Scoutmob says:

It’s the holidays. You’re in gift-buying, festive party-planning, dining out with friends mode. So what better time of year to jump aboard the Scoutmob “shop indie”" bandwagon? Make a decision to support independent shops and restaurants, using the Scoutmob app as a compass to discover the best small businesses at a great price near you.

Plus, when you sign up, you’re entered to win one of three Etsy shopping sprees. Enter to win here.

What handmade sellers or independent businesses are you buying from this year? Let us know your favorites in the comments below.

Etsy is sponsoring two 3-day passes to this year’s Summit of Awesome!

Want to enter to win? First check out the schedule and speaker line-up, then leave a comment below (including an email address where we can reach you) telling us the one session, workshop or Craftnote you would be most excited to see. Make sure to include why attending would help your crafty business, increase your inspiration or just be the most fun!

You have until 5pm on this Friday, 10/14 to enter, and winners will be notified that evening. Winners will be responsible for their transportation and accommodations.

Even if you don’t win, Summit passes are still available. Get your three, two or one-day passes today! And make sure you’re ready for holiday sales success with Etsy’s Holiday Boot Camp.

Good luck!

Update: this contest is now closed.

Now on sale are one and two-day passes to the Summit of Awesome! These are perfect for attendees who have time commitments and cannot make all three days of the conference or are only interested in experiencing certain programming. You can purchase your pass of choice to the Summit of Awesome here.

You can view the full schedule here to learn about the speakers and workshops taking place each day.

The Two-Day Summit Pass is for Thursday, October 20 and Friday, October 21. The pass priced at $150 gives you access to any of our learning sessions and workshops taking place on those days.

The One-Day Summit Pass is for your choice of Thursday, October 20, Friday, October 21 or Saturday, October 22. The price for a pass on Thursday or Friday is $100. The price for a pass on Saturday is $50.

Also new this year are special one-on-one sessions to either get your Etsy shop critiqued with Danielle Maveal, Etsy’s Seller Education Lead or pitch your craft book with literary agent Kate McKean! These sessions are both 15 minutes and Summit of Awesome registration is required to purchase a one-on-one session. You can choose the day you prefer to have your session and you will be assigned a slot and your session time will be emailed to you prior to the Summit.

Passes to the Summit of Awesome can be purchased here now. More information about the conference including speaker lineup, schedule and travel information is available here.

The Make Something Awesome Area nestled under the roof covering of the Marie Reed Learning Center was the warmest, coziest spot in all of the fair.

At the Hello Craft booth, shared with Etsy, we also had a giveaway for those who signed up for the Hello Craft mailing list.

Those winners are:

1 of 4 Craft Books
Katie Harley
Christina Parisi
Sam Gangwer
Jaime Joy

1 of 3 Notebooks
Julia Robinson
Ashley Garcia
Chelsea Merchant

The Make Something Awesome Area is made possible from a 2011 grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities under the Small Projects Program.

The grant allows Hello Craft to bring the Make Something Awesome Area to different events all over the District of Columbia.

You can see more photos from the Make Something Awesome Area at Crafty Bastards in the Hello Craft flickr.

Interested in submitting a project to the Make Something Awesome Area in 2011-2012? Email info[at]hellocraft[dot]com for more information.

Snacks and drinks will be provided and it is free to attend. More information is available here.

How To Sell Your Work To Boutiques, Part 1: Getting Your Foot In the Door
Vianza
For many crafters who want to take their business to the next level, selling wholesale or consignment to brick and mortar shops is large but necessary step. Although it can be daunting, andis a financial risk, the rewards – both monetary and promotional – can be great. In this Viana article by Abby Kerr, many tips are laid out on how to approach and work with retailers, which should be added to any business plan.

Every Little Bit ~ Betz White on Zero-Waste in the Sewing Industry
Sew, Mama, Sew!
If you’re into the needle craft, sewer extraordinaire, Betz White, shares some fantastic ideas, on how to truly stay green with you craft by elminating as much waste as possible. From using digital patterns to applying no-cutting techniques, as well as upcycling household items (turn your pillow case into a nifty apron), White provides simple instructions on how to flex your creative muscle while saving a little corner of the environment.

