Does it really work? What are the catches? As an experiment, I’ll be trying out Square for my business over the next few month for credit card transactions. I do appreciate my current merchant account, but if I use Square, I could save over $180/year in monthly fees and extra fees. Sounds like a deal I can’t beat.

In the meantime, I interviewed a few Portland, Oregon

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Dane Ault with Monkey Minion Press mentioned that
“We’d been wanting to add credit card processing to our convention appearances for a while before Square came out, but due to the costs associated (monthly fees, processing costs, etc) and the arcane mumbo-jumbo that most of the credit processing companies we looked at wanted, it was just unfeasible, no matter how much it might grow our bottom line. We looked into the credit procesing services offered by Costco, and a few others things that had iphone apps and those cell phones with the card swipers built into the sides.”

Dane noticed that their sales close to doubled once they could accept credit cards at their shows. Folks didn’t mind forking over their credit card to pay for items. He’s pretty happy with how Square has met their needs. He said “The fact that the Square app can also double as basically a mobile Point-of-Sale system and cash register is just fantastic in helping us keep track of not just credit card sales but cash sales, too.”

Kim Malek at Salt and Straw explains why they chose Square:

“We researched many traditional options but found the industry to be quite confusing.  We appreciate the systems to track sales by category and check on sales remotely at any time…I can keep track of what’s going on and call the shop to do things like manage labor or get more inventory as needed. Plus, it’s paper free, which supports our mission of doing what we can to tread lightly in the planet.”

Kim also mentioned some surprises they didn’t expect such as seeing their customer enjoy paying on an Ipad.

“People live seeing the sleek design and innovative interface…like getting to sign with their finger and have their receipt texted or emailed to them. It’s the only POS that causes people to cheer out in delight and call their friends over to watch them pay!”

She noted some cons were the system doesn’t accommodate for tipping so there’s been a decline in tips and some confusion with customers on the whole tipping thing in general. She also mentioned that Square is working on resolving tipping with their system.

Marco Madian, a massage therapist, found the using Square gave him the flexibility to accept credit cards no matter where he is. He works out of 2-3 offices and wanted to be able to bill for chair massages and Square is making it possible!

Marco mentioned that the downsides he’s found are the tipping aspect as well. He stated

“It would be nice if people wanted to tip that it’s not a straight % that they could just add a $$ amount instead.  As a Service Industry (massage) people often tip but to add 10-15% is not normal, usually it’s like $5 – $10 or something similar.”

Dane, Kim and Marco are overall pretty excited about Square and it sounds like it’s helping to grow their businesses. In the part two of this report on Square, I explore how I’ve been using it and talk more how mobile devices are allowing businesses to use services like Square.

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1) What is your business and how did you get started?

We sell the Pad Grip, the tilting, swiveling iPad stand that mounts anywhere.  We got started in June of 2010 after searching for an iPad mount that we could mount next to our computer monitor, and not finding anything that had the features and flexibility we wanted. So we made it.

2) Why did you decide to sell online? How did you choose your ecommerce cart?

We decided to sell online because of the low barrier to entry.  I’d had experience with Shopify before with a T-shirt company, and already knew they had good customer service and a simple setup.  We looked into a lot of other options just to make sure we were making the right choice, but nothing out there came near Shopify’s simplicity and power.

3) What are some of the methods you are using to market your site online? What’s been the most successful?

We have given product away to influencers, done Google Adwords, and purchased a paid press release from PRWeb.  The press release generated the most benefit for us in terms of volume and industry contacts, but we value Google AdWords as a consistent way to generate targeted traffic.

My business name is Floating Owl Designs. I make anything creative but right now, name hangers are most popular, as well as name ornaments during the holidays. These consist of wire bent into names and inserted into wooded hangers or made into a holiday ornament with a jingle bell, great as personalized gifts.

