LemonStand Blog

Real products in a demo store

0 Comment(s) | published by Danny H. on Saturday, August 29, 2009

When we were sketching out our plans for the demo store, we felt that fake "blue widget" type products were... well, kinda lame. But it is a software demo. How cool could it be right?

Pretty darn cool if you ask us

Around the same time I stumbled across some creative hand-made goods on a marketplace called Etsy. The huge number of interesting and unique products really amazed me. From artwork, to domo kun iphone cases, the place was full of neat things. So I decided that we could make the demo store a little more interesting, while helping promote some talented crafts people at the same time by using real products from real people.

We designated a person for the task and started personally contacting store owners to see if they were interested in the opportunity to get some free exposure. We gave preference to local (BC, Canada) people, but we did branch out too. Most were happy to jump on the chance and only a few looked at us with a suspicious eye.

And the data entry began

Once we had a list of about 30 people signed up, Alicia started adding products to specific categories. Individually downloading images, copy/pasting descriptions and adding links to the makers Etsy store. 137 products later, we had enough quality, unique, real products in our demo store. It was a lot of work, but well worth it.

Thanks goes out to the crafts people who made it possible

If it wern't for you, our demo store wouldn't be as interesting. Thanks for playing along, and we hope it will generate some interest in your products.