TrendyGal

Soon after I became aware of Heartsy I was on a mission… a mission to be featured on their site. Here is attempt #1:

I submitted my first request for a deal when the Craftzine article about Heartsy was published, right when Heartsy’s population surged. When I submitted my deal the rules where simple, get 30 “yes” votes from potential customers, and then if we can agree on a deal, you will be featured. PERFECT. I submitted my deal, got 76 “yes” votes and soon got an email saying that another email with the “next steps” was on its way. Wonderful, this couldn’t be easier. I sat back and waited and waited and waited for the “next steps” email. It never came. A vacation that I had planned started to creep up on me and I was worried that my deal would be scheduled for when I was out of town, so I emailed the Heartsy staff. Congrats on your 76 votes they said! We will be flexible on the time frame of your deal, don’t worry we will be in touch soon.  So I waited some more.

About 3 weeks after my congratulations email, I received another email from Heartsy saying too bad, so sad, we changed the rules. No! I was Heart broken. Turns out, too many people received 30+ yes votes so they asked a handful of their most frequent customers to secretly vote on my deal and they voted a big fat no. A secret vote? I was betrayed.

As a consultation prize they gave me a $5 gift certificate to their site which I huffed and puffed about and then eventually used.

I brushed off my bruised ego, read the new rules and resubmitted my JamJewelryShop Etsy store for consideration.

For those of you who have not heard of Heartsy, it is more or less a Groupon for handmade deals on Etsy. They offer gift certificates for selected Etsy shops ranging from 50% -65%. Heartsy’s popularity surged after an article was written about them on the Craftzine blog, in fact that is how I found the site.

Heartsy has anywhere from 400-600 artists “competing” for a chance to have a deal with them at any given point. In order to be considered for a spot for a “daily deal” one has to submit pictures of their handmade work to the site and then customers “vote” on what items they would like to see a deal on. After 3 days of voting, based on the number of votes a shop receives, they either proceed to a manual evaluation by Heartsy staff and ‘frequent customers’ or they get denied all together and the artist can decide if they would like to resubmit their deal for consideration.

When I first became aware of the site a deal had to have 3o “yes” votes in order to be considered for a deal. Now, the minimum number of votes has gone up to 60 and I suspect they will soon be increasing that number.

So, what’s the verdict on Heartsy? I think it’s a kick ass idea. I know there has been a lot of debate on whether or not Heartsy is good for the handmade community, but I believe it is. I do not think that it devalues handmade. In fact, now with money tighter than ever, I think it’s a great way to be seen by many and give people the opportunity to sell off their over stock. I have bought 2 Heartsy deals and have been very pleased with the process and the items I have received. What are your thoughts?

With the holidays approaching I have been brainstorming ways to easily sell gift certificates to my JAM Jewelry Shop Etsy store. Many methods I have come across involve selling a gift certificate in your shop (and paying an Etsy sellers fee), having the customer put a unique gift certificate code in the message to the seller when using the gift certificate (and paying another Esty sellers fee) and then sending a revised invoice for the amount the customer still owes and waiting for payment.  This not only takes a lot of time, but also requires that you pay 2 Etsy seller fees (one for the gift certificate and one for the actual item the gift certificate is being used on).

Instead, try adding a PayPal Gift Certificate Button to your Facebook Fan Page. Paypal will do all of the work for you including designing the Gift Certificate, mailing it to the customer and managing the gift certificate balances.

To see what the end result looks like (or to purchase a JAM Jewelry Shop Gift Certificate) click here:

http://www.facebook.com/craftychick101fans?v=app_4949752878

Steps for Selling Gift Certificates for your Etsy Shop through your Facebook Fan Page:

1. Log into your PayPal account and click the “Merchant Services” tab near the top of the screen.
2. Towards the center of the page you will see a section that says “Create Buttons” and underneath that a link that says “Gift Certificate”.  Click the “Gift Certificate” link.
3. Paypal will then give you step by step instructions on how to set up your gift certificate. Here is a helpful hint: You can customize your gift certificates to have your Etsy banner or logo on them to give them a more personal touch. Under the “Gift Certificate Style” section there is an option to “Add URL for logo image”. To do this, go to your Etsy shop and view your public shop. Right click on your banner and select “View Image”. The web address of this next page is what you want to add as you URL Logo Image in PayPal.
4. When you are done imputing all of your information, click the “create button” button at the bottom of the page. This will lead you to the link you will import into your Facebook Fan Page.
5. Go to your Facebook Fan page and on the administrative side under “Applications” click “Browse More”.
6. Search for “Static FBML” and click the first option that comes up.
7. On the left hand side click “Add to My Page”.
8. Follow the directions Facebook gives you from here. You can name the tab anything you like, I have named mine “Gift Certificates”. Enter the code you got from Paypal on this page as well as any text you want to include that your customers will see.

That’s all there is to it! Now you can easily sell gift certificates to your Etsy shop online.

I hope you found this useful! If you liked this Etsy selling tip please comment and share with your friends!

Yesterday, September 25th, the Rings & Things World Bead Tour came to Boston. I purchase some of my sterling silver findings from them, so I was ecstatic when I got an invitation in the mail last month.

The show was in Burlington MA, at a hotel convention center and ran from 12-4.

We walked in and were immediately greeted with an explanation of the process and a tray for holding my strands of beads. When I walked into the room, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were tables lined up with strands and strands of beads.

The whole thing was a little overwhelming and Justin and I decided to step aside to have a quick “team meeting”. We decided we would go through all the tables and put anything we were considering on our trays. Once we had what we liked, we would go through again and narrow the beads down to what we would actually buy. Let me tell you, in the initial round through the room my bead tray filled up very fast.

I went through my tray several times and finally narrowed down my selection, but I knew I should probably narrow it down a little more. I use Swarovski Crystallized Elements and Sterling Silver in all of my designs and unfortunately, they had a very small selection of both of those things. That meant my tray was filled with items I didn’t need.

Justin and I discussed it and we decided that it would be OK to expand the jewelry selection in our shop, but the new jewelry would have to meet some very important criteria:

1. The new jewelry would need to fit in and flow nicely with all of the other jewelry currently in our line AND
2. Quality is still our number #1 priority. We are not expanding into plated metals and whatever beads, gemstones, etc. that we find must be top notch.

It was painful, but I put all of my gemstones back. The pretty purple Jade, the dyed blue Agate, the small Peridot beads that would be great for spacers… all went back onto the tables.  Sad, but necessary.

At the end of the day we still ended up with quite a haul. We decided to expand our shop to include some Cubic Zirconia beads… very sparkly and high quality… like the rest of our shop.  At the last minute we also found a stash of Swarovski Crystallized pearls… something we had been meaning to try anyway.  All in all, it was a great experience for our crafting business!

Interested in attending the Rings and Things Bead Tour when it comes to your area? Check out this link for their schedule:

http://www.rings-things.com/Show/index.html