Shopping Etsy Using the Etsy Iphone App

Hello, all!  Today's post is a quick tutorial of sorts. In a recent post on the Etsy News Blog, Etsy unveiled that they've reached 30 million members strong and that mobile traffic is now accounting for 45% (and rising!) of Etsy site visits.  If those figures blow your mind, you're not alone. One of the challenges of running a successful shop on Etsy is being able to meet the needs of both the standard PC customer and the mobile user. (Etsy has even published a more recent post to help sellers cater to their mobile customer.) My shop, Risky Beads, and many, many others have an even bigger challenge - catering to the customer who's buying personalized gifts on their iPhone. Last year, I had several customers contact me asking for help while shopping on their phones, and some of their questions, I didn't know the answer to. This year, I asked and asked until I got the answers I needed.  Today's tutorial is just a quick run through about how to delete something from your cart on the Etsy iPhone app and how/where to leave a note to seller about personalization, etc.

Please note that I can't use my own shop as an example because I can't 'buy' from myself (lol), so I'm using a shop called Caribbean Scents.  Ana, the owner, is wonderful and always takes care of my frenetic handmade lotion needs!  {See end of post for coupon at her shop!} So, in this example, we're going to assume that I've shopped within the Etsy iPhone app and put 4 of her products in my cart:

Notice the 'X' in the gray bar?  You can use that to delete the entire order from your cart. But we don't want to do that!  So, after careful consideration, I've decided to remove the first item.  All I have to do is swipe my finger across the blue bottle listing and a red delete button pops up:

Once I tap 'delete,' I get a different screen asking if I want to delete this item or move it to my favorites on Etsy:

For this example, I'm going to tap 'yes' and then next we see my cart without that item in it:

Now, the second item in the cart is a linen spray where I need to select the fragrance. Since it wasn't an option in a drop down menu prior to carting the item, I'm going to leave my request in the notes to seller area. You have to scroll down to see this box:

See right above the green bar?  That's where I write my scent preference. The same goes for any shop you're buying from that needs information from you to process your order such as color, size, length, scent, flavor, etc. Etsy only supports 2 drop down choices within a listing, so when a seller needs more info, you use that blank white box to fill it.

Hope this tutorial has been instructive and helps some of you this holiday season! I know it will help me for sure!!  And as a bonus, Ana from Caribbean Scents is offering a 10% off coupon at her Etsy shop. Use code TROPICAL13 for 10% off. Enter it in the white coupon code box in your cart!

Take care, Lori

Recent Handmade Purchase - Caribbean Scents Soy Candles

It's once again time to gush about a recent purchase!  I do this periodically as it's become a crucial step in my Retail Therapy, lol. Today's praise comes from a seller I've bought from before--Caribbean Scents on Etsy! Since I've been getting uber-busy again with Mother's Day, Graduation, Father's Day, etc., I decided to splurge and spoil myself with my favorite drug of choice--handmade bath and body goodies.  As I've said before, I'm hard-core addicted to the Brown Sugar Fig scent Ana makes.  I've tried similar scents from other shops, and they literally made by stomach turn.  Not Ana's.  Ana's makes me so freaking happy.  (Don't ever let anyone tell you aromatherapy doesn't have some truth in it.)

So, this time I decided to try her soy candles because, like I said, spoiling myself.... I bought 2. One in a glass jar and one in a little tin. They both smell unbelievable. This candle in the glass jar, though...well, I think I'm in love. It has a wooden wick which is something I haven't tried before, but I'm hooked now. When you burn it, the wood adds a trace of a fireplace scent and it actually crackles a little. For real. At night when I'm trying to wind down, I burn it for a few minutes in the darkness of my bedroom. Peace in a jar, I tell ya. Peace. In. A. Jar.

Know that my effusive praise comes only from the heart when I brag about these products. I do it because I enjoy it, and I figure, you might enjoy it, too.  It's fun to lurk and see what other people buy, isn't it?

~Lori

Recent Handmade Purchase-Body Frosting from Caribbean Scents on Etsy

Well, it's Friday, and what better day to pontificate effusively about my recent Body Frosting purchase from Caribbean Scents on Etsy? I am always on the hunt for the perfectly aroma-therapeutic bath and body experience and this one did NOT disappoint! I like it when bath and body shops offer sample sizes because try as I might, I can never get the scent feature on my monitor to work. ;-) So, I opted for 4 samples of body frosting for $7. I chose Brown Sugar, Lime Crystal Kisses, Pineapple Coconut, and Ginger Peach.

I'm impressed with this cream. It moisturizes well and doesn't feel at all greasy. I've also noticed a small improvement in my skin. I say 'small' because anyone who uses as much handmade soap and lotion as I do, already has sufficiently drenched skin, lol. Of the 4 scents I purchased, my least favorite is Pineapple Coconut; it's not quite pineapple-ly enough for me. (I'm ALL about the fruit!) I'm very pleased with the Lime Crystal Kisses and the Ginger Peach. It's pretty hard to mess up lime, and the Ginger Peach is a really interesting scent. It has a little kick to it that I really like. (Yes, I know that's the ginger, lol.)

You can sort of tell from the picture above that Brown Sugar is my favorite! And when I say favorite, that's an understatement! I LOVE this scent. I'm an Om gal, a discontinued scent from The Gap that you can only find on Ebay on the second Tuesday of every week and while I still have some left, I'm also searching for a comparable scent to take over when my dealer runs out of it. Brown Sugar might just be it. Ana, the shop owner, describes it as: a magical, complex fragrance composed of top notes of Fresh figs, peaches, and passion fruit; followed by middle notes of coconut milk, vanilla orchid, jasmine, muguet, and freesia; well-balanced with base notes of vanilla beans, caramel, maple sugar, fig leaves, and musk. Now I've purchased similarly described scents on Etsy before and many of them have gone right in the trash because they were harsh and overbearing. I like my perfumes to warm to my skin and make you wonder why I smell so good rather than make your nose implode on your face. This Brown Sugar is delightfully mysterious, and while I realize how goofy that sounds, it's just the truth!

Hope you enjoyed yet another foray into my penchant for purchasing! Be nosy and read about what else I buy. More confessions coming soon....

~Lori