Feature Friday with Senioritis

Please give a warm welcome to our fellow Lab Rats - Garrick, Beth and Jillian of Senioritis

Garrick

Where can we find you?

In our ongoing quest to take over the world, senioritis can be found here:

Site: www.senioritis.net

Blog: www.senioritis.co

Etsy: www.senioritis.etsy.com

Famous Senior of The Day: www.thesenioritis.tumblr.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/itmakesyoulazy

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thesenioritis

Flickr: www.flickr.com/thesenioritis

For monthly updates on all things senioritis please feel free to check out our newsletter: www.bit.ly/hellolazy

1) Tell us about yourself, your shop and what brought you to the Etsy community.

Us

Hi, my name is Garrick and I have a design problem.

I started senioritis with my sisters, Beth & Jillian, in 2006. Our childhood was typical. Winters ice fishing in the Pacific Northwest and summers spent swimming with the sharks by the Great Barrier Reef.

We climbed Mt. Everest for the first time in 2000, when Jillian was 11, with our sherpa Noomsey. Looking out from the summit we were inspired to start an apparel and design company. The rest, as they say, is history.

Our Shop

We are the purveyors of colorful inspiration.  The designs in our shop pay tribute to famous, and sometimes infamous, people throughout history with their words of wisdom and our artwork.  Many of our designs carry inspirational messages and we like to work with bright colors so make sure you have some sunglasses handy ;)

Finding Etsy

I’m going to have to give our mom credit for this one.  I don’t even remember the conversation but back in May of 2009 she had mentioned Etsy and that we should check it out.  I went online that day looked around the site a bit and created an account.  Fast forward about 5 months and we had our first print listed.  Several months after that we discovered the forums and the Virtual Labs, and got to meet a bunch of awesome Etsians!

2) Walk us through a typical day in your life.

I’ll go with a Saturday as that’s the day that we do the most work for our Etsy shop. 

I’m usually up by 6ish and the first thing I do is grab my computer.  I check out Google Analytics since we use it to track several of our sites and then I fire up Outlook.  After getting our email sorted, it’s time to post our Famous Senior of The Day (#FSoTD).  Once this has been done, BINGO, time for breakfast!

Breakfast usually consists of some senioritis oatmeal (http://bit.ly/senioritisoatmeal) and some type of citrus juice or whatever flavor juicy juice was on sale that week.  After breakfast it’s workout time, Wii Fit, Cardio Boxing, the gym; I like to switch things up.

Once all of this stuff is out of the way I check out what’s going on with Etsy.  I like to use the activity tracker because it’s simple to view and easy to read, basically it rocks.  We answer convos and print invoices as necessary,

After this it’s time for the real fun stuff, time to start creating!   This usually takes me right into lunchtime.  After lunch it’s more creating with the occasional tweet, facebook update, and blog post.  By the time I turn around most of the day is usually gone.  I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun ;)

3) Name your top 3:

Books

Beth: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; David Copperfield 

Jillian: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Black's Law Dictionary 

Jillian

Garrick: The Richest Man In Babylon, Don’t Know Much About History, Captain Underpants

Music

Beth: Sara Bareilles; Adele; Regina Spektor

Jillian: Sara Bareilles, Guster, Jason Mraz

Garrick: Jay-Z, Sinatra

TV

Beth: Modern Family; Parenthood; Gilmore Girls 

Jillian: Bones, Gilmore Girls, Fairly Legal

Garrick: Yankees, Discovery Channel, History Channel

Web sites:

Beth: Gawker; nytimes.com 

Jillian: Hyperboleandahalf.com, googlemaps and youtube 

Garrick: tumblr.com, colorburned.com, kidrobot.com

4.) What are your top 3 shops on Etsy?

We have way too many to list but here’s a few shops that we really dig their style:

Joelquiggle.etsy.com

Tsaifi.etsy.com

Everybodyelse.etsy.com

5.) What projects are you currently working on?

top secret project - a sneak peak!

This was supposed to be a secret but since you asked we’ll share ;)  We’re currently working on a higher end line of pieces; we can’t give too many details but think museum style display!  We should have a few teaser shots on our blog soon.

6.) Where do you hope your shop will be in a year?

One year from now we hope to take over the world, but at the very least, we expect to have consistent sales on a daily basis. 

At this point, the vast majority of our Etsy sales come from people with buyer only accounts, which is great.  We would love to get some more exposure and share our work with our fellow Etsy shop owners as we feel there’s tremendous room for growth within this group. 

We also plan on expanding our apparel line and increasing our brick and mortar presence.

7.) What suggestions/tips would you offer to someone new to Etsy?

Below are some things that helped us as a bit when we were starting on Etsy (and continue to help us); perhaps you’ll find them useful as well. 

Beth

Getting Started on Etsy

·         Etsy has a bunch of moving parts, don’t get overwhelmed:  Take things one step at a time.  There is a ton of information on Etsy but when we got started we found that the best way to learn how to list an item was to list our first item.  Remember, the only way to learn to swim is to get wet ;)

·         Know why you’re setting up an Etsy shop:  Will this be a hobby, a way to earn extra income, part of a career change, a virtual gallery for your work, a way to leverage online presence etc. 

·         Write your own definition of success:  Is 100 items in your shop success?  Is 5 sales in a month success?  We don’t have an answer but you should have a feeling of what you consider success.  Once you have your definition, don’t worry about what others are doing, put on your blinders and focus on your goals ;)

·         When in doubt ask:  We think that the Virtual Labs are a tremendous tool.  After about a year of attending various sessions we continue to learn new things each time we attend one.  It is a great environment to get feedback and ideas from fellow Etsians and experienced Etsy admins.  If you have a question don’t be shy just ask and someone will gladly help out.  Remember, we all start in the same place, the beginning ;)

·         Last and absolutely most important in our opinion:  HAVE FUN!!! 

If you have any questions about anything please don’t hesitate to reach out to us (info@senioritis.net), we would be more than happy to help our fellow Etsians if we can!

Last, but not least, be sure to stop by the Senioritis blog for a visit, pick up a free sticker and enter their sticker contest!