AAA Cafe' Daily Chat 06/20/2014

[NaturalClocks]

Welcome to new members, welcome back to returning teammates! If this is your first time here - this is a place to ask questions, share your most embarrassing secrets, or just chat about the slow and boring bits of your day…we want to hear from you!!

Be sure to check out the discussion board. There are games to be played and threads to explore. The more you promote your fellow team mates, the more you get promoted, so be sure to participate on a daily basis. Check out our blog and our Facebook page, as well as the other links provided below.

IMPORTANT LINKS:
* Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/301427606658253/
* Etsy Calculator: salecalc.com/etsy
* Etsyology: www.etsyology.net/
♥ Online Photo Programs: fotoflexer.com/ or www.picmonkey.com/
treasurypin.com./ and editor.pho.to/
arwmedia.net/tools/pixlr_express.php
* Etsy Craft Tools: www.mycrafttools.com/
* Etsy Gadget: www.estygadget.com
* Craftopolis -Edit multiple listings: www.craftopolis.com/#com=ee
* Etsy Banner Maker: bannerfans.com/banner_maker.php?bnew=1&pses=1a256d05

Good morning team!

Today I've decided to take one more Friday off. Footfall and sales have luckily increased in the brick and mortar shop, so I'll have 2 solid months of 6 day weeks ahead (unless we get some very rainy days in between of course). I wish I could say the same for my Etsy shop. "Footfall" (as in views) have definitively increased, also thanks to Adele's Tweet Eye, but between May and June sales have been really poor. I'm just hoping that some of the views and faves I've been getting will turn into sales in the future!

Welcome again to Jen, our new team member, I hope that you will come and visit our daily chat often :))

Yesterday some of you mentioned the "Christmas in July" sale. I have heard of it, but I haven't got a clue what it is or how you go about it. I don't even know if I would consider it, so any input is very welcome, as we are coming to the end of June, there may still be time to take part in it.

Have a great day everybody!

[Chockrosa]

Thanks everyone for all your congratulations yesterday! :D I'm still happy about it :) I got a sale yesterday also, but I don't know if that had anything to do with the frontpage.

It's finally here, MIDSUMMER EVE, the most Swedish day of the year!!!!!! :DDDDD I'm off to the archipelago, to a little island. I'm gonna dance around the midsummer pole singing and jumping like a frog (yes, I'm serious!), have flowers in my hair, eat so much herring and boiled fresh potatoes you can't even imagine and sing drinking songs and well, I'm not gonna lie and say I'm not gonna drink a bit ;) I know I have linked this before but here is some more reading and a fun video about our midsummer celebrations.
http://sweden.se/traditions/midsummer/

I have no idea what christmas in July is.

Hope you all have a wonderful Midsummer eve!!!

[Former_Member]

Morning All,

Alanna, so sorry to hear about the flare up. Here's hoping the steroids and brace sort thing out very quickly.

Welcome to the team Jen, lovely shop - I like the banner.

Mugen, fleece is a fine white translucent, almost papery fabric, It's great because you can put it over the plants and leave it there (you can water through it) until the weather improves. I use it a lot in the winter for tender pot plants. I find bubble wrap is good for wrapping the pots to prevent the rootball from freezing.

Dona I've never seen a martin house, here the birds come every year and build their own nests. They use mud to make the nests which look like inverted cones stuck to the house wall underneath the eaves. Fascinating to watch. No sign of the birds this morning, I guess the insects are hatching elsewhere today.

Val, enjoy your day off. I've never heard of this Etsy Christmas in July but I do remember when I used to do magazine design work that the commissions for Christmas stuff always came in during July, on more than one occasion I've sat on a beach in the sun designing Christmas cards!

Have a happy day all.

[Former_Member]

Good morning all,

Caroline, congratulations with your front page feature! that is really awesome! Have fun at your Midsummer eve celebrations! It sounds lovely.

I do not think I will be doing christmas in July this year, maybe next year. But right now I do not really have a budget for this.

