♥TreasuryTroll♥

My treasury post here last week inspired me to try something new that I feel will help promote the talent that is on Etsy that may not otherwise get noticed. Here is my new blog called ♥TreasuryTroll♥. It is my own alternate Treasury site for fantastic artisans, vintage and supply carriers on Etsy. This blog will be updated daily. After I've done enough posts there, I'm going to run curator contest for free gifts from one of my shops☺

http://treasurytroll.blogspot.com/


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Since my last post, I've been able to come up with an efficient schedule that will allow me to focus on my shops and properly take care of home. However this schedule calls for some re-constructions. Therefore, I will be temporarily closing all of my shops (Etsy, Ecrater and 1000Markets) on 2/15/09-2/27/09. I'm doing a major overhaul (new material orders, re-shooting and taking new pics, listing new items, new banners, policy revisions, etc...) and since I want everything to be perfect, I'm allowing myself about two weeks to accomplish all of this.

It's been a little while since I've posted so I am attempting to play catch-up with all of my networking sites. So this is what's been going on in my life as of late...

Things have suddenly gotten very hectic for me and I am wondering whether it's getting to the point that I should put my shops on vacation mode until thing settle down. Fred had to go into the hospital last week therefore I pretty much ran the house solo. Doing this with three autistic children is very challenging but I managed to pull it off. Now Fred's home and is still recovering so now I have taken on the role as a make-shift nurse as well as a mom not to mention that I'm trying to manage my shops. I really don't want to go on a hiatus but at the same time, I want to be able to provide my customers with quality jewelry and customer service. I don't want to have to compromise between taking care of my home and my business-I want to have ample time to do both, the way that I'm used to doing it.

You see that picture up there?...*Sigh*...I'm very unsatisfied with my camera. I have all of my items made and ready to list for SCJ, Baby Dragon and Emberseed but I HATE all of the pictures. The picture that you see now is one of the better ones. Sad, isn't it? It seems as if my Canon is not working the way that it used to. It is a few years old and it was suggested to me just the other day that I upgrade. so I guess I know where part of my income tax return is going☺

One the plus side I did receive my very first sale at Emberseed just the other day. I've already shipped out the package and I hope that it finds its receipent well.

...So... if you visit and of my shops (1000Market, Etsy Ecrater) within the next few days and you happen to find them empty, it's O.K... I 'll be back soon enough☺

Finding your Target Audience and Making it Work for You

Spending a year on Etsy has provided me with alot of insight with selling online. I officially opened my shop Shannon Cintron Jewelry one year ago. Since then, I've had 76 sales on Etsy. Of those online sales I've never had a negative feedback or a private request for a refund or an exchange. Unfortunately, of those 76 customers, I have no idea of how any of them found my shop. Were they already members of Etsy and wanted to purchase from me? Did they see that I was mentioned in someones blog? Were they just randomly searching the web and found my shop? More importantly-Are these jewelry items for themselves or are they gifts? Why do they want my jewelry? These are questions that could have been easily answered if I'd have just taken a few extra steps to insure that I was familiar with the characteristics of my customer base.

With the arrival of Google Analytics for Etsy, I should be able to roughly tell where the traffic to my Etsy shops are coming from. I'm not very computer savvy so I've yet to implement this feature for my shops-I'm going to try to have it set up by the end of this week. 1000Markets carry in house stats that allow me to see how many visits total compared to how many unique visits which helps a little. Ecrater is also compatible with the GA system. However, all of this info does not "personalize" my visits. I still don't know why #412 visited my shop. Keywords from GA tells me what they searched under but it doesn't tell me if the "brown linen" that they were looking for was for a supply or for a component in one of my bracelets.

According to Wendy Rosen, once you've developed a customer profile it "should become a tool that you use daily". You should also try to expand your customer profile and try to find new directions for your work. Suggested reading: Crafting as a Business by Wendy Rosen pgs. 58-68

Because they are past customers,I would never spam them or send unsolicited material. I feel that opportunity to involve my old customers in that way has passed. Besides spam is yucky☺ However, I can do damage control. One great feature of Etsy is the ability to look through past customers profiles. There, you can find the person who purchased from you , their favorite materials(hint). On their min page you can look through their favorite(hint, hint) and even through all their past purchases(jackpot!) plus the feedback that they left for each purchase(bonus!!).

