Monday, April 4, 2011

Popalicious Too And Her Adventures At The Etsy Success Symposium

By Michelle of Evie's Tool Emporium

The Etsy Supply Street Team - ESST - is very lucky to have a very diversified group of sellers. Each seller brings a level of expertise to our team with their unique business backgrounds. I'm excited to share with you today the expertise of Andrea, of Popalicious Too. Her shop is filled with cabochons, 1 inch buttons, wood cutouts and more supplies!
Recently Andrea had the opportunity to visit Brooklyn! Here are her thoughts on her adventure!

Well everyone, I wanted to share with you my little trip into Brooklyn back in February. I decided to venture in to feel the Etsy Experience at the Etsy Success Symposium. I didn't go with an agenda, I just went to get a feel for our community in "real time". First of all walking through Brooklyn is always an experience that I love and this time was no different. I approached the large building and went inside up to the 5th floor and I knew I was in the right place as I saw many people with hand made name tags sporting narwhals, bunnies and more! So I went to sign in and all ready I had met some really friendly people.

Well we shared a continental breakfast and chatted for awhile and then the festivities began and WOW it was a jam packed day. We shuffled from lecture to lecture packing in as much knowledge and ideas that we could. Many of the subject matters were very familiar to me since I have been on easy for some time now but yet I was still able to extract some helpful hints. I love the idea that was given to us to picture our "ideal" customer -- name them -- come up with a history behind them and then think about how they would like to be treated and what they would enjoy, it really was very interesting and helpful and really got me in touch with my customer. Everyone on our Street Team has something in common and that is that we sell supplies, tools for the artists so the more practical and creative the product the more demand. We have a built in audience which is a precious thing so just take a peek around and see what is happening and what people need to create their art. Give it a try, it is actually fun!

One of the main reasons for traveling into Brooklyn was to see if I could get a feel of where ETSY was going??? You know, with all of the rumors, all of the changes, all of the posts, all of the…you know what I mean. I thought it was a good thing to try to formulate my own opinion by being there at the heart. Well I did get a sense and that was one that tells me that Etsy is going to forge ahead, follow the newest and most innovative trends, inject as much new technology as they possibly can and in the end be around for a very long time. We may not always agree with the administration (come on does that ever happen in life lol!), we may not always "embrace" the changes but I feel as though it is imperative that we come to terms with everything and step forward. All of the craziness about privacy and such was truly overblown, so many of us went private with so many elements and in the end I think we lost out on a lot of networking. I now feel as though circles are a wonderful thing, if you use them responsibly they can bring you MUCH activity on your site and someone that never saw you before may find your shop and become a regular. The one drawback is sometimes I get so involved with it I loose track of time when I should be working!

So, if you have a moment in time…take a peek at the Etsy Success Symposium Storque Article! You may think you have heard and seen it all, but honestly you just might learn something, even a tiny tidbit that might set off a light bulb in your head. It is worth a look! One thing that was hammered home over and over again are the obvious and they are a good clean look, the most fabulous pictures that you can take, simple but yet descriptive titles and service with a smile, remember that your customer loves to hear from you so take a moment to send that thank you for shopping with us note in the beginning. Everything else you do is just more sugar on top!

Andrea of Popalicious Too.

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