Your Handmade Business

Host: Stephanie from StephanieFizer

Topics covered:

Great customer service communication
Handling tricky situations with style and grace
More nifty skills to help run your business

For more info on StephanieFizer check out this Quit Your Day Job interview.

Nov. 24, 2009 at 4 p.m. ET

Staying Organized in the Holiday Rush

Host: Nicole from Lillyella

Topics covered:

How to prepare your shop
Maintain your sanity and stay on top of your work load
Organization, time management and efficiency

For more info on Lillyella check out this Quit Your Day Job interview.

Dec. 3, 2009 at 4 p.m. ET

Top Ten Tips to Bring in Last-Minute Holiday Sales

Host: Corrina from Piddix

Topics covered:

Small changes that make a huge difference
Research on holiday buying trends for 2009
Great places to find last-minute packaging supplies
What to do if and when those sales start pouring in

For more info on Piddix check out this Quit Your Day Job interview.

Dec.10, 2009 at 8 p.m. ET

Sell Local

Host: Kimm of Kimmchi and leader of The NewNew Etsy Team

Topics covered:

Setting up your location for more local sales
Etsy Teams
Utilizing local boutiques and galleries
Finding and selling at local craft shows

For more info about The NewNew, check out this Featured Team article.

Dec. 17, 2009 at 4 p.m. ET

Holiday Recap and Party

Host: Etsy Lab Rats Team

Reflections, reactions, and fun!

Looking for more Holiday Tips? Check out this list of all our Holiday How-To's:

The Seller Handbook | Visit the Virtual Labs | Virtual Labs FAQ

Tech Update: Upcoming Changes for Shop and Item Page SEO

2009-09-23T18:00:00-05:00

UPDATE: We're happy to announce that the search engine optimization (SEO) changes described in the post below are now live on Etsy. It's important to note that the changes won't appear in Google search results immediately. Google checks web pages for updates periodically, so the changes won't appear in Google search results until Google visits your page again and updates the information it has about your page. If you want to see when Google last checked one of your pages, search for the page in Google and click the "Cached" link for your page.

At the top of the cached version of the page, Google states when they last viewed the page.

We're also excited to announce the launch of a tool that enables sellers to preview how their item pages and shop home page will appear in Google search results. When you list a new item or edit an existing listing, you can click a link to "View a preview of how your item will appear in Google search results."

This shows a preview that updates as you enter or edit your item title and description. You can simply enter your item title and description and instantly view how your item will appear in Google search results. This tool is also available on the Your Etsy > Appearance page where you can update your Shop Title and Shop Announcement and preview how your shop home page will appear in Google search results.

As we mentioned in the original post below, SEO is an ongoing process. We'll continue to make improvements and keep you updated on our progress here on The Storque.

[The following was originally posted on September 1, 2009.]

Etsy has been working with SEOmoz, a third-party consultancy, to improve the search engine optimization (SEO) for Etsy.com, including shop and item listing pages. Improved SEO means shoppers are more likely to find Etsy pages when they use search engines like Google and Bing.

We're excited to announce that we’re getting ready to move forward with some changes based on the guidance of the experts at SEOmoz. (Big thanks to Rand, Lindsay, Jen and everyone at SEOmoz!)

We're pre-announcing these changes to ensure sellers have time to prepare, but it's important to note that you don't need to make any changes to your shop or item listing pages. It's your choice whether you want to work on SEO. We know some sellers will want the opportunity to optimize their pages and take full advantage of these changes, and we also want to explain what Etsy is doing to improve SEO.

These changes will take effect within the next few weeks, and we’ll update this announcement to let you know when the changes are live on the site.

We'll start with an overview of changes we're making and then dig into some examples.

Titles

Google and other search engines limit the number of characters displayed in the page title of links on their search result pages. SEOmoz has found that the likelihood of Web searchers clicking through on a specific link in search results increases if the page title appears complete in Google or other search engines. To prevent page titles from getting cut off, we will remove non-essential characters, such as periods and commas, and then truncate page titles at the end of the last complete word up to 66 characters. (If this sounds complicated, check out the details and examples below.)

It's important to note that page titles are only visible to search engines, on search engine search result pages, and at the top of web browser windows.

SEOmoz has also found that brand names tend to increase the likelihood of Web searchers clicking on a page title in search results, which is why we're putting "on Etsy" at the end of page titles. Familiar brand names help searchers quickly identify links they trust, and to the extent the Etsy brand has gained significant awareness, SEOmoz recommends including "on Etsy" at the end of page titles. However, sellers' shop, section, and item titles are likely most relevant to searchers, and will be prioritized at the beginning of page titles. In certain situations "on Etsy" will be removed to create more room for the seller's shop, section, and item titles. We're also making sure that the seller’s username, which is often the seller’s brand, appears in page titles.

And now for some detailed examples.

Shop homepage title

The current format is: <username> on Etsy - <shop title>
The new format will be: <shop title> by <username> on Etsy

In order to keep the page title tag to 66 characters or fewer, we created rules for how the content will be truncated. The rules ensure that the full username is in the title tag, remove "on Etsy" if the <shop title> is too long, and truncate the <shop title> if it's still too long after "on Etsy" is removed.

If the <shop title> + <username> is greater than 54 characters, but less than 62 characters, "on Etsy" will be removed.

If the <shop title> + <username> is greater than 62 characters, "on Etsy" will be removed and the <shop title> will be truncated to the end of the last complete word, up to 42 characters + (20 - <username>). If your username is less than 20 characters, there's more room for a longer <shop title>.

