I've Joined A New Etsy Team

I’ve always wanted to know what an Etsy Team is and now I’m going to figure out Etsy once and for all (and maybe actually sell some stuff)! I’ve been an Etsy seller (accentyourself)since the summer of 2007, but that doesn’t actually mean I sell on Etsy. Of my 11 sales, only five of them were actual pieces of jewelry (all of them the same item, too!), three were handmade components, and the rest were beads I wanted to get rid of. Of course, you can’t just join Etsy, open a shop, then expect the sales cash to come rolling in – it requires actual effort! Since I’m not the poster child for “Etsy Effort & Marketing”, I joined this group and hope to improve my status as an Etsian! Yeah, I’m pretty pathetic . . . but oddly enough, there are others in my same situation – I’m not alone!

Our Group

Our new team – SATEAM (Starving Artists Team) – is made up of members of the Starving Jewelry Artists Forum and formed in November 2008. The forum was started by a friend of mine a few years ago, and we’ve continued to grow and offer great information on metalsmithing techniques, seed beading, bead making, jewelry business, and more. We left out the “jewelry” in our Etsy team title to encourage participation from other artists and mediums. We’d like to be more diverse eventually.

Our fearless leader is Laurel Peters, aka Lavalleygirl. At the time I wrote this article, she has sold over 500 items in her shop(s) in a short amount of time – she joined Etsy in April 2007. I’d consider that quite a success and would take all the advice I could get from her. Along with Laurel, there are several other members who are volunteering their time with various tasks associated with organizing and running a successful Etsy team.


So, what is a Team?

An Etsy Team is an organized group of sellers who help market & promote each other, mentor newbies, offer critiques on shops (descriptions, tags, titles, etc.), photography tips . . . basically any information to help improve your shop & increase sales. Here is a link to the Etsy Team Informational Page. Yes, I’m finding out there is strength in numbers (& diversity). And, I’ll need to actually participate, keep my shop open and stocked, take great photographs, and be open to helping others. I think I can do that!


I'll be posting quite a bit more on this process. I am learning it takes a lot of people to volunteer their time to make a successful Etsy team. We have a variety of tasks, some requiring a lot of effort & time. Here are some of what is required to start an Etsy team . . .



* A leader to apply/submit membership to Etsy Administration.

* Make a team banner/artwork for the shop.

* Approve/add/maintain a member list. Some teams are juried. For now our team is not juried. And, membership will close soon. We are debating on how/when to open membership.

* Open & maintain a Team shop. Ours is SATEAM. We won't be selling anything in there, however, in the profile, there is a listing of all of our current members. So, it needs to be continuously maintained & updated with announcements, sales, membership, etc. (This is one of my duties.)

* Set up & maintain a Team blog. We have a few of our members that will be maintaining our team's blog that will feature members, post photos of work, and have team related articles.

* We also have a Flickr photo pool that features photographs of our members' work. I already had a lot of my jewelry uploaded in my Flickr account, so this wasn't a difficult task for me. It is just another way to network and show your skills! Here is one of my photo sets on Flickr.

*Set-up a separate Etsy forum within the Starving Jewelry Artist forum. This will be an area where we accomplish our tasks, ask for help & critiques, monitor Treasuries, mentor, and general communication. Keep in mind, one of the main reasons for setting up this group is to keep it a friendly place with no cat fighting allowed!

*Set up a mentoring program. Seasoned & experienced Etsy members will help the new ones learn the ropes. This will include everything from setting up an Etsy shop, to taking photographs, to setting up a Flickr account. We will have volunteer mentors for all aspects of Esty.



Whew! That is a lot of work! Luckily, we have a great group of people working together. We've "known" each other through the internet for quite some time, so we are hopeful our team will be very successful together. We've all had our own shops, but banding together will hopefully help us all achieve more sales!


Up next . . . . the fine art of creating a Treasury on Etsy. What is one? Why are they important? What's the big deal? I'll find out and write about it!