The inspiration for starting this business came from being laid off a year ago this April from doing an accounting job, which paid but made me miserable. I happily got married last year, 3 months after losing my job and had all the time on my hands to plan out my wedding. Instead of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on decorations someone else can make, my family, husband and I designed and made everything. That resulted in numerous compliments of our wedding having lots of personality, separating it from other weddings people had attended. I enjoyed the whole process even after the wedding ended, that I started to wonder if it was really possible to do these things full time, like a, “real job,” with “real money.” My sister and I had always pondered if it was possible to support yourself being creative for a living whether doing it from home in a spare room or being lucky enough to find a job that you can stretch your creative legs AND be an asset to a company.

I started looking into seminars, inspiring websites, talked to friends who had started their own companies on their own. All I kept hearing was, “It IS possible! Don’t “try” to do it, DO IT!” I started realizing you have to change the way you think, surround yourself with supportive influences, start moving, and keep moving. I made a calendar of the future and worked backwards, starting at December 31st, 2011. What will I be celebrating on New Years… Having my own business? My website up and running? Converting our spare room full of useless stuff into a home office? Hitting a target from the profits I made? Then I made a target of what had to be completed by September, 2011. Then also June, 2011, then March 2011. It all sounded fantastic but dreamlike. But with my mind numbing background working behind a desk, working for people who were crazier than my most craziest thoughts, and having a husband and sister telling me, “Go! You can do this, we’ll help you!”, it was time to stretch my creative legs on my own time.

It took less than a day to convert the spare room into an office, complete with large Ikea table to work at, shelves displaying my own creations for inspiration and a place for supplies. Well that was easy. Huh. The thought of, “will this really work?” started to become a memory instead of a reality.

To promote my business, I’m a part of Etsy, a handmade marketplace website. I had been intimidated to sign up and see what it was all about as a seller. I signed up, perfected my skills as a, “wire bending machine” and posted some ornaments at Christmas time, hoping my shop would be found from such hits as simple as, “ornaments.” Sure enough, I was found, and had an original, personalized idea people wanted to give their loved ones for the holidays. I depended on search terms to get the customers into my shop. Once in, I had to keep their attention with decent photos of my work and reasonable prices. It was quite a successful holiday season, all from including, “ornament” as part of my product name.

After the holidays, I had to think up a new product and had name/bridal hangers in the back of my mind. They seemed easy to make, I had the wire bending down and brides are one consumer willing to spend money. I did have to do some research on quality, wooden hangers, a drill, packaging, etc. I looked up the competition, how their quality compared to mine. I felt I had a fair chance, some of the wire handwriting was hard to read. And me being a perfectionist might pay off in a craft like this.

Again, all in the search times, particularly on Etsy, I was found through terms like, name hanger, wire hanger, bride or bridal hanger, mother of the bride hanger, etc. I posted some hangers, they sold out in hours. Inquiries poured in for custom made orders. I began a list of what, who, which type of wood for the hanger and when needed by. I had become an online crafter. I had no idea brides were crazy, Crazy, CRAZY over these name hangers. I had found a niche that has a huge demand.

One of my biggest challenges has been staying motivated that this will work, that I will be, “successful.” But I had to assess what successful meant to me. It came down to 2 things, doing something that made me happy, and, making money from what I created. The day I finally posted hangers I made to Etsy, I had a really good feeling, a feeling of, “I think this might actually work!”

And that feeling felt good. It felt different. And when I got payment confirmation emails from Paypal, it got exciting real fast. The more sold, the more I made. I got faster at bending the wire, perfected how to manipulate it into married names like Mrs. Schnittker. I have been lucky. I haven’t had to market my products very much, I’m found even off only a few listings on one site.