Here are a few examples:

<username>: littleblackrabbit (17 characters) <shop title>: vintage and recycled inspiration (32 characters) <shop title> + <username> = 49 characters, so "on Etsy" will be included and nothing will be truncated Page title: vintage and recycled inspiration by littleblackrabbit on Etsy

<username>: BettyTurbo (10 characters)
<shop title>: mostly involving cake ice cream and moustaches (45 characters)
<shop title> + <username> = 55 characters, so "on Etsy" will be removed
Page title: mostly involving cake ice cream and moustaches by BettyTurbo

<username>: iheartnorwegianwood (19 characters)
<shop title>: Harnesses cage skirts fringe leggings specialness (49 characters)
<shop title> + <username> = 68 characters, so "on Etsy" will be removed and the <shop title> will be truncated
Page title: Harnesses cage skirts fringe leggings by iheartnorwegianwood

Here's a tool you can use to calculate the number of characters in your <username> and <shop title>.

Because you have limited space in titles it's best to include the most important keywords at the beginning of your <shop title> and to focus on the unique value of your shop.

It's important to note that your <shop title> will only be truncated in the page title, which is visible to search engines, on search engine search results pages, and at the top of web browser windows. Your full <shop title> will still appear on your shop homepage on Etsy.

Item page title

The current format is: <item title> by <username> on Etsy

While we're not changing the format, we are adding rules for how content is truncated. The rules ensure that the full username is in the title tag, remove "on Etsy" if the <item title> is too long, and truncate the <item title> if it's still too long after "on Etsy" is removed.

If the <item title> + <username> is greater than 54 characters but less than 62 characters, "on Etsy" will be removed. If the <item title> + <username> is greater than 62 characters, "on Etsy" will be removed and the <item title> will be truncated to the end of the last complete word up to 42 characters + (20 - <username>).

Section page title

The current format is: <username> on Etsy - <section name>
The new format will be: View <section name> by <username> on Etsy

If the <section name> + <username> is greater than 49 characters but less than 56 characters, "on Etsy" will be removed. If the <section name> + <username> is greater than 56 characters, "on Etsy" will be removed and the <section title> will be truncated to the end of the last complete word up to 37 characters + (20 - <username>).

Canonical tags

We're going to use canonical tags on shop homepages, section pages and item pages.

What's a canonical tag? This is part of the code for your Etsy pages that lets search engines know when different URLs (web addresses) are actually the same page. For example, check out these two URLs: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sc_main_21&listing_id=29577528
and http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=29577528

The URLs are different, but they point to the exact same page. Generally, search engines assume that a different URL means it’s a different page, unless the code of the page uses a canonical tag to tell the search engine otherwise.

This change will only be visible to search engines, but is important because it will help improve the search engine rankings of sellers' pages. The number and quality of links to a page is an important factor in search engine rankings. If Google thinks those two pages are different, it will count the number of links to each page separately. If Google knows pages with different URLs are the same page, it will add up the links to the different versions of the page and give credit for all of those links to one version of the page, likely increasing the ranking of the page.

If you're interested, SEOmoz has more info on canonical tags.

What's next?

It's important to note that SEO is an ongoing process, and we'll continue to make improvements. We're working with SEOmoz to identify how to improve site-wide SEO, and we'll keep you updated on our progress here on The Storque.

Over the past several weeks, many Etsians have participated in Forum discussions and a Virtual Lab with Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz. If you didn't get a chance to participate in the recent Virtual Lab with Rand, we'll be announcing additional Virtual Labs in the coming weeks.

We're closing comments here and starting a Forum thread so that Etsy Admin can better answer your questions and the discussion will be searchable. Join us there

P.S. If you want to get the breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox, then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Last Call for Artists: One of a Kind Show, Etsy Artist Pavilion

2009-09-22T12:00:00-05:00

UPDATE: Deadline extended! Apply by Monday, September 28, for a space in The Etsy Artist Pavilion, at the One of a Kind Show and Sale in Chicago and New York, at a significantly discounted rate. At this time, applications are being reviewed for all non-jewelry crafts — since jewelry artists did a great job of representing already! Click here for the application. Contact etsypavilion@mmart.com with any questions.

[The following was originally published on September 10, 2009.]

Etsy is excited to be partnering with The One of a Kind Show and Sales® in Chicago and New York to present The Etsy Artist Pavilion for emerging artists. We wanted to remind you that the last day to apply is steadily sneaking up! Artists, if you would like to seize the opportunity to present your work, send in your application post haste.

Deadline for entries: Tuesday, September 15, 2009

What is this all about, you ask? As a highlighted feature of both One of a Kind shows, The Etsy Artist Pavilion will feature up to 25 booths for participating Etsy artists and one Etsy booth (to spread the good word). The pavilion is intended as an opportunity for up-and-coming artists to gain access to a highly sought-after and well established brand of shows. Qualified Etsy sellers of handmade items will have the opportunity to exhibit at these holiday shopping events at a discounted rate.

Event dates and locations:

One of a Kind Show and Sale® Chicago, December 3-6, 2009 at The Merchandise Mart in Chicago

One of a Kind Show and Sale® NY, December 10-13, 2009 at Pier 94 in New York

Details and application information here. Questions? Contact etsypavilion@mmart.com.

The Seller Handbook | Open Studio Tours

PayPal Workshop in Etsy's Virtual Labs

2009-09-17T10:22:00-05:00

On August 31, 2009, PayPal customer service representatives Deb and Tim hosted a live Virtual Labs chat to answer sellers' questions about PayPal and walk Etsy sellers through some of the features and tools that PayPal offers. If you missed the workshop, you can watch clips below and check out the links that were shared by the PayPal team.

