We here at Etsy have been impressed by the activity of Teams — those pro-active groups of sellers who get together to brainstorm and act on marketing ideas for their shops. We will be doing some Team profiles here on the Storque, and we'd like to start this program off with Vegan Etsy — a supportive group of caring Etsians who are working hard to promote each other and Etsy.  From a VegBloggy award for their amazing blog to their beautiful treasuries, here's to you, Vegan Etsy, we love ya!  Read on to find out how they do it and look for another article from the team later this week.

Can you tell us a bit about your Etsy Team? What's the glue that holds your team together — location, craft, etc.?

We are a team made up of vegans who operate vegan shops, so it's our lifestyle that brings us together (vegan = no animal products). Members come from all over and we have a little bit of everything in our shops — art, soap, jewelry, vegan food, etc.. There's a huge variety!

What does your Team do to help each other?

So much! Really, I'm amazed at how much our members support each other. We buy from each other's shops, of course. Members also create team treasuries, give each other advice and support on our message board, post about each other on our personal websites (blogs, myspace, flickr, etc.) and everyone promotes the team an incredible amount. Some members have offered to hand out other members' business cards at craft shows, as well. Also, one of our members asked for items to be donated for a fundraiser she was organizing, which received a lot of response from our members. So many of us pitched in to help the fundraiser be successful. There's a lot of teamwork going on!

How does your Team promote Etsy and each other's shops?

So many of the members have other websites, such as blogs, where they post about Etsy and each other's shops. We also just started a new section on our blog where members can write reviews about things they purchased from each other's shops. You'll see a lot of Etsy and Vegan Etsy graphics on everyone's websites. I've also seen plenty of us posting on the Etsy forums to recommend one of our shops when someone is asking where to find a vegan item. I can't speak for everyone with this, but I, as well as several others I know, gush about Etsy to anyone that will listen!

Tell us a bit about a current or past Team event or promotion.

Our team's blog was just given a VegBloggy award in VegNews magazine's first annual bloggy awards in the most recent issue. Our blog was one of twenty-one that were picked out of hundreds and it was featured in their Bloggy Awards article. VegNews has a readership of 180,000, so that was a very exciting promotion for our team! If it weren't for our members emailing VegNews to elect our blog, it might not have even gone noticed, so it really was a team endeavor that paid off quite well.

What's your favorite part of the Team program?

Honestly, this feature is! I think this is a wonderful way to highlight teams and make everyone on Etsy more aware that teams exist. I've received requests to join from several people who told me that they didn't know there were teams for quite a while after signing up on Etsy. Having something like this will put the team program right out there.

Does your team have an exciting promotion, event or announcement to share?

We sure do! We were just given an Etsy Team Grant to place an ad in VegNews magazine, which is extremely exciting for us. After announcing it to everyone there was a huge response in the thread on our message board about it. This ad should help promote our team as well as Etsy quite a bit! We're all very thankful for the grant. It means so much!

Thanks to Vegan Etsy's Team leader, Molly aka emmask9kitchen, for collecting these answers and leading such a great team! And thanks to every member of Vegan Etsy for supporting each other and helping us grow a strong and supportive community on Etsy!  Want to check out all the members' work at once?  Click here! For more vegan content on the Storque, check out our past posts.