Crafty Wonderland’s Super Colossal Spring Sale
Portland’s Art + Craft Extravaganza
Ever since our 2010 Summit of Awesome, we’ve had a love affair with everything Portland, Oregon. If you’re out that way, we implore you to stop by Crafty Wonderland’s Super Colossal Spring Sale (one-day only – May 7th) , to peruse and buy cool handmade goods, make crafts all day at the Collage table, and meet and greet several crafty authors, including Heidi Kenney, Susan Beal and Cathy Callahan.

Crafting a Career on the Road (and On Stage)
Torontoist
Life on the road in any sense can be hard, but comedian, crafter and blogger, Becky Johnson, makes it look awesome. In this Torontoist post, Johnson’s fascinating life is put in the spotlight: As a traveling comedian who started knitting, crocheting, and button-making as a part-time business, Johnson took her life on the road as an opportunity to sell her crafts, start The Sweetie Pie Press blog/shop and create Toronto’s favorite winter fair, City of Craft. She also recently got Kickstarter funding to get back on the road for an interactive crafting/blogging tour. This busy dame is definitely someone to check out.

Can Rob Kalin Scale Etsy?
Inc.com
If you sell on Etsy, you need to read this article by Max Chafkin. It’s a thought-provoking, behind the scenes look at Etsy, that includes a look at its investors, profit and where Founder, Rob Kalin, wants to take it the company as a whole. the article focuses on the main problem that plagues many business: How do you grow while thinking small?

Image by Etsy user LuciusArt

We live in the era of the viral video — where shaky, pixelated home movies can create instant celebrity, launch an unexpected trend, or simply fill your lunch hours with really cute baby animals. Just take a gander at the number of hits under the latest video du jour to see how their cultural relevance rivals that of the latest New York Times headline. But according to this very informative article on OpenForum, they’re also an effective, unrecognized tool for small business owners. When you think about it, it makes sense that their popularity and capacity for instantaneous broadcasting could mean bank for getting your message out and building your client base. So fire up your Flip Cam — here’s some insight on how to tap into the power of the online video to create a community of customers, start new conversations with your audience, and add a personal angle to your online presence.

1. Encourage your Customers to Submit Videos

You know the feeling that washes over you when you’ve found the item that you’ve been searching for? That beautifully made, perfectly designed product at the ideal price? We know your customers have felt that way about your goods, and there’s nothing like genuine enthusiasm — so why not leverage it as marketing material? The brilliance of requesting and using these user submissions is three-fold. Sure, there’s the obvious: Free, third-party promotion! But on a deeper level, it’s about building a customer’s relationship to your brand and your goods, and letting them know you value their feedback.

Creating a video is a unique way for your customers to play a role in the success of your business. All of the sudden your pottery isn’t a pretty handmade dish they bought offline — it’s the pottery they filmed themselves using to bake a pie, then sent to you, the creator of that pie dish. It’s a creative and fun way to engage customer — client dialogue, and extend their relationship with your business past the point of sale. It also serves as a backhanded method for customer service. Asking for their submissions is a way to tell your clients that you view them as people, not just Visa Card numbers. It also shows that you care about their experience with your product.  Requesting creative involvement and personal, open dialogues with your customers will tie them to your business, and can build a solid, invested and happy community around your wares.

To see this in action, take a look at Bernina USA’s sewing machines. They’re including customers in their marketing efforts by requesting video applications for their Brand Ambassador Competition, a campaign that involves bloggers in the creation and promotion of Bernina’s brand development. It’s a brilliant way for Bernina to get a fresh take on their product promotion, invest customers in their business, and tap into those customers’ personal networks.

2. Say it with Video: Use the Camera Instead of Written Content

What would you rather do? Sit down with friends over drinks or text them tidbits of your life over the course of an evening?  Allow your customers to get to know you, much as they would over a cup of joe,  by adding your face and personality to your online presence. Instead of writing 4 paragraphs on how excited you are about your most recent project, consider showing your reader through video.  Check out this video update from Rachel Pfeffer on her blog Cut, Paste, Repeat for an example. Her humor and personable nature gives you a genuine sense of her personality, which make her jewelry charming in any viewer’s eye. The video also allows the audience to view the scale, dimensions and sparkle of her rings in ways that pictures can’t fully capture.