1: Verifying Payment

How do you know you received payment from a buyer? Tim walks you through the multiple ways to find out. You can even use PayPal's download log feature to view your transactions in a spreadsheet or in software like Quicken or Quickbooks. For more information: Downloadable History.

2. Shipping and Seller Protection

Tip: When shipping on your PayPal invoice is incorrect, it's often a problem in your PayPal account settings. If you need to revise the invoice for the customer, go to your PayPal account and click on "request money."
Then, be sure to enable transaction-based override:
    1.    Log in to your account at http://www.paypal.com/.
    2.    Go to My Account > Profile > Shipping calculations (in the Selling Preferences column)
    3.    Select the Shipping Method and click Edit
    4.    Select Yes for "Use the shipping fee in the transaction instead of my calculator's settings" and press Save Changes.
Please note that if you have not set up any Shipping Calculations in PayPal, the default is to override shipping methods per transaction. (You should not need to change anything.)

3. Types of PayPal Accounts

Ever wonder whether you should upgrade to a Premium or Business PayPal account? Tim explains the benefits of each account. Helpful Links: PayPal Account Types & Which account is right for you?

4. Refunds

Want to know how to send a full or partial refund through PayPal? Or how fees work when refunding payment? Watch the video above. Helpful link: How to Send a Refund.

If you have another PayPal question that wasn't answered here you can probably find an answer in one of three ways:

PayPal Help Center
Ask Sarah — an automated PayPal customer service rep
Contact PayPal by phone or email

Want to attend a Virtual Labs workshop? Learn more about our online meeting space here.

Listen to the audio podcast of Deb Popek's last PayPal Virtual Lab here: Seller How-To: PayPal Coming to Etsy Virtual Labs!

Etsy's PayPal FAQs | PayPal Tips for Sellers | Etsy's Seller Handbook

Talking Marketing: Onward and Upward Into Fall

2009-09-16T10:31:00-05:00

Hi all,

While September is under way, here at Etsy we’re well into preparations for the coming holiday season. Before we look ahead, we wanted to share some good news from the past two months. If you’ve read the latest Etsy Weather Report, you know that Etsy drew record traffic in August. And the best part is, the trend is continuing into this first half of September.

The increase in visits to Etsy is coming through all channels, including: direct traffic, organic search, Etsy emails, and a long tail of referring sites and social media outreach through Facebook and Twitter. Thanks goes to all Etsy sellers who are marketing their shops and who are taking advantage of some of the new tools we’re making available, such as Facebook Connect, to help promote your items.

The increase in direct traffic to the site is also attributable to Etsy’s marketing efforts as outlined in my last Talking Marketing post. These efforts included:

Display ads running in July and August on Dooce, The Pioneer Woman and many other targeted blogs read by Etsy shoppers.

The DIY Wedding Crafts contest Etsy created in partnership with Martha Stewart Weddings. (Vote now for your favorite!)

Our Handmade Moment video contest has 25 semifinalists. The final 10 will be judged by you, along with celebrity judges such as actress Olivia Wilde (House), Brett Anderson (The Donnas) and Andrew Wagner (Editor-in-Chief of ReadyMade).

In addition, the Etsy team worked to have Etsy shops and products featured in publications such as Martha Stewart Weddings, Cookie, Lucky, and Real Simple — internationally in ELLE Italia, Vogue UK, and through online features at Food & Wine, The Daily Green, Casa Sugar, and The Frisky, to name a few.

Finally, we were humbled and delighted to learn that Etsy was named for the third consecutive year one of Time.com’s 50 Best Websites.

In case you haven’t seen the announcement, we are making important SEO-related changes to the site. These changes were developed by Etsy’s engineering and product teams in consultation with SEOmoz, third-party SEO experts. We expect these changes will attract even more traffic to Etsy.

Looking Ahead to the Final Months of the Year

We’ve launched our Halloween efforts on the site including multiple Halloween focused Gift Guides and Halloween-themed Etsy Finds, and we are gearing up for holiday season promotions.*

In the next few weeks, we expect to host more Virtual Labs focused on SEO and also to publish the SEO guide specifically designed for Etsy sellers. We will also run additional online display advertising in both the U.S. and internationally on networks and websites like Decor8, Indie Art & Design, Style Files, Mixtapezine and Wardrobe Refashion.

We continue to seek out media partners who can help promote Etsy in popular outlets where potential buyers might discover us. New partners on the horizon include Good Housekeeping and People.com. Our outreach to print publications has proven successful; we don’t want to jinx things, but we’re expecting some more great coverage in relevant print publications, websites, and blogs coming up for October and through the end of the year. We’ll continue to report back through this series and through our Etsy in the Press series to keep you informed.

*A special note to Etsy sellers: If you haven’t already seen it, we strongly suggest you check out the latest post in our From Etsy's Merchandising Desk series for October’s themes and trends.

Last week Maria, Matt and I were in Chicago meeting with Etsy sellers and conducting some buyer-only focus groups with current and prospective Etsy buyers. We're using focus groups to specifically target feedback about Etsy from shoppers. This is just one way we learn from the community, along with other channels like the Forums, Etsy emails, surveys, user testing and through the Virtual Labs.

So for now, it’s back to work, and we’ll talk soon.

More Talking Marketing Posts | Etsy in the Press | Etsy Weather Report

My Big Break: Posh Dots' Licensing Deal

2009-09-14T15:25:00-05:00

Every now and again I hear about Etsy sellers who have scored licensing deals. One such seller is Becky from PoshDots, teacher, artist and mother of three, who was kind enough to take time away from her very busy schedule to do an interview with me. She describes how the company approached her and struck a deal to have her design for her children's item manufactured.

