A guild of convenience

Anni Krueger and Charles Fredericks from A Little Modern

Out of Brooklyn

Anni Krueger is new to Etsy. She opened her shop, A Little Modern, with Charles Fredericks around six months ago. Krueger is a singer, model and stay-at-home mother. Fredericks is a furniture and product designer.

For Krueger, the inspiration for collecting vintage wares came from her mother.

“She took me to yard sales, flea markets, and antique stores from an early age and taught me how to identify vintage and antique items of value based on material, workmanship, brand names, etc.,” Krueger said. “While visiting my parents in Iowa last summer, I suggested that my mom open an Etsy shop after she had withdrawn from a local antique store. Upon my return home to New York and my mother’s first Etsy sale, I decided I wanted to start a shop, too.”

Moving from New York City to Saugerties helped make that become a reality for the couple.

“My partner Charles and I had always wanted to work for ourselves and had just moved upstate from Brooklyn with our then-10-month-old son,” Krueger said. “We found a great place in Saugerties which we basically took because it had a studio space for us to work in – and plenty of storage. I had accumulated an array of vintage wares over the years, so it was easy to get going and I seemed to have an endless amount of inventory. Our active toddler keeps the days busy but any free time we get is spent listing items on Etsy or designing and building our upcoming line of fine home goods and furniture.”

Krueger has been happy with how Etsy has helped make A Little Modern a success.

“The Etsy community is very supportive of one another and it’s nice to receive positive feedback from fellow shop owners,” she said. “I think it’s been a huge help for anyone that is looking to work from home and/or start a business. It’s an easy way to legitimize your business with far less risk than opening a physical retail store.”

Social media is important

Siobhan Leyendecker, who runs Siobhan’s Shop, first joined Etsy as a buyer in 2009. A member of the New York Air National Guard and an aircraft maintenance controller, Leyendecker made the move from buyer to seller a year after signing on to Etsy to sell handmade jewelry and knit goods.

“Originally I thought it would be a great way to turn my hobbies into a little extra money on the side,” said Leyendecker, adding that she realized she could use some of that extra money to help a cause she feels strongly about. “I realized it would be better to give back and to help raise money for a cause that’s important to me, the Alzheimer’s Association.”

Leyendecker donates 50 percent of all her profits after deducting the cost of materials to the Alzheimer’s Association, in part because of her own personal involvement in the charity.

“I lost my mother to the disease back in 2007,” Leyendecker said. “I try to raise awareness that it’s not just an old person’s disease. I once met a man that was 34 years old and had Alzheimer’s. I have been participating in the Alzheimer’s Memory Walk every year since 2003.”

Leyendecker said she was making her wares before Etsy, but had never thought to sell them, either keeping them for herself or giving them away as gifts to friends and family. She said she feels a sense of accomplishment knowing people are purchasing something she’s made herself, and she feels strongly about the use of social media, both through Etsy and beyond, to promote her shop.

“Social media is extremely important in promoting your shop and getting your product seen,” she said. “I have a Facebook and Twitter site for my Etsy shop. It’s a great way to show photos of what you’re selling and also to show when you have listed a new item.”

About Etsy

With headquarters in Brooklyn and offices in San Francisco, Berlin and Hudson, Etsy seems to be taking its global reach seriously. It counts among its 11 million users people from all walks of life in all corners of the planet, each of them hoping to get a piece of a rapidly growing pie. Etsy was launched in June 2005, a modest success that by the following year had picked up enough steam to generate $3.8 million in merchandise sales among its users. With each successive year, that amount has risen by leaps and bounds, jumping from $180.6 million in 2009 to $314.3 million in 2010. That number has already been shattered in 2011, with sales through September reaching $357.6 million.

Etsy sees itself as a collective of artists and collectors working together to promote the idea of community. It does so by allowing its users to join circles of like-minded Etsy sellers, as well as promoting groups like the Hudson Valley Etsy Team. Group members work within the site to promote one another and to run a Facebook page and independent blog designed to offer advice and a spirit of community amongst its members. l