Additionally, easily distracted readers will welcome your audio-visual break from scanning endless blog posts. It may be a lot faster and more enjoyable to sit for an entertaining short than tackle a 500 word news brief. With everything on the internet competing for our attention, it’s great to stir the pot by supplying your audience with these different and personal forms of content.

3. Tutorials or other How To’s

Have you ever wondered how something is made? In the handmade community that’s probably a frequent query! Online tutorials satisfy that natural curiosity about your product, as well as showcase some of the awesome expertise you pour into making it. It also adds to the story behind your business, because it shows exactly how you’re creating your wares yourself. That doesn’t mean you have to reveal all of your secrets — just an intriguing insight into your process, or an example of a small project that will draw viewers in. For example, Craftzine featured She-Weld Studios demonstrating how to weld a simple steel paper towel holder. The fire proof goggles, smoldering ovens and physical labor behind it’s creation adds a fascinating (and badass) behind the scenes view of an otherwise average kitchen product. So show a little bit of your daily life as a maker — it invites your customers into your world, and adds another interesting back story to your items.

4. Face Time — Customer Support or Contact Through Video Chat

Work Hard and Be Nice to People from Reform School Rules

Making yourself available for customer support, and generally appearing like an open and positive business person can add to your brand and be a winning factor behind your wares. Video chatting indicates that you care about your product and customers enough to sit down, one on one, and really chat about whatever issue is at hand.  Answering questions via email is okay, too — we all have busy schedules — but providing that face to face option lets everyone know you mean business. A great example of virtual customer service comes from the folks over at Etsy’s Virtual Labs, who make it a priority to connect with users by critiquing shops, providing advice and answering questions as if you were in their Brooklyn headquarters. The result is a personal experience that makes the customer feel like their voice and business matters  — and a valued customer is usually a returning one.

Would you like to share an experience with online videos? Have you had any success with them yourself? Please feel free to comment below!

Is this man your favorite customer? (Screenshot from "The Room")

I loved all the responses and discussion my last post tipped off about discounts and whether makers should use them. As discussed in the comments, there’s a time and a place for coupons and discounts—one great example is using discounts to reward frequent customers for their support.

So who are your most valuable customers? I’m not just talking about hermione3918 who buys out all your Gryffindor scarves. I mean more generally—who are the kind of people who buy from you? What are they like?

Creating customer profiles—mini bios of fictional people based on the folks who buy your goods most frequently—is really helpful and seriously fun. This marketing trick is used in lots of fields, but especially in magazine publishing (which is my day job). If you search for magazines’ reader profiles, some of the info from media kits will be heavy on statistics. But a lot of magazines create ideal readers, who they keep in mind as they plan coverage, write headlines or consider redesigns.

When you know exactly who you’re speaking to, writing descriptions of your items and creating a Facebook fan page gets a lot easier. Does your audience have a sense of humor or are they stoic? Are they prim and proper or super casual?

For an example, my three “customers” are Allie, Diane and Jackson. Like cameo characters on “Law and Order,” these people are fictitious and any similarity to actual people is purely coincidental.

• Allie is a college student with just a few bucks, but she’s got a nerdy sense of humor and is likely to stockpile funny handmade cards and stickers. She’s probably got artist or writer tendencies herself—$10 says she is or was an English major. She shops at Trader Joe’s and reads McSweeney’s and the Onion. (The bulk of my customers are Allies.)
• Diane is an upper-middle-class lady who likes to support local arts organizations and buys presents for her friends—sometimes a bunch of handmade books at a time. She’s retired but doesn’t identify with the “ladies who lunch.” She shops at Whole Foods and reads a printed newspaper. (About 20 percent of my customers are Dianes.)
• Jackson is a middle-aged guy who seems out of place at a craft show. But he’s really into craftsmanship and asks a lot of questions. He comes of as not that interested then out of left field makes a big purchase. He shops at Kroger and reads nonfiction books mainly. (About 5 percent of my customers are Jacksons.)