This information to me is gold-it gives me a detailed profile of my ideal customer. I can view their buying trends-the time of month or year when their purchases increase. I can get an age demographic as well as a demographic in location for my past customers to see in what area and which age group my items are most popular. From past purchases, I can come up with new creations based on a particular material or constant favorite color that is present in some of the items that they've already brought from other shops. No, I'm not talking about "copying" someones work-rather I'm suggesting an new interpretation based on popular material make-up, shape or composition. For example If I see that the majority of my customers tend to purchase items that have the color red in it then I would simply create an item of jewelry that has the color red in it. If the demand was high enough, I could even create an entire collection based around that color. I've come to realize that like my customers, I love natural materials, fabrics and beads so it isn't very hard to come up with items that are appealing to me and them.

With my soon to be new customers and repeat clients I have decided to send out either written or emailed option to receive announcements about my shops. With this option, I plan to send a quick survey to get the full picture about how they found me, what they were looking for and who they were shoping for. I may even offer a small incentive to get the ball rolling for this info.

Doing all of this research(and taking a lot of notes) is time consuming but I believe that it will pay off in the end.

This year I plan to dedicate a large portion of my time to reach out to both old and new customers. By immediately including the new customers and reaching out to past customers an ideal target audience can be established. If you have any other thoughts about this blogpost-please leave a comment below.

Oh oh!...now I've done it...

Happy New Year! I'm really excited about what's in store for me and my businesses in 2009. I've been so busy with preparations I haven't done much blogging or listing in any of my shops. They may look stagnant right now however within three weeks, I anticipate I'll be busy listing for a long time. I have three new items for SCJ that will be available at Etsy, Ecrater and 1000Markets on January 20. BabyDragon is going to get a totally new look...and many, many new items. And, here's the big Oh,Oh....

I've opened a third shop at Etsy by the name of Emberseed. The inspiration for this shop, comes from my interest in botany and the holistic lifestyle. My hopes for this new venture is to bring forth an awareness of natural living. I have not listed anything yet but some of the items in this shop will include scented oils, small home decorations and of course jewelry items. The style of this shop is simple with an hint of nostalgia.

At first I felt very intimidated about taking on another shop because of time and cost. However I thought about it and felt that this shop would allow me to become more creative with my use of available materials, display my other crafting talents and share my enthusiasm about natural living. Also, after a little research, I am convinced that there is a strong market for the items that I will be selling on Etsy.

Emberseed will officially make it's "debut" on January 21st. I will also have a blog dedicated to Emberseed coming soon. You can see pics of my preparations for Emberseed at my Flickr page on January 6.

On January 12 I will continue with my series on business building and will focus on finding your target audience.

Take care☺

What is Style?

I was browsing early this morning-can't sleep because of a slight toothache-and I came across this article that talks about my first improvement point from my last post:

http://naia-artists.org/resources/Newspaper/Issue4/Page11.htm


It's a great article and it pretty much validates what I've been thinking all along. I often wonder however, what separates style from trend and can you ever incorporate the two in order to reach a larger consumer base without alienating loyal customers. For example, if you've ever seen a United Colors of Benetton ad or have seen the tribal photography of National Geographic I'd say I pretty much like that style. Many of my family and friends (and some of my local customers) are into styles like Baby Phat and Rocawear. They've always expressed admiration for my work whenever they see a new creation of mine. Nevertheless , its often been a struggle to modify my jewelry to fit their taste without compromising my own creativity. How do you feel about this? Feel free to post your thoughts and comments.

A Year Older and Wiser...I hope

Today is my birthday and for the last few days I've been reflecting on how my life's path is going. Right now I feel at peace about where I am spiritually, mentally and with my family and friends. At the same time I also feel a sense of urgency and motivation to go on to the next level with my business in jewelry making and design. Lately, I've been reading a book called Crafting as a Business by Wendy Rosen and I'm beginning to find it to be a very resourceful tool.

My jewelry, at first, was offered to myself, family and close friends. Soon others that noticed my work started to want to buy my creations. After a while I finally got up the courage to do my first small home party and to my surprise it was successful-that is, I made a small profit-enough to treat my family to a pizza dinner the next night, at least. I was still working out my pricing formula and it seemed that I was selling jewelry just to have to buy more supplies to make more jewelry. I wanted to get out of that cycle. Not only that, I was struggling with trying to figure out my packaging and business image, how to obtain materials at a wholesale price, figuring out how to obtain a business licenses, and so on and so on...