I want to rant a bit about customs, I know custom fees have to be payed when ordering something from the US, and I am perfectly fine with that. But the big problem is that we do not only pay custom fees, but also costs for the customs to open the package. In France these costs are 21 euros!! (28 USD). So, today I am expecting a package worth 60 euro's, where I have to pay 34 euro's for. I am just feeling like I am being ripped off, I would nearly call it criminal. And I do not know what to do about it, because there is no easy way to reach these people. Might I ask what you all pay for custom fee?

[NaturalClocks]

It sounds like you have a great week end ahead Caroline, that sounds wonderful! Enjoy it!

I'm not really sure about the UK Aisha, I have to admit that I deliberately avoid purchasing anything above our limit of £15.00 (US$25.00) from outside of the EU to avoid the (high) risk of getting hit by Customs. It really sucks, as in order not to be penalised myself, I'm unwillingly penalising sellers outside the EU, as it's not their fault that we are so strict here! I know that here in the UK we would have to pay £8.00 ($13.50) to Royal Mail, plus whatever the VAT comes to, I don't really know if there is a handling fee from Customs too. I'll find out.

[Former_Member]

Morning everyone. Haven't properly introduced myself. Fair warning, its 3am (I'm a nightowl) so I will probably make some spelling mistakes.

I'm a 30 year old student attending Southern Illinois University in the fall and will major in Sustainability. Yes, I do plan to change the world. :)

I'm married with no kids, but I have a rat terrier that thinks she is human. My husband and both attend SIU and plan on going into the Peace Corp. in 2 years.

I've had my shop since May 1st of this year. I just recently got my first sale after alot of hard work during summer break. As you can see, I've been working hard on my branding. Love, Support, and Peace. All things that are close to my heart and so is charity. I plan on giving 50% of all proceeds to the National Cervical Cancer Coalition.

When I'm not staring at Etsy or making things, I play computer games, MMORPGS, specifically Guild Wars 2. :)

I hope everyone has a wonderful Friday!

[Former_Member]

:-) Just to add to the rant:

For Denmark: we pay a $30 fee when a package or letter from outside the EU gets inspected. Then we pay 25% VAT for the item's value and the cost of shipping. These two fees can not be avoided unless the authorities miss the package or if the value is stated to be less than $15. It does not matter if the item is a gift or not, although a gift may have a value of $60. It is a lottery, however, and a certain percentage of packages do arrive uninspected.

We pay customs fees if the package has a stated value of more than about $200. The fee is can vary according to which category the item falls in and is from 1.5% up to about 15%. It is applied to the the value of the item + cost of shipping. We then pay 25% VAT on the customs fee.

An example: I have just bought clothing for $300 from a shop in the States. The cost of shipping was $60. Customs on clothing is 12%. So, I ended up paying $300 + $60 + $30 + $90 + $43 + $11 = $534.

Lagney, I have never seen fleece in Denmark. Sounds like something I should start an import of! I will check it out!

Have a great midsummer's eve, Caroline. We celebrate it next week, which I find odd. We don't go as crazy as Swedes, but we do burn witches... And congrats with the sale. All of a sudden, I am not selling at all, although TweetEye is bringing in boatloads of views.

And welcome to, Jen and Jess! This is a great place to hang out!

Have a great day, all!

[Former_Member]

Morning :)
Welcome Jess :)
On the subject of customs fees I normally avoid buying anything over £15 outside of the eu like Val, but I made an exception yesterday when I brought from Charlene, wrongly, guessing that the fees wouldn't be too bad!! But £8 on top of vat?! Extortion :( I was debating splitting the order in two to avoid customs fees but thought two lots of shipping would work out more expensive than the fees....wrong!! Oh well we live and learn lol!
Re Christmas in July, I have heard it mentioned before and was hoping to participate (don't actually know what it is but I'm game for most things lol) but I just haven't got the time to make as much Christmas stuff as I wanted, works become manic, all my fault, we're getting at least twice as many customers daily that are only coming cos they've seen the website, which is fantastic but means I don't get as much chance to work on the website during open hours so am having to stay very late to do it. But hey, once it's fully up and running hopefully it'll be much easier :)

[Former_Member]

Oh and have fun Caroline ;) sounds fab!!