Hi Becky! First off, how do you handle your shop, your kids, your teaching job and the licensing deal? Any time management tips?
I fly by the seat of my pants. With three kids, a schedule is worthless. I don't know from one minute to the next what challenge will face me. The last time I had the house to myself, the phone rang. My oldest had caught a softball in his mouth, and his lip was mashed into his braces (which were put on that same day!). We ended up in the ER. There is always drama here!

Becky with her daughter.

Tell us about your items and describe your licensing deal.
Posh Dots specializes in handpainted wooden letters and matching accessories. The bulk of my business comes from the letters. The licensing company, Dish & Spoon Productions, will use many of my designs on a variety of children's products, including canvas wall hangings, growth charts, night lights, and name banners, to name a few.

How did the company find you?
I asked them the same thing! They found me right here on Etsy. The company has a staff member who seeks out new, fresh artwork. They contacted me several months ago with the proposal, and I was shocked. Considering all of the wonderful talent here and the fact that they only add two artists per year, I feel like the needle in the haystack!

What's the appeal of doing a licensing deal?
The biggest appeal is knowing that someone really appreciated my work enough to want to reproduce it. It is truly an honor. With three young children and teaching full time, my painting hours are very limited. With this opportunity, more children can enjoy my work.

How did Etsy play a role in what has happened? Do you have any suggestions for other ways Etsy could help?
I would say Etsy played a huge role. I doubt I would have been "discovered" without having my shop here. Maybe offer suggestions for legal counseling or finding an agent?

Had you done any wholesale orders before?
I have not done any other wholesale orders. I am approached weekly by boutique owners wanting to carry my letters, but I am so overwhelemed with business from my own shop that I have turned them all down. I am currently in the process of developing a few new products that will be available for wholesale. The products designed by Dish & Spoon Productions will also be available wholesale.

Did you do any research or can you link us to any information that helped inform your decision to say yes to the deal?
I have two books that have lots of good info: Licensing Art and Design: A Professional's Guide to Licensing and Royalty Agreements and Licensing Art 101, Third Edition: Publishing and Licensing Your Artwork for Profit. I knew what red flags to look for. Talking with other Etsians was also very helpful. The contract was very simple and exactly what I expected. I did not go through a lawyer, but if things continue to grow, I will.

Becky's home studio.

What are your plans for your Etsy shop? Will you now use it to sell your handmade prototypes or more limited run (handmade by you) items? Will you use Etsy a place to continue to experiment with new products?
Right now, I am planning on taking the shop in a slightly new direction. I want to add more ready-to-ship items and personalized items that are less time consuming. I also want to move towards more teen and adult designs. I've considered canvas reproductions, but I don't want to compete with myself and the products made by D&S! My wheels are always turning...so keep an eye out for new and exciting products. And possibly a new shop with a totally different line of products.

Do you have any advice for sellers who are interested in getting licensing deals?
I wish I had some great words of wisdom on how to land a licensing deal, but this came out of nowhere. I had considered hiring an agent, but never did. If you are serious about getting your work reproduced, that may be an avenue. If, like me, you want to leave it in the hands of fate, keep your work fresh and exciting. Take great pics and set up a shop that is cohesive. KISS: Keep it simple, stupid!

If possible, get a small advance in royalties. As of now, I've put several hundred hours into creating sample pieces and have seen nothing in return. I knew what to expect from the beginning, but it's tough staying motivated. I know I need to be patient... It will pay off!

Becky hard at work.

Do you think there's something about your item that lends itself to a licensing deal?
My work is very colorful and fun. The designs are simple, clean and fresh. I love mixing patterns, which seems to be a hot concept right now.

What stage of the process are you in now? How does it feel?
Right now, everything is still in the production stage. I have not seen any of the final pieces yet. I'm very anxious to see what they are doing with my work. D&S is preparing to launch the products in September at the ABC Kids Expo in Las Vegas. I will have something final soon.

Do you get credited on the final packaging of the items the company sells?
Yes, my signature, BSBowen, will be on all of the products. That's very exciting!

What is important about "handmade" for you and your business?
With my business being custom work, I feel it must be handmade. Painting is my passion. If I couldn't be working with my hands and mind, I would go crazy! This business allows me to do both and to create something truly unique for my clients. I've often asked in the Etsy Forums about pricing, time management, etc., and many will offer advice on how to change my product line by offering more ready-made items. But, somehow ready-made and custom just don't work together in my mind. I love the design process, working directly with the buyer and creating something just for them.

Was there anything in the contract that you felt strongly about and made a point of negotiating? or if it hadn't been in the contract, you would have pushed for it?
I wanted to able to have the final word on the products, and I wanted to have my signature on my pieces. I also wanted to maintain copyrights to my designs. It was all in there exactly as I wished.

Were you concerned as to whether this was legit? did you have anyone review the licensing contract?
There were a few times when I wondered what I had gotten into! But, after many conversations with the owner and seeing their products on several top ranking sites featuring children's products, I feel good about the decision. My very cautious husband reviewed the contract.

Can you share with us any highlights or how much more money in proportion to your income? (No worries if this is too personal!)
It may not seem like much in California or New York, but in the backwoods of Virginia, the estimate they gave me is huge. If the estimate turns out to be correct, it will top my teaching salary...not bad.

