ElaineJHillson

Your Name - or Shop Name - This will appear as your blog post title *	ElaineJHillson
What advice that you received as a shopkeeper or learned from trial and error - would you like to pass on to someone else? *
I think the most helpful piece of advice was not to be too easily discouraged, to experiment and to keep adding new products. I think with the modern obsession with instant success it can be hard sometimes to slow down and give a business time to grow. The internet lulls shopkeepers into the belief that a business is easy to run and that customers are just waiting to leap at your products. Patience however is a key element to success. You have to find your market and give potential customers time to get to know that you are not just going to disappear overnight. People in general like to browse a bit before they commit to a purchase so give it time.
How often do you add new products or designs? *	Several times a week, but not every day
If you came into $100,000 tomorrow what would you do with it? *	I would buy a new camera and then arrange to do some travelling to take lots and lots of photos. I might even do something sensible with the rest.
What is the last product you added to your store? *	http://www.zazzle.com/cat_and_flower_magnet-147019016977053914
What would you do if you saw an actor on TV wearing one of your shirts, or one of your products on the set of a popular Tv show or movie? *	Once I'd stopped running around I'd ring my mum. Then I would be tweeting the world. I would be so happy :)
Do you have any formal art or computer training? *	Yes, art & computer
What programs do you use to create your designs? What do you like about them? *	I use Photoshop. As a photographer I like to make as little changes as possible to the photograph as taken other than a few tweaks to exposure and contrast. The camera raw component of photoshop allows me to do all this non-destructively to the original image. As a digital artist I appreciate the comprehensiveness of the tools available with photoshop and the wealth of free tutorials that artists have made available for learning to get the best out of this particular package.
Other than your own shop(s) - what 1 shop on zazzle created by someone else, is your absolute favorite? *	http://www.zazzle.com/elainejhillson?rf=238134183688952651
List your shops: *	http://www.zazzle.com/elainejhillson?rf=238134183688952651