[Former_Member]

Good morning everyone:

Val: Enjoy your day off, I have heard of the Christmas in July but when I heard about it last year, I had just opened shop and was still trying to figure things out.

Caroline: Have fun at the celebration and congratulations on the Front Page!

Welcome Jen and Jess!

Sorry I have been MIA the last few days. Between work and trying to get projects done around home, it has been pretty busy. Hopefully now though things will settle back down.

Have a great day!

[DerBayzVintage]

Good Morning all,

Welcome Jen and Jess, this is a great team, very knowledgeable and very supportive. Come back often!

Sorry to be missing for the last couple days, I saw the neurologist on Wednesday and we started a new treatment plan and it throw me for a couple days, but I think I am back to about 50% so I am trying to function fully again.

I am very curious about Christmas in July and look forward to learning more about it.

I added a new section to the shop, clearance/going2auction.

http://etsy.me/1plvsUy

These are the items that will be removed from the shop tomorrow forever. I am slamming social media with #liquidationsale messages hoping to give these treasures one last chance to sell.

[NyamiJewelry]

Hi everybody

- Caroline ... Sound fantastic... have a wonderful day!
- Val - enjoy your day off and I hope you will have nice weather too..
- Jess - welcome !

-Aisha : Maybe this link can help you and others ?
www.dutycalculator.com/new-import-duty-and-tax-calculation/

-Hi Adele welcome back :-)
have a great day everyone

[ItsSewYouDear]

Good morning all!

A beautiful morning and I don't have to be at work until 1pm so I plan on working on orders I need to get out.

Our import thresholds are high here in the US that I don't remember having to pay any fees for anything I purchsed. What you all are describing does sound crazy high to me, I guess something to consider and add to the item price to make sure it's still worth it? Thanks Enrica for the calculator.

Welcome Jen and Jess. Beautiful shops.

Adele, wishing you the best.

Caroline, sounds fantastic, have fun!

About the topic Christmas in July. I have read about it in the forum. There is a team called "Christmas in July" that organizes and promotes the sale. If you search for them under teams, you can read more about their plans and such.
I understand that in previous years, Etsy Admin used to promote the CIJ sales with emails and newsletters and such, but last year they didn't, and sellers were pondering in the forum that they expect Etsy Admins aren't going to do anything about it this year either. Opinions in the forum discussion were mixed as usual, some sellers can't wait and some don't want anything to do with it. Ok, that's all I know lol. And I am still pondering if I want to do anything about it or not, with leaning more towards not. Sales in my little shop have been fantastic (for me anyway) in June and I have a busy July, not sure I want to add to it with all that goes with setting shop up for the sale.

Happy Friday all! Val, enjoy your day off!
Oh, and thank you all for the kind comments about my new banner... I am working on branding my shop and giving it A look lol.

[Former_Member]

Good morning, everyone!

Caroline - have a fabulous Midsummer' Eve!

Jess - welcome to the team! What kind of courses does a degree in Sustainability require? And good for you, going into the Peace Corps!

Lagney - I'm pretty sure that the injections will help. It's just that I won't get them for a couple of weeks. The VA is kinda slow sometimes. :p

Adele, it's good to see you back. Hope the new therapy works for you.

Here's a link to the Christmas in July team introductory thread:

https://www.etsy.com/teams/12798/christmas-in-july/discuss/14660909/

I just joined the team. I plan to start embroidering Christmas items today so I will be able to list them come July. I'll have about 15 items. I have another 15 waiting until probably September. I haven't decided yet whether or not to list everything in my store or just the Christmas ones.

Have a great day, team!

[RefinedRetro]

Good morning all!

It's a beautiful morning here in Northern CA. The birds chirping away woke me at 5:30 and there was no going back to sleep...sigh.