What does this licensing deal mean for your business?
I don't know yet! It has the potential of surpassing my teaching salary. (Of course, that won't be hard to do!) But, I have quite a wish list:

1) Operate Posh Dots full time
2) Put on an addition to our home
3) Travel
4) Save
5) Use extra income to start up another business
(I am always dreaming up ideas for new products — some handmade, some mass produced.)

My biggest dream...buy a beach house!

I may have to pick just one from this list.

Posh Dots, we here at Etsy wish you luck and will continue to watch for your latest items! Visit her website poshdotsstudio.com and PoshDots Etsy shop.

Readers, do you have a licensing deal and tips to share? Let us know if you'd like to contribute a post or leave your words of wisdom in the comments. Questions? We want to hear those too!

Etsy Chicago Meet Up: September 10, 2009

2009-09-10T11:15:00-05:00

UPDATE: Just a friendly reminder that this is tonight, friends!
[The following was originally published September 1, 2009.]

Hey, Windy City types! We're heading out to the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago next week, and we'd love to say hello to each and every one of you while we're there. If you are in the area, please join Etsy's CEO Maria Thomas, VP of Community Matt Stinchcomb, and Marketing Director Nizzi Renaud for another classic Etsy meet up. We'll be answering questions about the site, talking about the future of Etsy, and listening to all your ideas.

Come on by, say hello, and have some snacks and drinks on us.

So we know how much food and drink to get, please RSVP here.

Here are the meeting details:

September 10, 2009 – 7:00 p.m.

Catalyst Ranch
656 W. Randolph, suite 3W
Chicago, IL
312-207-1710

Post in the comments if we'll see you at the meet up or at Renegade!

See More Posts about Etsy Meet Ups

Happy Two Year Anniversary, Storque-lings

2009-09-09T17:00:00-05:00

The Storque, Etsy's blog, is turning two-years-old this week. We, the Etsy Admin who fluff the Storque's feathers and keep her flying (Alison, Tara, EricB, our intern MichelleT and myself), celebrated today by munching on a plum torte I baked last night. We're still settling into our new nest; the new Etsy office in DUMBO is still a bit sparse — thus our picnic on the floor of the video editing room. (Yes, it's plum torte, even though it looks like deep-dish pizza in the photo.)

It's crazy to look back and think about all that has happened over the past two years. (Remember the newscasts?) We've published over 5000 posts and have had about 800 people contribute posts. We've honed in on certain series and let others go. But most of all, we want to say thank you to our readers who leave insightful comments or just comments that let us know we delighted you. Thank you to those of you who read our posts and watch our videos and share the links with friends. We now have about 2 million pageviews a month, and that is thanks to you!

There's much in store for the coming year. As we enter our "terrible twos," let us know if you have some advice or words of wisdom in the comments below. What's your favorite Storque post or series? What would you like to see more of or less of?

Find out who else on Etsy has a birthday today.

Etsy Statistics: August 2009 Weather Report

2009-09-09T14:09:00-05:00

Here is the Weather Report for August, 2009.

The stats:

$15 million of goods were sold; roughly 10% higher than July's $13.6 million.
That represents 905,492 items sold for the month, 10% higher than July’s 824,138.
1,454,017 new items were listed in the month, 8% higher than July’s 1,345,289.
186,000 new members joined the Etsy community in the month, up 15,000, or 9% from July.
558,114,207 page views were recorded on the site this month, an 8.6% increase from July.

(Sources: Etsy and Google Analytics.)

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Etsy community in August!

Curious about how other months compare? Check out our past Weather Reports for more statistics.

From Etsy's Merchandising Desk: October's Hearth and Home

2009-09-03T16:30:00-05:00

It's that time again, and those of us behind the scenes at Etsy would like to share our merchandising plans for October. As we continue to plan Etsy’s calendar for the year ahead with thematic merchandising, we will be incorporating many of the concepts you shared in response to September's report and continue to welcome your input. It is our goal to create a healthy balance between promotions for traditional holidays, seasonal changes, and lifestyle trends.

A special note to sellers about the holidays:

For many sellers, the holiday season typically generates the majority of sales for the year. It’s a time when repeat customers visit to make new purchases, and a motivational factor for new customers to buy. You may notice our promotions around the holiday gift-giving season beginning in October. Shoppers are planning their purchases ahead of time and beginning to look to Etsy well in advance for gift ideas. Think of October as a good deadline to have your best gifts and holiday items listed (with multiples in stock!) to make sure you are taking full advantage of the busy and fruitful shopping holiday season we are anticipating.

Here is part one of a two part series of seller tips regarding the holidays:

Merchandising is Storytelling: Many shoppers become buyers when they identify with the story and inspiration behind the product. This is particularly true for handmade items. Buyers want to connect with you. Share your story with short paragraphs and informative keywords.
Good Photographs Rule: Shopping online is increasingly reliant on visual messaging. Invest in crisp, clean photographic images. When using models, emphasize the product, and refrain from over-styling.
Materials and Fabrication: Always inform shoppers of the material content and never take for granted that shoppers understand how your items are made. A short paragraph describing what goes into the handcrafting process is helpful and reveals pride and generates respect.
Name Your Products: When conceptualizing your latest products and collections, give careful thought to describing your creations with a name. Names can have a functional identity, one of humor, or simply a creative reference. Naming helps establish a connection with shoppers, and strengthens your brand, in addition to the name of your business or shop.
Gift-Giving Equals Gift Wrapping: Handmade gifts deserve to be gift wrapped. In fact, gift wrapping can often trigger a purchase, carrying as much weight in the decision to buy as the item itself. If gift wrapping is part of your offering, highlight this, especially going into the major gift-giving season.
Gift-Gifting for Me: Keep in mind that many of us who shop online may say we are looking to buy for a friend or family member, but secretly want to buy for ourselves. If your items are generally purchased as a gift, write copy encouraging your shopper to buy the item for themselves as well. If your items are not normally purchased as a gift, think in the reverse: write a testimonial about why the item is a novel gift idea.
Facts and Figures: Online shoppers are impatient, and they scan quickly for price, sizes, dimensions, and color choices. Ensure that relevant information is easy to see and understand.