Some goals for this year are to get my website… floatingowldesigns.com up and running. I’d like to be able to change it up as often as I need, keep up with what sells, keep taking better pictures of my products. I would like to start the process of having a business, apply for a business license, be tax ready by end of this year, and see where this all takes me. I used to settle on jobs that paid the bills at the expense of my sanity. Doing something (accounting) for someone else (fire breathing bitchbag of a boss… my sisters term), resulted in growing health problems. I hated who I was becoming, I was miserable, coming home every day to my supportive, then boyfriend now husband, in a terrible, toxic mood. I let my day job run my life. Now, I have goals, I’m being creative every day and I’m making money. I have options, and I’m more creative in other aspects of my life. I love to cook again.

This all hasn’t been easy, some days I’m working over 12 hours, but it beats the 8 hour shifts behind a desk, processing invoices. I finally want to work and it’s my products I’m selling. I’m still not sure where I’m going with this, but I’m sure my quality of life has gone up, while finding I can make money creatively and be happy. Who knew.

What is your business?

Online vs. Brick & Mortar

It’s fascinating the difference between her customers online and off. The store shopper tend to be mostly moms of all ages, especially stay at home moms who want a different wardrobe and want fashionable clothes as well as a more mature crowd of  ladies. Online, her sales are mostly ladies who hold higher income jobs and tend to be colleage grads.

Nicole has been focused on creating the online store to match more of the retail store’s branding.  Recently they’ve incorporated some the green and white from the storefront and gave the website the facelift it was looking for. It’s definitely a challenge to create the same emotional feeling and experience online and off!

Which tools to use?

Nicole’s a big fan of using Volusion as an e-commerce solution. Nicole told me she originally went with Magento for her online store, but found it a bit of a monster, it’s customer service was lacking, and the costs were really high.

While Nicole doesn’t use Volusion for her POS sales in her store, but has found a system to be able to link inventories, one of the main frustrations with a lot of brick and mortar stores who have an online store as well.

Reaching the market

Blogging has been one of the best ways to drive Shop Adorn customers to their online store. Nicole’s staff blogs daily, really focusing on getting excited about the clothing and why they are carrying it.  Over 50% customers find their website because of their blog!

Nicole wants to set up a local blog to incorporate more of her neighbors in Beaumont to help spread the news of events at different stores and restaurants. She’s been impressed with how merchants in the area help each other out. Other exciting things Nicole’s doing at her store: she’s  offering customers face-to-face style consulting, in-store trunk shows and neighborhood parties!

Carrie Atkinson

Carrie’s done an amazing job growing her business based around socks! For over 6 years she’s built her business, one pair of socks at a time and you can now find her socks all over the globe in stores and online. I had a chance to interview Carrie about her business and her secrets to marketing her online store!

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What inspired you to start your blog?

In Portland during the summer there’s something going on every weekend
- street fairs, beer fests, cultural festivals, etc. These are the
kinds of things that interest me. A few years ago I found myself
keeping track of upcoming events and coordinating my friends’
weekends, via email. Basic information about these kinds of events,
date and time maybe, could be culled from newspapers and other
websites, but other than for the bigger beer fests, it was really hard
to find information about them. I’ve noticed that if it doesn’t have a
corporate sponsor, most mainstream media will relegate an event to
some obscure, usually reader submitted, “community happenings”
section, or not mention it at all.

One day in Spring 2007, I was hanging out with friends when someone
asked “Hey, when’s the Polish Festival?” Another friend, a long time
recipient of my weekend coordinating emails, immediately answered
“Dave knows!” That was the Eureka moment. I was working in web
development at the time, and knew setting up a blog was fairly simple.
I already had the basic infrastructure for the blog already, in the
form of bookmarked webpages and my email archive. In addition to my
interest in festivals, street fairs, and beer, I have an insatiable
curiosity about Portland, pinball, soccer, accordion music, poutine,
and other esoteric things that, by mainstream media standards, are too
obscure for them to waste much time on. I knew there was a niche in
Portland for these sorts of things.

What’s been the best/most effective way to promote it?