I finally sat down with a mentor of mine by the name of Elizabeth Agte. I'd attended a workshop of hers once that taught PMC and I regularly visit her booth whenever she does Artwalk. She pretty much broke it down for me-as far as obtaining a DBA in NY, how to avoid overrated craft shows that would have more resale vendors than crafters and how to avoid consignment shops and boutiques that would have your creations sitting in a pile of dust or becoming "lost"while they pushed sales for their "friends" and colleagues artwork.

Joining Etsy was and still is a sort of experiment for me. I wanted to see for one thing if people besides my closest companions would be interested in buying my work. I also wanted to see how others who also created jewelry were pricing their work. I've learned a lot from selling online but to be honest, I wish that when I first started I would have been more prepared. I actually studied Etsy as well as other eccomerce sites to see how things were done for a whole year before I opened up shop and I still had not put everything that I needed to in place.

Some things that I would have done different in the beginning:

1. Streamlined and developed my product. At first I was all over the place making things just because I knew how. I realized after a while that I needed to focus on a certain style for my work...something that would make my items recognizable to people. This does not apply just to the product but also to the details from the packaging to the business cards.(I'm still working on the details☺)

2. Find my customers. I know there are people out there like myself who love the eclectic, primitive, ethereal, natural, artistic sort of bohemian look(that's a mouthful). I just needed to find who they were and what they were willing to spend for my jewelry. My very first sale on Etsy was for a customer in Australia-a place known for its tribal art and influences.

3. Finding the value of my work. I was barely making a profit at first and I knew I had to reevaluate my prices if I was going to try to make this work as a business. I created a list of materials that I would use that would bring value to my work. For example, in my SCJ shop, I am using only sterling silver, raw brass and gold filled beads and components, gemstones,pearls natural beads and natural fibers. Any other materials or components placed in my work will be secondary-the majority of each of my jewelry pieces will consist of the more valuable material. I watch the silver market and keep up on the latest offers from my suppliers to let me know when is the best time to purchase more. In the near future, I plan to incorporate quality karat gold and other items (a surprise) into my work. Along with the time,techniques,methods and design process that I go through, I am able to come up with a fair value for my work which gives me a good profit and gives my customers a piece of my artwork at a good price.

These are just three things that I have or am working on. I'll be discussing more in the future (you'll see an opinion poll pop up once or twice here in the coming year). I'm anticipating that by my next birthday that I'll have become even more attuned to the needs of my customer base and how I want to represent myself and my work to the public.

About Baby Dragon

Let me introduce you to Baby Dragon. I've only mentioned her once briefly in my very first blog post but now I think its time that you've become more acquainted with her...

Baby Dragon started out as a little girl born in 1992. My daughter, LaNina when she first emerged into the world came out crying and growling. Afterwards, whenever she was hungry or needed a change she would start up with her signature growling and huffing cry. My family promptly nicknamed her Baby Dragon. At age 16 she has long since grown out of this but the nickname still stuck. Of course she's forbidden me to use it in public.

Baby Dragon has now become collaborative works created by me and my daughter. These works can range from jewelry to house decor. We've decided to house our shops at two sites; one at Etsy and the other at Ecrater under the Shannon Cintron Jewelry site. Our weekly trips to the local craft store are a real treat for us. We love experimenting with new materials and equipment and we especially like to reuse and upcycle things. Because jewelry making is our favorite creative outlet, you will see that our jewelry creations dominate the majority of each shop. We also, however, offer small home decor and stationary items at Etsy.

LaNina, along with my other two children, has autism. With all of my children , I encourage them to be the best at what they have a passion and drive for. I put no limits to their abilities and I expect them not to either. All of my children have a creative niche-both of my sons like to sculpt and build with clay -and at every opportunity, I try and nurture their interests by exposing them to all types of skill building and social networks related to whatever we're learning about. We are regulars at our community centers and museums. Along with my husband, we take nature walks, go on road trips to unfamiliar areas and do other things so that they are constantly challenged and stimulated.

LaNina comes up with amazing ideas. Right now, in our Etsy shop, we have a series of jewelry pieces inspired by rock crystal formations. She came up with the concept and I helped to execute the design. We used the items that were immediately available to us and all and all we think that they came out lovely.

Our contributuions to Baby Dragon are equal and valuable. You will see that as my daughter grows and her ideas evolve, the look of Baby Dragon will change yet stay fresh, trendy and new and just like when she was a baby, it will be hard for me to keep up with her-creatively, that is☺