Caroline, I would come join you if I could. That sounds like incredible fun! Except the herring bit! LOL But boiled potatoes, dancing and drinking could be the makings of one heck of a memory!!! :-)

Welcome Jess and Jen. I plan to visit your shops for a heart bombing raid after I finish this post.

Val, enjoy your day off!!!

Adele - glad you're back - take care!!!

Here's the scoop about Christmas in July straight from the team (edited for space):

Hi everyone-

CHRISTMAS IN JULY is an Etsy community driven event that will held July 10th – July 20th 2014.

All shops are eligible to participate and sale items do not have to be holiday themed.

The tags that we will use this year are “CIJ” and “Christmasinjuly” (all one word).

Please feel free to join the Christmas In July team! www.etsy.com/teams/12798/christmas-in-july

There are several sites that are helpful when setting up your event! They include:
Etsy On Sale, Craftopolis, Betsi, and Zetsy.


We are ready with social media for CIJ 2014!
Facebook
www.facebook.com/EtsyChristmasInJuly

Facebook Event
www.facebook.com/events/1412705092345438/

Twitter
twitter.com/EtsyCIJ

Pinterest
pinterest.com/etsycij/

Michelle & the CIJ Leadership team-
www.etsy.com/teams/12798/christmas-in-july

I think I am going to participate. The marketing plan sounds impressive. I know last year I remember kicking myself for not participating. Wish me luck. I will let you all know how it is going and the ROI... :-)

Heading to the studio. Have a great day everyone!

Ni

[Former_Member]

Welcome to the team Jess!

I wanted to say I am glad I am not the only one with this customs problem. But I am not really glad to hear it is not any different in other places. Especially Denmark, 25% and 30 dollars? I don't even know what to say about that.

My problem is not so much with the tax, even though basically we pay tax double. But the fact that there is a fee to have the package checked is crazy. Or at least the price for it is crazy. I do not think it is so bad for the UK, 8 pounds is about 10 euro's and I can live with that. But 21 euro's is a huge amount of money, certainly on a package that is not worth more than 100 euro.

In France there is no minimum amount of value, so it could even happen with a package that has a value of 10 USD. Shipping price is included by the way, so I also pay a fee over the shipping price.

There are some great things for sale in Europe, but in the end if one wants something special, it is better to be able to buy your items worldwide. However, if it has to be like this, I do not think it will benefit me or my business.

These kind of things just depress me hugely :( It frustrates me that I can't do anything about it. I guess it is more the feeling of being frustrated and feeling completely stuck and angry. it really bothers me so much. I am sorry for bothering you all with this.

[Former_Member]

Good morning everyone and Happy Friday! I am hoping to get a lot done this weekend in terms of getting listings done and photographs taken and more listings done. And getting the house cleaned and my son's Dream Duffel unpacked and put away until next competition season. And Maybe, just maybe, sitting down and tackling these ribbed legwarmers I promised to make for my two models. Then next week I will work on some more triangle cowls. I have a plan!

[NaturalClocks]

Welcome Jess!

Thank you for the explanation on Christmas in July Nilene :)) You see? I didn't even know that it was organised by a team! I'm quite tempted really, I just don't know if I'll have the time, being July. I'll have a look at it at least!

Aisha, I hear you :( I've done a bit more research for the UK, and it looks like the only handling fee is the £ 8.00 from Royal Mail. I guess each EU country sets their own fees on the matter. The shocking thing I've just found out is that the threshold for gifts is also very low, £ 36.00 ($ 61.00). Please my North American friends, DO NOT send me expensive gifts!!!! LOL!!

Mugen, those extra amounts are obscene, really.. how do they justify them??

Lucy, I hope you'll be lucky and "escape" the Customs fees on your purchase from Charlene, not everybody gets hit from what I hear.

[DCArtandPhotography]

Hello! I do not plan to participate in the Christmas in July this year, mostly because i will be moving to NC and starting a new job , and I will be doing well enough if i can keep my stats up for the shop!

It sounds like Customs are crazy with charges. This really is the first time I have ever had to deal with it, and it sounds crazy from you guys' end!