Definitely, the best and most effective way to promote the blog has
been to understand and embrace blog culture. I always credit and link
to other bloggers’ work if it in anyway influences my post (something
traditional journalists are loathe to do – they don’t want to miss the
appearance of having a scoop!). It’s the polite thing to do, it builds
up camaraderie in the blogging community, and frankly, it helps us all
get better google rankings.

I’ve experimented with reddit and stumbleupon, and some other local
and topical aggregators, but self promotion is usually discouraged on
these sorts of sites, and ultimately I’m happier with steady, somewhat
predictable, growth than occasional weird spikes in traffic.

Right now the blog has some bus ads running (a fabulous birthday gift
from my awesome girlfriend!
http://portland.daveknows.org/2009/12/18/dave-knows-on-the-back-of-the-bus/),
but it’s hard to identify visitors to the blog who visit because
they’ve seen a bus ad. Traffic has been up the past few months; I
like to think some of that is due to the ads.

How has your experience been being a blogger in the Twitter community,
what have you learned?

Twitter has proven to be a great boon to my blog. It’s not entirely
frowned upon to self promote – if you’re measured about it.
Ultimately people can just stop following you if your Twitter habits
irritate them. But of course, you don’t want to irritate them. When
I have a new post I announce it on Twitter, but that’s about the only
self promotion I do. Lots of the folks I follow on Twitter have blogs
or other creative projects, so I get updates on those in real time,
and I can retweet the things that interest me; similar to blogging,
there’s a Twitter ethic of retweeting with credit.

What’s the future of Dave Knows Portland, where do you want to be in a year?

The blog has opened some doors for me that I would never had expected.
I’ve been a guest on Portland Sucks and Savor
Portland. I’ve been asked for interviews [by
you!]. It’s been somewhat disconcerting for me, as an introvert, to
find that in some circles my alter ego, “Dave Knows”, is a
“personality”, and considered a source of “news”.

My girlfriend and I are constantly brainstorming for ways to maybe
possibly someday make a living from our blogs (Heather blogs at
http://mile73.com and we share the blogging duties at
http://portlandpoutine.com), and we have a few long term ideas I’m not
at liberty to discuss I just started offering advertising space
on my blog (http://portland.daveknows.org/advertise/), but so far the
blog barely makes about $1/day from Google Adsense. Over the next
year the staples of my blog will remain events, beer, and soccer news.
But my blog posts on fellow Portlanders’ creative projects have been
fun to work on, and are well received. I plan to do a lot more posts
like them in the future.

How do they attract followers to come make a necklace? Check out my interview with Arwa Jumkawala, one of the owners.

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What’s your business?

Gemkitty, Jewelry Designed by You is a online jewelry retailer, where you can customize your own gemstone necklace with a few mouse clicks. Your design is then handcrafted especially for you.

When did you start using social media and why?

As a web-based business, we knew we needed to be involved in social media in order to truly engage with our audience. Primarily, we use Twitter and Facebook, which we set up as part of our launch. Social media gives us a chance to have conversations that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, and the real-time nature of the feedback has been fantastic.

Has social media changed your business?

Yes! In addition to being able to build relationships with our customers, it’s also helped me keep connected with fellow entrepreneurs. And it’s proved really effective at keeping me in the loop with jewelry fashion trends and local events.

How to you envision social media changing in the future?

I think companies engaging in social media will become smarter at actively engaging, rather than just broadcasting messages to their audience. We’re already seeing that trend, but it’s surprising to me how many people still don’t seem to understand why fans might be annoyed if all you tell them is: buy me, buy me, buy me.

Have a social media story you’d like to share?

Recently, we wanted to thank our earliest Facebook fans for their ongoing support. So we messaged them and offered them two pairs of earrings for free. No strings attached.  One pair was for them and one for a friend of their choosing. We received a lot of positive feedback, including emails from fans sharing who they decided to give their second pair to and why. Our fans seems to really appreciate the ability to treat a friend and we got a chance to expose our brand.