Road trip!  My husband had a triathlon in Cambridge, Maryland, so we packed up the car and hit the road.  There's nothing like a summer drive to get me excited for the (shameless plug) Storque's travel series Gotta Travel On next week. I was thrilled we made it down to Talbot County with enough time for me to make a few stops to meet a few sellers that I found using Shop Local.

First stop was St. Michaels, Maryland for the St. Luke's Craft Show and Strawberry Festival to see Limamike (also known as Lori Anderson) and to get some fresh strawberry shortcake to beat the heat. Below is a picture of her beautifully designed tent with many pieces made from lampwork beads and larimar, a unique precious natural stone only found in a one kilometer remote mountain range in the Dominican Republic.

She seemed to have a non-stop flow of customers, but we did get some time to chat.  Limamike, like many sellers, is also a huge fan of buying on Etsy and is slowly replacing the artwork in her home with Etsy artist creations.  She showed me one of her recent buys, a handbag by onehappytree she purchased using Alchemy.

Limamike's pendants were displayed in a decoupaged wood box by CarolinaCottage, who custom made it with vintage paper. What a creative way to add a decorative touch to your craft fair table.

My second stop was Gryphon's home, where I got to see first hand the preparation for dying yarn.  She may have one of the most scenic yarn dying set ups anywhere, with her backyard overlooking the bay.

Pictured: asingledream (Christine), bethela (Beth), beadstillmyheart (Kendra), gryphon (Gryphon)

We sat in Gryphon's living room, surrounded by her collection of gorgeous antique looms and her current work, a perfect setting for an Etsy discussion.  We covered lots of topics including the slowing economy, Etsy's positive impact on the hand dyed yarn business and the level of communication they expect from Etsy.  Some of the more specific topics (including topics discussed with limamike) are outlined below:

Guest Buyers — Ability to purchase without registering on Etsy. This would allow buyers who want to measure their experience before becoming a full-fledged member.

Ability to Change Name — "When I realized my ID was my shop name I thought, why did I do that?" said one seller.  If we can't change this, it would be great to make it more clear that you can't change your name once you register, possibly with an "are you sure?" button during the process. 

Alternative Payment Methods — "A lot of people hate PayPal," one person noted.  Another noted that choice is generally good.

Search — Search is on everyone's minds these days, including ours at Etsy.

More Personalization Options/Etsy-"powered" Personal Site — One person noted that for her products she needs more granular categories and sub-categories and wants to create her own aesthetic, look and feel to her shop.  They didn't want it to be "boring," but not too many widgets like on Myspace.

Notification When a Favorite Seller Adds Something to Their Shop - An opt-in feature to alert you when a favorite seller has a new item or is conducting a sale in their shop.  This could be via email or conversation or a page you could go to in "My Etsy."

Batch Feedback — This is particularly of concern for high volume sellers, as feedback can be cumbersome.

Auto-relist Feature — For items such as patterns, when you sell an item the option to opt-in to auto-relist when one item is sold.  Many patterns are linked to from blogs, and when they are sold, the link sends the person to the sold item and not the place to buy it.

Edit/Click to Finish — Streamline the process of editing one page (so there is no need to go through all pages to finish).  This is particularly important for people on slower connections

Block Buyers — Ability to block problem buyers from your shop.

Sale in Shop — Ability to conduct a sale in a shop: for instance, 10% off or a coupon code function.

Ability to Pay Etsy Bill with Other Methods — Pay Etsy fees via auto-withdrawl from bank account or PayPal.

 
One of Gryhon's antique looms.

One of the best part of my job is to hear first hand about members experiences on Etsy and their ideas to improve the site.  We sometimes focus on the "needs improvement" side of things because we are eager to enhance the site, but it was also gratifying to hear that they love the front page, the beautiful layouts and how it is often cleverly color coordinated. "Just beautiful," one noted.  We have Ashley and all of her hard work to thank for that. 

Thanks to limamike, gryphon, beadstillmyheart and asingledream for adding a little local flavor to my weekend road trip. 

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