N.B. Etsy Sellers With Global Reach Host Event To Connect With Customers Close To Home
FREDERICTON – An event being held in Fredericton this month is aiming to connect the province’s Esty sellers to their customers here at home.
Etsy Canada is hosting an event showcasing New Brunswick Etsy makers on September 28 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Richard J. Currie Center in Fredericton. The event will feature over 50 vendors from across New Brunswick who sell their handmade goods worldwide on Etsy’s online platform.
“This event is to connect hand-made and vintage sellers who sell online and who are home behind a computer all the time and just connect them to the buyers,” said Kate Hunter, the team captain for Estey New Brunswick and an Esty creator herself. “Get it out there that these shops are selling world-wide, they’re doing all of it and they exist in our community.”
Vendors will range from unique handmade and vintage goods, including jewelry and accessories to homewares, edible goods and more. Some of the sellers, include Allette & Co, Sewn By Harper G’s Mama, Hunter’s crochet shop HazelBea, and Heaps Handworks.
Etsy has played an important role in helping crafters from around the world turn their art into a business. Saint John-based Heaps Handworks is in the top one per cent of Etsy sellers worldwide in terms of sales volume.
“We did things the opposite way that most artisans and sellers do. We started our business using the Etsy selling platform, and then branched into local markets from there,” said Cynthia LeBreton, co-owner of Heap Handworks. ” We knew it could be a game-changer from the beginning because of its potential for year-round, global and US sales. Because of Etsy, we were able to grow the business from a part-time hobby to a full-time income.”
RELATED: How Heaps Handworks Created One Of The World’s Most Successful Etsy Shops From Saint John
For Hunter, Etsy has helped grow her customer base as well.
“For me, a lot my stuff is local, but most of it is [not]. The biggest state that I send to is Texas. I shipped to 17 countries, every province, every state,” she said.
“For all of these shops it’s your little business in New Brunswick, but people are wearing your things in Paris.”
Even if you’re not an Etsy shopper, Hunter encourages anyone interested in discovering locally made things to come to the event.
“It’s going to connect them with some really cool things that they’ve not seen and didn’t realize were made here,” she said. “One of the big things with Etsy is that when you buy something online, someone asks, ‘where did you get that?’ and you say, ‘Etsy.’ You typically don’t know the shop so this put that face to shop and you to go directly to them.'”
The entry fee is $5 and a portion of the proceeds will be donated The NICU at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital, a cause that’s close to Hunter’s heart and where her Etsy business began.
“I had some really terrible pregnancies and ended up in the hospital. With my first [child], I taught myself how to crochet at the hospital and wrote my own patterns. Then when my second daughter was born, she was nine weeks early. So every day we would leave the hospital and come home and I would just sit in the hospital and crochet. It was the only thing I could do for her,” said Hunter.
“So I thought for me being my first time planning this event and needing charity to donate to, why not start with where my story started?’