Rounding out September

September marks the Autumnal Equinox and brings us into the full harvest, wherein we begin to plan for family celebrations and the holidays ahead. We toast the coming fall with wine, think about updating our homes with seasonal accents, and take ourselves a little less seriously with Halloween around the corner.

The first weekend in September marks Labor Day, a day when many take off to relax and celebrate this symbolic end of summer. It's a classic time for sales as the summer winds down and autumn nears; look for an extended Labor Day Weekend Deals promotion this weekend and find out how to get involved below.
After Labor Day, look for our full Halloween features to begin. We'll be highlighting all aspects of the holiday including costumes for adults, kids, babies and pets, decor for the home indoors and out, party solutions, trick or treating accessories, food and candy alternatives, the DIY side of Halloween, the best in Halloween trends and more. From the cute to the scary, no genre of Halloween will be left in the dark as we bring every facet of this favorite holiday to the forefront.
Coinciding with our Halloween promotions, you'll notice an alternative spin on our Handmade Weddings series highlighting both autumnal and unconventional approaches to pulling off a creative event.
Look for an Etsy spin on the fall season's classic and emerging trends in fashion, jewelry, and accessories. Fall trends already on the horizon have been leather shoes and boots with a vintage appeal, plaid inspired looks, neon colors, the statement (or "bib") necklace, high-waisted skirts and dresses, super skinny and super wide belts, and layering components. This is just the tip of the fall fashion iceberg, so keep your eyes peeled.
The harvest is a time to celebrate rich earthy tones and textures in our homes and the outdoors. Classically a time for focusing on domestic spaces, woodland themes, primitive and folk arts, along with rustic furniture and vintage highlights encompass many of our ideas for home decor.
The sapphire is September's birthstone, and September's astrological signs are Virgo and Libra (August 24 - September 23: Virgo, September 24 - October 23: Libra).
Promotional Opportunities for Sellers:
- Did you see our Sapphire Gift Guide? We've been looking for community suggestions and nominations for what items you'd like to see in the guide. Suggest your favorite sapphire-related items in this nomination thread.
- September's Weekend Deals Topics are posted below:
  - 9/3-9/7 Labor Day Weekend Deals, post your promotion in this thread to participate.
  - 9/11-9/13 Free Worldwide Shipping Weekend Deals, post your promotion in this thread to participate.
  - 9/18-9/20 Buy One, Get One Free Weekend Deals, post your promotion in this thread to participate.
  - 9/23-9/27 Discount Promotion Weekend Deals, post your promotion in this thread to participate.

Stay Engaged in October
Cooler weather brings the rich colors and smells of autumn as we look ahead to winter months and the upcoming holiday season. It's a time to focus on the indoors as our place to nest, entertain, and stay cozy. As we emphasize traditional seasonal themes throughout October and the coming months, we will also intertwine appropriate seasonal themes for those around the globe approaching warmer seasons.

The first weekend in October typically marks the end of Oktoberfest, a 16-day celebration originating in Germany where family and friends celebrate the festivities while indulging in all sorts of rich, hearty foods. As this favorite festival comes to a close, it sets the stage for the harvest season and bounty ahead.
Through the end of the month, emphasized promotions of the DIY side of Halloween and all it entails will take center stage on the site. From the cute to the spooky, we'll be featuring creative spins on everything in costumes, decor, entertaining, treats, and the best in Halloween trends.
October notes a shift into the seasonal harvest. Look for highlights in home decor that embody a harvest farm feel, woodland themes, rustic furniture, and vintage as decor solutions. We'll be talking about warmth and comfort with features of rich fabrics, fibers, and yarns. Think cashmere, industrial felt, silk, and wool.
As we think about the cozy home, we'll be making references to the hearth, candles, baskets and elements that lead us into autumn and winter entertaining. Look for highlights in tabletop accoutrement, the perfect food for your feast, references to the vineyard, invitations, menus, and hostess gift solutions as we plan to celebrate with family and friends looking ahead to Thanksgiving.
In a similar spirit of celebration, look for continued highlights from our Handmade Weddings series featuring DIY inspiration for creating an unforgettable affair. This month we'll be featuring the unconventional, autumnal, and an introduction to winter-themed celebrations.
Fall fashion highlights will begin to transition into a winter fashion preview, look for the beginnings of this preview with winter accessory features on bags, gloves, scarves, layering pieces, and those that embody cooler weather trends.
What's trending on Etsy right now? Woodland themed animals (think our antlered and feathered friends) continue to trend on Etsy, along with vintage cameras, vintage boots and the color shades of blue, rich harvest tones, mustards, neons, and neutral palettes.
Opal is October's birthstone, and October's astrological signs are Libra and Scorpio (September 24 - October 23: Libra and October 24 - November 22: Scorpio).
Promotional Opportunities for Sellers:
- In preparation for our Opal Gift Guide, we will be looking for community suggestions and nominations for what items you'd like to see in the guide. Suggest your favorite opal-related items in this nomination thread.
- October's Weekend Deals Topics are posted below:
  - 10/2-10/4 Halloween Discount deals, post in this thread to participate.
  - 10/9-10/11 Free Worldwide Shipping deals, post in this thread to participate.
  - 10/16-10/18 Halloween Discount deals, post in this thread to participate.
  - 10/23-10/25 Holiday Preview Discount deals, post in this thread to participate.
  - 10/30-11/1 Buy One, Get One Free deals, post in this thread to participate.

