Shari customized all my tags to match the Navy blue velvet boxes that I use for my Bridal orders. Just look at all those tags!! Aren’t they lovely?
During my B-school days, I came across "Customer-mapping" / "taste mapping" again and again. In a sentence it is a tool to analyze the customers, where they come from, what their buying preferences are. The idea is to "predict" the future buying trends and in a way predict the market.
Remember the "what you dos" and "who you ares" on credit card forms or magazine forms? Well, they are used to "chart" or "map" customers. And also draw correlation between seemingly unrelated activities. For example "bar fights are mostly started by men wearing cuff links." Or "Women over 40 buying Red Chanel lipstick mostly carry a Blackberry". (These two are just sentences I conjured up, NOT industry based data....but you get the picture). Although these may seem as unrelated activities, you will be surprised to hear how important data like these is to big companies.
Why I am talking of all this with regards to Etsy? Because Caterina Fake joined Etsy in Aug 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
And she launched "Hunch" "a site that is building the "taste graph" of the internet, mapping every user on the internet to every entity, and their affinity for that entity" in June 2009.
When all the hullabooloo with Etsy becoming a "social" network etc started, I just knew that Etsy will become another "hunch" like site. Don't ask me....how I just had a a"hunch"...heeehaw.
Look at the Hunch homepage : http://hunch.com/
See how similar it is to the new Etsy homepage : http://www.etsy.com/31
(you need to log out if you are already logged in).
Etsy says that "We need a homepage designed specifically for new visitors, with a new design that is clearly aimed at keeping them on the site." The new site will throw items at them that is based on the taste test.
As individual sellers, I am not sure how much it will help us. For example, I want ALL new visitors to be bead buyers and T shirt seller wants T-shirt buyers and a soap seller wants soap buyers. But the new home page may or may not throw out beads or T-shirts or soaps right?? To be honest I am not sure if supplies will be suggested AT ALL!! I have noticed that Etsy NEVER features a Supplies seller, or supplies in the finds or any Storque article. In spite of the fact that supplies are by far the biggest earners for Etsy.
So it is my honest opinion that the new page benefits Etsy as a whole, and is not beneficial to us individual sellers.
Surprise, surprise, not a single spot for Supplies?!
Etsy sends out the Etsy finds e-mails everyday. Isn't it justified for Supply Sellers to be featured once in a while? Somewhere? Anywhere??
immediately after taking it out of the bubble wrap in the afternoon...and then wore it out to dinner and a movie with my DH! After all it was Saturday night! The necklace is so lightweight and totally non-fussy. I cannot wear heavy jewelry for a long time, but this is one of those all-time wear pieces.
Jaipur was extremely successful. I stayed at a hotel called Naila Bagh Palace. The Palace is centrally located in Jaipur on Mooti Dongri Road and very close to Johri Bazar, my main scouting grounds. This palace home of the ex prime minister of Jaipur (Thakur Fateh Singh ji) and has now been converted to a heritage house. The hotel is a large rambling property, with rooms build around a central courtyard that also houses the breathtaking pool. The main hall had a thousand lights dazzling in crystal chandeliers while vintage portraits of Maharajahs and Maharanis grazed the walls and ornate furniture. Musicians performed live at every meal, followed us everywhere we went at the hotel. Little children danced 
to the traditional Rajathani folk music with heavy anklets and traditional red badhni dhoti and turban. My suite was a really really large spacious bedroom with two walk-in closets and a huge bathroom with marble floor and chrome Kohler fittings. Stained glass windows added multi-colored light on the walls during the day and colorful chandeliers twinkled in the night. The room was magical and I felt like a queen staying at Naila Bagh Palace.
