What the heck is a BNR ??

About a month ago, I discovered BNRs on Etsy. And yes, I can hear you - What the heck is a BNR ??

BNR stands for Buy And Replace. But before I can talk about BNR, first I need to talk about Treasuries. Treasuries are an Etsy "thing". Any Etsy member can create a Treasury. Each Treasury has 16 spaces. Here, this is how Etsy describes a Treasury -

"Treasury is an ever-changing, member-curated shopping gallery comprised of lists of items. Lists contain 16 items. Members can feature their favorite items, items selected on a theme or whatever they like. Any Etsy member can create a Treasury list, and there is no limit to the number of lists you can create. You can edit your lists as often as you desire, and post comments to other members' lists. The number of views your list receives as well as the number of clicks the items featured in your list receive are displayed in the list's Stats section."

Here is a Treasury I created that features some of my soaping buddies from a soaping team I am a member of. Now, don't forget to come back after clicking on the link! :)

A SAFETeam Treasury

OK, are you back? Did you see a lot of gorgeous soap ?? :-D

So that is a Treasury. Lots of Etsy folks like to create Treasuries, and lots of Etsy folks like to look at Treasuries. It didn't take long for someone to come up with a wonderful promotional tool using Treasuries. And this promotional tool became known as Buy and Replace. Here's the deal ....

A "curator" creates a Treasury. The curator declares it a BNR. And this is what happens - if another Etsy seller buys something from one of the shops featured in this Treasury, then THAT seller's shop replaces the shop that was bought from in the Treasury. Get it? Buy something from a featured shop, replace that shop with your shop. In order for this to work, sellers who are featured in a BNR will help promote it, by posting a link to it on Facebook, or Twitter, or whatever promotional tools they like to use. A BNR promotion may last a few hours, or all day, or until a certain number of sales is reached. Some BNRs are BNSs, which means Buy and Stay. In a BNS, the promotion lasts until a certain number of sales is reached. All the original sellers that are featured in the Treasury stay featured. Purchases can be from any featured shop. The curator keeps a list of all the sellers that have bought in. Then, when the number of sales is reached, the curator creates a NEW Treasury with all the folks that bought in! And everyone starts promoting the NEW Treasury.

And yes, it works! There is a lot of chatting that goes on in a BNR. People get to know each other. It's a seller helping seller atmosphere, very encouraging, very welcoming. And us Etsy sellers, we like it! Because, yeah, we're buyers too! :-D

OH, and let me add, most featured shops will also be offering discounts!

So now when you see me promoting a BNR, you'll know what the heck I'm talking about !!!