No new items to post atm, but I may have a few later.

Aisha; Don't let the things we cannot change get to you. Sadly enough regardless of how we feel about it, something we just cannot change on our own.

[KrochetKingdom]

Caroline - Have a great time. Will you be picking 7 different flowers to put under your pillow? Take pictures if you can so we can enjoy. I like that you share your culture with us.

Val - For Christmas in July, you pick certain items from your store and put them on sale for the occasion. You must however add "Christmas in July Sale" in your headings.

My goodness Mugen, Lucy, Val, Aisha - what an exorbitant amount of money to pay for something from the USA. It sounds like the idea is to be penalized for buying from the USA. Don't know what you can do about it if anything. I did not realize that there was a $25.00 limit before VAT, etc. would be added.

Hi Jess and welcome to this awesome team.

I will be working today so will check back in later.

[homecraftframing]

All these different fees for each country has me confused. In the United States, they tax the heck out of us but usually it is like property tax (House, Car Boat etc), Federal, State, County and City Tax. There is also Sales Tax when you purchase from a store. If you are a drinker or smoker, you are taxed heavily for these vices. When we have elections, many times these are the issues that are presented to the voters to give a thumbs up or down. So we are given a heads up, they are trying to raise taxes on whatever the governments want to do. Do they do this in other countries?

I am assuming that many of these countries use these monies to support their health care systems and retirement when their people get older. Our Federal politicians are living high on the hog with our tax money and wasting this money on projects that never should have been started in the first place. I guess when you grease the right palms things can get done.

I also assume that many of these countries do not want their people to buy from other countries. So they slap high tariffs on their purchases. So the people who buy something and do not know the rules of their country, are shocked by the fees laid on top of their purchases. So you know, a good many Americans do not know this information either. If I were not selling on the internet and paying taxes, I probably would not know either.

Aisha, I am sorry you were caught off guard and the fees were astronomical. I do understand your frustration and you are right, chances are you cannot change it. Although, maybe if France allows people to vote on these kinds of issues, you could make a point how the country is charging outlandish prices for purchases that are entering the country. Since you are not a citizen yet, you probably would not be allowed to vote. Although, you could go back home to the Netherlands and vote on these issues. I had a fellow from the UK who purchased $40.00 worth of frames from me and he paid $36.00 shipping. Since I have not heard back from him since March, I do not know if he was charged the VAT or Custom taxes or not.

There are only two positives in life, one is Death and the other is Taxes! LOL!!!

Welcome to our new members, make yourselves at home! If you need help, you only need to ask.

I have to go get checked out today for my surgery on Wednesday. I have to get the rest of the frames made this weekend and shipped on Monday. I am not a very good patient and I suspect, I will never be one either. Have a Great Day Everyone!

[KrochetKingdom]

Enrica - thanks for the info on calculating customs fees, etc. I have saved it. I sold a scarf for US$35.00 to someone in Australia who will pay US$53.08 to get it. This is crazy.

I updated my shipping policies last night and specified the countries to sell to. What a price they would have to pay to get an item. Madness i say.

Jen I bombed your shop with faves yesterday and today is Jess' turn.

Happy trails.

[Former_Member]

I saw that. Thank you, Marion. My views and favorites have been up yesterday and today. Now if only those would translate into sales.

OMG - all those customs fees. Why? True, I get taxed on my wine, but I've accepted that. I no longer smoke, so drinking (and yarn) are my only vices now.

[910woolgathering]

Our mortgage has been approved. barring anything major, moving in July...I have started listing winter items and tagging them Christmas in July. Will try to participate in that team some, but of course I will be busy. I plan to keep the boxes of merchandise clearly marked and set to the side, hopefully things will not be too hectic.

[Former_Member]

Congrats, Rachel!!!! I remember the feeling I got when my mortgage was approved. It was like moving day couldn't come soon enough. Of course I had to paint and clean, but still. Congrats!

I listed my 60th item today. Yay!!!! I think I can do 10 more this weekend.