What does this mean for my business? When I’m making new things, I consider how my core audience of three would like it. Try writing up some customer profiles yourself! You might have one core type, or a half-dozen. Start thinking about the customers you meet at craft shows or the shoppers at stores you consign with, and ask yourself these questions:

• Where do they live?
• What do they do for a living?
• Do they have kids? Pets?
• How old are they?
• How much money do they make?
• How much do they spend on handmade items?
• What do they like to read, watch or listen to?
• Do they ride the bus or a bike or have a car?
• Why are they so into your work?
• What other things do they like?

Take a little time to brainstorm about your most valuable customers, and I hope you’ll post one of your mini bios in the comments!

(vintage Kmart tag photo by Roadsidepictures)

“$22 for $35 worth of letterpress cards!” I get so mad when I encounter crafters selling their wares at ridiculous discounts. And recently a spate of handmade discounting schemes has popped up, making me fear the Walmartization of crafts has begun.

First up, Heartsy.me is like Groupon for handmade goods. Vendors apply to offer a deal—which must be at least 50 percent off—and the site’s members vote on which should be accepted. Selected sellers create gift certificates, which Heartsy buys off you and promotes on their site.

Quite Unique is more of a traditional wholesale situation. The site offers a daily deal poised to sell out fast—“one unique handpicked item per day at a great value.” It’s the “great value” part that smacks of big-box discounters to me. (Is craftsmanship not valuable at full price?)

And, of course, Etsy introduced coupon functionality on the site in November 2010. You pick the discount you want to offer and go hog wild.

Shoppers are primed to react to discounts. (If you’re into social history, I highly recommend Ellen Ruppel Shell’s book Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture.) But discounts are largely a phenomenon of the era of mass production—it pains me to see handmade items’ prices slashed like off-brand iPods. Will discounts boost your Etsy sales? Maybe. But I think they’ll do crafters much more harm than good in the long run, for these three reasons.

1. Discounts make you undervalue your time.
Crafters are already notorious at underselling themselves. Too often, we simply price our goods at what we consider the going rate, rather than taking into consideration the cost of materials plus the cost of your time and any overhead you have. I fully believe in making a living wage, and I believe every crafter should do the same. (If you think I sound ranty now, just read pages 27 through 30 of my book.) More than likely, you’re already selling your work for too little. If you discount it any further, you could even be losing money.

When there are dozens of people selling similar things on Etsy, you may think you have to lower your prices to compete. But I think a customer is more likely to save up to buy a pair of steampunk owl earrings that they really love for $55 than spend $5 on a pair that’s marked down from $10.

2. Discounts don’t draw the kind of customers you want to have an LTR with.
You might think a buck’s a buck, but fair-weather shoppers who only buy when it’s cheap aren’t the kind of customers you can count on. Discounts don’t create repeat customers—they only create customers who expect more sales.

If you consistently offer discounts on your handmade items, what incentive does a shopper have to ever pay full price? We need to focus on educating buyers of handmade items why our products are priced what they’re priced, and why they’re worth it. Creating personal connections with customers is what handmade is all about.

If you’re struggling to make sales, maybe you don’t have a solid idea of who your audience is yet. Are your products appealing more to college students or empty-nest moms? Spendthrift yuppies or up-and-coming country folks? When you know who your customers are, you can figure out how to best reach them, and what prices they’ll pay. Discounts won’t do that for you.

3. Discounts cheapen your brand.
Let’s face it: Most handmade goods are luxuries. They’re lovely nonessentials that people buy because they want to—whether driven by wanting to support a small business, to consume more ethically or simply to have beautiful things. When you’re a craftsperson, being the cheapest isn’t going to help your business. Making quality products—and pricing accordingly—will.

Think about it this way—do you want to be a discount store shampoo brand, selling economy-size bottles of shampoo for $3 with a 25-cent-off coupon? Strive to be Aveda: Making and selling high-quality, beautiful products that attract a clientele that doesn’t need a discount incentive to be convinced to buy from you.