Featured Seller - Fashion Touch

What part of the world are you in?

I live in The Rose-City of Welland which is exactly in the centre of beautiful Regional Municipality of Niagara. The region of Niagara is a peninsula located between Lake Ontario, Lake Erie and The Niagara River. This region offers year around fun including visits to Niagara Falls and trips to award winning wineries.

What does customer service mean to you?

I truly believe that great customer service is what creates success and keeps happy satisfied customers coming back. For the last for 4 years I have worked in the customer service where I learned many aspects of maintaining good customer satisfaction. My main focus is customer satisfaction and I am doing my best to keep my Customer happy. Everyone loves to open a nice package of the personalized product they originally fell in love with. It is the little things that go long way. I thankfully was blessed with several long-term customers.

What is your most memorable experience with a customer?

Each and every one of them is memorable. It is like event in your life, like memories you keep. Everyone one of my customers brings me the joy of understanding that I can make their day better, that someone will appreciate my work. This makes me happy.

What sets you apart from other sellers who are selling similar items?

I came from a different country and I would even say from a different world, where design of things is different and even stitches that I use are different. I also had a chance to travel a lot, so my supplies are purchased from different countries around the world. And for the rest I let my imagination go and enjoy the process.

How did you learn the skills that make you successful today?

My education is far away from e-commerce and design, so I have to learn everything from the beginning. Thankfully there is lot of useful info online available now. The biggest help was forums on Etsy and I am very thankful to everyone who shared their best practices (CricketsCreations, TimothyAdamDesigns, etc). Mostly however my skills were aquirred at an early age in school and with learned matrons for example my grandmother and mother.
Do you have any formal training in your craft?

I grew up in Russia, where creative stitching is a mandatory credit in the elementary school where we have learned the stitches, that’s pretty much it.
What is your goal for the next year? To keep enjoying my experience. I would like to develop my market and to attract more customers as well as attract some wholesellers and boutique owners.

What keeps you motivated when sales are slow?

Winston Churchill once said: Never, never, never give up. I think this is the most wise advise we’ve ever got.

What do you do to attract new clients and encourage re-occurring business?

My main focus is to create new items so my clients would have options to choose from. Thankfully I have friends who put my link on their website. I do have some followers on Twitter, so if someone would like to follow my updates please feel welcome to do so at http://www.twitter.com/fashiontouch

If you could share one piece of advice with someone who is considering opening their own store of handmade items, what would it be?

Research. Research what exactly you want to offer, research how to make great pictures, research how to promote your website and be patient and enjoy your craft.

That quote from Winston Churchill is very good advice. We believe in perseverance, dedication and enjoying the whole creative process. Elenas store, FashionTouch, ranges from beautiful scarves (as pictured above) to jewelry to cuffs and each piece glows with originality and beauty. We love your style Elena, it definitely has a warm European feel. Please check out Elenas online store, FashionTouch, located at http://fashiontouch.etsy.com.