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SherriLynn

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  • Makes
    candles soap b&b
  • Location
    Minnesota
  • Occupation
    Boutique owner
  • About You
    I have been a chandler since college days in the early 70's. Owner of a candle and gourmet food business in Central Minnesota featuring Minnesota Grown ingredients. I use MN grown beeswax in my candlemaking.
  • Likes / Dislikes
    Cinnamons, spices, fruits... Dislikes: patchouli, strong florals

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  1. I think my mom has a PSversion 12. I'll check that out for more graphics... and take a lok at the Maestro as well. I order from online all the time, but haven't used the Maestro as of yet. Appreciate your help...
  2. I'm doing a revamp on my labels soon for my lotions, candles, lip balms, soaps and my gourmet foods. I'm currently using Printshop 23, but looking for a newer program to make labels. What label programs are you having the best success with? I'm also looking for some insight on a good "laser" printer. Moving away from the ink jets that are ink guzzlers and that continually print off, not straight or outside of the avery templates that I use. We print about 25,000 labels a year, so looking for something thats a work horse. Appreciate any suggestions...
  3. Our shows this season have been GREAT!! Sales are up... money seems to be flowing a little better. HOWEVER, some of the shows I've been to some of the vendors have not done well. One has to remember to change up products,,,change around the layout of your booth.. etc. So customers have something new and fresh every year to look at. Good luck...
  4. I've had great experience with U-line. Fast service and good quality products.
  5. Hmmmm. interesting that once a year a new poster shows up online and resurrects this email... something goin on here? LOL
  6. Talked with my daughter yesterday about Etsy,.... she says it's the "rave" where she works. A lot of the gals in her office use it and they're always sending links back and forth to each other to look at things to buy. My daughter is 29. The average age of her office staff is about 25... she says there's tons of people that use it. We took a look at the percentages...if we take the CC factor ou (since we use CC at both the store and at shows)t... we're down to about 7% expense, compared to our usual 5% for shows.. but with no time spent in packing, set up and working shows.. think we can justify the additional 2%. Gosh, time is so valuable, it's hard to put a price on it. We were going to try a couple of new shows next year, but it is such a pain seeking out new shows that are profitable. We've been on the road since 1999 and it's taken us years to weed out good shows from poor, but have had a stable run for 8 years now. I'm going to start setting up an Etsy shop today. This past year I set up a new website and hadn't added a shopping cart yet...so we're going to link our site to the Etsy shop for online sales. This might work out pretty well. I'm excited about it... I'd much rather be at my boutique working and jabbering with my customers, than out at shows. Again,, thanks everyone for all your insight on new ways to market and sell merchandise. I'm attending a class next month on internet marketing at St. Thomas College in Minneapolis... my plans are to continue on for 6 more classes to obtain my Internet Marketing certificate. It's my 60th birthday present,,,,to me,,,from me. Will let you's know how that goes.
  7. Thank you all for your comments about selling online. Haven't had time to answer as I've been delivering wholesale today. I don't use Ebay so I haven't a clue as to what they charge, so maybe Etsy is cheap in comparison to them. It just seems when I read the information posted on the Etsy website the amounts and number of fees seem a lot. Old Glory my show/booth rental runs from $350 - $700 for our double booth. Since I own a storefront we only do 7 shows a year , but the shows are all high traffic, large shows that average at least $2500 a day in sales and run anywhere from 3 - 5 days each. I think your probably right about location. My average expenses for shows is well below 10% so I have to scratch my head a little when I think of spending 10 - 15% for online sales. Then again there is a convenience.. no driving, packing, moving, setting up.. etc. Suzy if your making 10 time more than your bill... that's a good profit margin.
  8. I must be missing something on Etsy....in reading their information the rates are HUGE... Just wondering how you support that cost. Do you sell your products at a significantly higher rate that you do at shows or retail store?
  9. I've used a merchant account and paypal in the past. But for the last 3 years I've used Square..... absolutely won't use anything else. Comparable in fees with other merchants. We use it at our storefront as well as craft shows. My daughter and I both have the app on our phones and can take credit cards at the same time at the shows with funds all going into the same account. Love It!!
  10. I sell on FB.. actually my FB page does a great job sending traffic to my website for sales. I had thought of opening an Etsy.. but the fees looks astronomical. More than my budget can afford...
  11. We do one very well established LARGE market. This is our first year back in a FM setting and we're doing very well with our B&B products, our gourmet foods line and our melties. We don't sell candles due to the outside heat factor. Farmers markets have become really flat in many places. Unless its a big or well established market, there are so many markets popping up here and there, every and any day of the week, that markets have become saturated. Weather is very hard on products. Dealing with heat, dust, muggy sticky days so dust/dirt to stick on products in the breeze and there's the rain. Then add the dirty grimy fingers of people walking through markets touching products while they're munching on bratwurst, hot dogs, cotton candy and caramel apples. Yuck!!!!. Sales are doing well enough that repackaging some items has been worth it. We quit doing FM's for a while because of all the "flea market" stuff coming. More and more markets are becoming ravaged by the "flea marketers" so customers think they can barter for pricing. I don't barter... LOL!! Ya wouldn't walk into my storefront and barter..... sheeeesh!! So far this show has held it's integrity with staying with locally grown produce, baked and canned goods and hand crafted items. Probably why it's been so successful. We're picking up more traffic at our storefront with the added sales from the FM. We put flyers in each bag we sell to promote online and storefront sales. Especially since our storefront carries many more items than those we typically carry to the FM.
  12. Signing in doesn't help much with ads.....I see at least 2 ads on the page. I find this new forum not very user friends and VERY hard to read, so I don't come here as much anymore.
  13. I think I'm missing something here on the board. Where do I get rid of all these ads and all this junk littered all over on the board, making it hard to read and use? Am I missing a setting someplace? Thanks..
  14. where to reset password?

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