If you'd like to stay engaged and involved with the approaching merchandising themes, interpret them in your own artistic voice. This can be translated within your listings, photos, shop announcement, descriptions, tags, titles, sales promotions and more. We're excited to see your creative interpretations!

If you make items that would fit well with the themes outlined, try stocking up and listing them in advance to take advantage of potential shipping deadlines. Do you already have items in your shop that meld well? That's great! Now it's time to revisit those items to make sure your tags, titles, and descriptions reflect keywords shoppers might be looking for this time of year. This is also a great opportunity to revamp your item photography with a new look, if you think they need some work. Check out some great how-to's for item photography to get started.

If your items fall under the main thematic categories we'll be highlighting this month, it might be a great time to consider purchasing a spot in a Category Showcase. For those of you who enjoy making Treasuries, we'll be looking to highlight lists that interpret September and October's themes in a creative and cohesive way, as well as the many innovative and beautiful collections that we normally feature.

Upcoming Dates to Remember:

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month
October 2: Sukkot begins at sundown
October 4: Oktoberfest winds down
October 12: Columbus Day
October 12: Thanksgiving Day in Canada
October 16: Boss's Day
October 31: Halloween

View More Merchandising Posts | Gift Guides

Tech Update: Introducing Rearrange Your Shop

2009-09-03T15:15:00-05:00

Today we released a new feature for all sellers that allows you to rearrange the order of the listings in your shop. When the preview video got a record-breaking response, we knew this was a feature many sellers wanted as soon as possible! We want to thank all of our beta testers over the last few months who provided feedback and greatly improved the feature during development.

Below, we have detailed instructions on how to use the Rearrange Your Shop site feature. Please note the following:

We will throttle the feature to all sellers over the next two days, so for a short period only a subset of sellers will have access. The selection process is random. You will know if the feature is turned on by going to Your Etsy > Shop Appearance and viewing the bottom of the page.
You need to enable the feature before you can start using it. See instructions below on how to enable this feature.
We recommend that you have a high speed internet connection when using Rearrange Your Shop. The feature pulls a lot of data to your browser and requires a cable, DSL or other high speed connection for best performance.
The feature was tested on and is confirmed to work with the following browsers: Internet Explorer versions 6 to 8, Firefox version 3 and higher, and Safari version 3 and higher. We do not recommend using this feature on browsers that are not listed above.
This feature was built with a systemwide "on/off switch." What does this mean? Under extreme circumstances when Etsy needs to manage the load on our servers, we could temporarily disable this feature for all sellers. Sellers would be notified with a message under Your Etsy > Shop Appearance. In short, our Engineering Team could turn off this one feature without taking down the rest of the site — be it for maintenance or for site speed and performance reasons to maintain the shopping experience on Etsy.

Here is how to get started:

Sign in and go to Your Etsy.
Click on Shop Appearance.
At the bottom of the page you will see a section for Rearrange Your Shop:
Enable the feature and save.
Go to your shop's homepage (yourshopname.etsy.com).
Under Featured Items (if you have that enabled), you will see a link to "Rearrange Your Shop."
When clicked, you will be placed in an new mode where you can drag and drop listings. Here is a screenshot of when you mouse over a listing:
Finally here is screenshot of moving a listing:

For additional questions, you can reference the brief FAQ below.

What is the Rearrange Your Shop feature?
The Rearrange Your Shop feature allows sellers to rearrange the item listings in their shops to any order they wish.

How does the feature work?
To rearrange your listings, you click and drag your item listings to change the order on any page of your shop. Remember, each shop page has a total of 21 listings. If you want to move a listing between pages, you can click on a listing and select the page it should be moved to. Note, if you hold down shift when you move a listing between pages, it will keep you on the current page. Normally when you move a listing to a new page, you will be taken the new page.

What happens when I add a listing or relist after I change my shop layout?
When you add a new listing to your shop, that listing will appear first, even if you rearranged your listings previously in your shop. Once a listing is added, you can rearrange it in your shop as well.

What will shoppers see when they view my shop after I rearranged my listings?
The default view for shoppers will be the new custom layout you created. Shoppers can still choose to sort listings based on time listed and price.

Does rearranging listings change the way I feature items in my shop?
No, the Featured Items section will remain the same and is managed separately.

How do I turn the feature off?
You can turn the feature off by going to Your Etsy > Shop Appearance. From there you can disable the feature. When you turn the feature off, shoppers will see your listings sorted by the time they were listed.

Can I rearrange listings for each of my sections?
At this time, you can only rearrange listings for the main portion of your shop, not each section.

What are some features Etsy might add to Rearrange Your Shop in the future?
In the future, we would like to add the following enhancements to Rearrange Your Shop:

Adding more keyboard shortcuts for faster rearranging.
Including the custom order in more areas of Etsy, including the shop view under Your Etsy and the Etsy Mini.
Changing behavior such that when you edit a listing or relist, it stays in the same location in your shop.

We are so happy to be launching this new feature for all sellers! Please let us know if you have comments or questions in this Forum discussion thread. (We'll close commenting here in order to better follow the conversation.)

P.S. If you would like to receive breaking, vital Etsy news as it happens — delivered straight to your email inbox — then sign up for Etsy News Alerts emails. Read more about it here. Expect this as an Etsy Alert email in your inbox if you already subscribe to the list.

