Why Do I Feature Shops On TWITTER???

I'll tell you why. When I opened my shop in July, I was sooo excited! I just KNEW that I would get my first sale within the week. Well, I didn't. In fact, I didn't get my first sale until October 13! Before that happened I tried to frequent the Etsy forums and quickly learned that I needed to advertise my store OUTSIDE of Etsy. Occasionaly I would even see people posting threads encouraging others to post their shops for a "chance" to be "picked" to be featured on a blog or something. I tried posting my shop, but I was never picked and after being disappointed I decided not to do that anymore. I stumbled upon twitter by way of some discussion threads mentioning it in the forums and quickly learned that twitter could be an awesome way of promoting my shop and others as well. However, I still didn't want to make people feel like they had to be "picked" and I didn't want to promote shops that were always picked. I wanted to focus on the store owners that had the guts to open a shop but unfortunately were buried in the Etsy database of shops. I decided to develop a simple criterion which would give everyone a shot:

~ Promote shops with 5 sales or less

~ Require that they have a Twitter page

~ Tell them to tell all their friends (by doing this, they help promote their
shop as well)

Remember, all multi-million corporations were once the "little guy", but they were fortunate to get their foot-in-the-door and through time their businesses skyrocketed. Hopefully I represent the "little guy" and am trying to do my part in contributing to the success of the handmade movement.

A Message To Handcrafters Everywhere!

So I opened a new shop on Etsy 5 months ago and had such high hopes. I wanted to offer popular designs in knitted and crocheted items, as well as introduce my own designs for the whole world to see. As I tried to settle into the Etsy community, I was very overwhelmed when I visited the forums for the first time. There were people talking about leaving Etsy, and many unheard complaints to the Etsy Administration about the favoritism towards certain Etsy shops and their constant reoccuring appearances on the front page of Etsy. I also noticed the constant question asked by newbies, "am I charging too much?" or "do my prices seem fair?" and even also found myself asking the same question in the forums.

There's so much talk about the economy and how much consumers are "pinching pennies" and how everyone is looking for a bargain. Many consumers are being conditioned to think that they "must" sacrifice quality in order to make ends meet while the lesser quality mass produced items that they purchase fall apart or don't last as long as a better quality item would.

The handmade movement is taking the world by storm, but the handcrafters and artists MUST TAKE A STAND! Don't devalue your work...think about it: if it takes you 8 hours to knit a pair of gloves, why sell them for $10? Those are sweatshop prices! I fell into this trap "thinking" I was charging too much and did that. $10 for 8 hours of work? Heck, you pay more than that to your son to cut your lawn! Never again will I make that mistake! I was told by people in the Etsy forums that my prices were a little high. These same people would not DARE go in Sak's or Tiffany's and tell them to lower their prices...heck, not even Walmart! When you buy something handmade it's much more personal. You can ask questions about the products directly to the artist/crafter and at the time of your purchase, you have confidence in knowing what you purchased was made with great care. So the next time you are looking for something special for yourself, that special gift or an original work of art, look into purchasing something handmade directly from the artist. You will be supporting entrepeneuralship, your next-door neighbor crafter and helping the average business owner survive in the so-called "economic crunch".