You can also get an RSS feed of all TechUpdates here.

Tech Update: New Shipping Tool Available

2009-08-28T10:46:00-05:00

Sellers,

We are happy to announce that we completed our beta test of the new shipping regions tool. Sellers will now have the option to use the existing Shipping Profile page or you can use the new Shipping Profile page, which includes the option to ship to a geographic region as well as to an individual country. Sellers can also find the link to the new Shipping Profile on the existing Shipping Profile pages.

For now, we have included just two new regions, but we may add more in the future:

Europe non-EU countries
European Union countries

Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about this feature:

Using regions in your shipping profile is completely optional. You need not change your current shipping profiles, and you can still create "custom shipping profiles" just as you have done in the past. The regions are predefined and cannot be altered.

These regions are not necessarily tied to specific shipping profiles used by postal services or shipping companies such as UPS or DHL. This level of customization is something we'd like to offer in the future, but it is not possible at this time.

We cannot create regions at the province or state level at this time. This means, for example, that we can't offer regions within the U.S. or Canadian provinces or other such groupings.

A country shipping cost will override a regional shipping cost if that county also appears in the region. For example, if there is a country cost listed for France and a regional cost for the European Union (which includes France) the country cost will be the one used. The country cost can be set either higher or lower than the shipping cost for the rest of the region.

The order in which countries are displayed on the View Listing page has been updated. The item the country ships from will be listed first (except in rare cases where the seller does not ship to her own country), and all other countries and regions will be listed alphabetically thereafter. Finally, "Everywhere Else" (if offered) will be displayed last.

The shipping cost will be applied based on the mailing address the buyer enters at Checkout. (This part of the tool remains the same.)

Here's an example of how a hypothetical seller from France could set up her shipping costs:

Ship to France: $5 USD
Ship to Canada: $8 USD
Ship to Europe non-EU countries: $7 USD
Ship to European Union (EU) countries: $6 USD
Ship to United States $8 USD
Ship to Everywhere Else $10 USD

Note: It is OK to have the same price to more than one country or region as in this example.

In this example, buyers who check out and enter France in their shipping address would be charged $5, since the country shipping cost would override the regional European Union (EU) cost, even though France is in the EU. Similarly, buyers from Germany (in EU) would pay $6, buyers from Switzerland (non-EU) would pay $7; buyers from the United States and Canada would pay $8. Buyers from Australia would pay $10, as they would be from "Everywhere Else" in this example.

Using shipping regions is completely optional; as a seller you don't have to do anything differently if you prefer to continue to set shipping costs individually for each country. These changes to shipping are compatible with the shipping profiles you currently use on Etsy.

To start using this new shipping regions tool, you can find a link on both the create a shipping profile page and the edit a shipping profile page under Your Etsy. Remember: If you change your shipping profiles, you need to apply the revised profiles to your listings by going to Your Etsy > Batch Shipping.

We are closing comments on this post so that we can follow your discussion in this Forum thread.

Shipping How-To's | Tech Updates

The Great Etsy Office Move of 2009

2009-08-19T10:10:00-05:00

Hi! I'm Etsy’s third Sarah (well, technically, only the second with an “h”), and I am Etsy’s new Office Manager. I started in June, and it has been an exciting whirlwind, absorbing as much as I can about Etsy culture and community while also trying to improve the day-to-day workings of Etsy’s offices. I feel very lucky to be part of this family of hardworking and creative people who have welcomed me with open arms!

One of the most exciting projects I’ve been helping with is the Etsy office move. After three memorable years in our wonderfully quirky — though sometimes dysfunctional — office building, Etsy headquarters is moving to new digs on August 22. We will say good-bye to our Brooklyn/Bermuda Triangle location between Fort Greene, DUMBO, and Downtown Brooklyn. We look forward to inviting visitors to meetings without fear of them getting completely lost (which was a frequent occurrence at 325 Gold!).

The new office will be in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn (which stands for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass” — a sensible acronym, but it still makes me laugh every time I say it). DUMBO is known as an arts-focused neighborhood filled with galleries, restaurants, new media and non-profit organizations. Many of the buildings were once factories or warehouses, but they now are home to a growing community of studios and vibrant web companies. With friendly residents and many independent businesses, DUMBO is an oasis in the midst of the big city. Commuters drinking their morning coffee will be able to spot our bright Etsy orange walls from the Manhattan Bridge.

The new office is designed for greater efficiency, as we will no longer be trying to coordinate ourselves on three separate floors of a building with a temperamental elevator. The new space is all on one floor, with most folks sitting out in an open floor plan. The internet connection will be stable, and we won't be in the middle of a construction site — we've had three 40 floor buildings shoot up just next door to us! In short, it will be a vastly improved work environment.

Soon Etsy Labs will be reopening for Monday Craft Nights and other Virtual Labs events. These gatherings, both in Brooklyn and online via our multi-user chat room, are just one way for us to stay connected to you, and we're looking forward to hosting these in our new office. Stay tuned for posts from julieincharge and daniellexo regarding those events. You can also sign up for the Etsy Labs mailing list. For now, we are co-hosting DIY Thursdays at the Museum of Arts and Design. Please join us for these events — even if you're not in New York, you can participate online.

We are working to make sure that the office reflects our handmade and vintage spirit. We want to make sure we share it with all of you, even from afar, so after we move in, I’ll post stories about the handmade and vintage elements in the office. Our desks, conference tables, kitchen flooring and cabinetry are among the items made and installed by Etsy sellers, and I can't wait to show them in use in our busy office.

Ok, back to packing!