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Below, please find the LGS10 event schedule, the vendor directory, and the virtual mall login details. Shop ’til you drop this holiday season and get every name checked off your gift list. This year, Let’s Go Shopping takes place over two consecutive Saturdays, so if you see a vendor listed twice, they’ll present different products each time. Tune in for special programs such as our annual “Stocking Stuffers” hour, where every item presented will be $20 or under. Don’t miss the “10/10/10” hour, where we’ll offer special items that in some way embrace the number ten, whether it’s a $10 item,. ten items for one low price, a 10% discount, and so on. Celebrate the 10th edition of LGS with us, and be sure to catch the “Happy Hour Q&A” session the last hour of the second Saturday, where you can get any of your last-minute questions answered. Bring a friend and power shop in your pj’s throughout the 2025 Let’s Go Shopping holiday gift extravaganza!

Here’s your ticket to the Zoom virtual mall:

To get the inside scoop on any discounts, door prizes, coupon codes, or other special deals, be sure to subscribe to the Let’s Go Shopping announcements list! Send a blank email to lgs+subscribe@groups.io for all the LGS10 goodness!

Time:
Saturday, Nov 1, 2025 09:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Saturday, Nov 8, 2025 09:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

it’s the 10th edition of the epic, online, accessible, virtual mall crawl that connects small businesses with the customers who need them! Celebrate with us as we present the 2025 lineup of great holiday gifts for everyone on your list. Find tech gadgets and daily living aids, fashion and jewelry, bags and accessories, fragrance and beauty, stocking stuffers, hand crafts, home decor, and more!

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Meeting ID: 867 3257 4292
Passcode: 239040

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The Let’s Go Shopping 10 Event Schedule

Please note that all times are Pacific time. Adjust for your time zone accordingly.

Day 1, Saturday, November 1:

09:00 AM – Wright Turn Only handcrafted wooden keepsakes

10:00 AM – Blind Girl Designs for festive fashion fabulous

11:00 AM – Simple Little Goods quality artisan crafted leather gifts

11:30 AM – Braille Wear embroidered designs that make perfect presents

12 noon Guidelight Solutions to enhance your holidays

01:00 PM – All that Glitters and Christmas Critters with Elegant Insights

02:00 PM – Stocking stuffers Gifts $20 and under!

03:00 PM – Gifted Back by blind artists, crafters, and knitters

03:30 PM Blind Delights for a more delightful holiday season

04:00 PM – Tech the Halls with A. T. Guys

05:00 PM – End of day

Day 2, Saturday, November 8:

09:00 AM Scentsy with Nini: Santa’s Sensational Scents of the Season!

10:00 AM – 10/10/10 Celebrate LGS10!

11:00 AM – Braille Wear festive embroidered gifts

11:30 AM – Gifted Back for gifts that truly give back!

12 noon – Guidelight Solutions you’ll carry every day

01:00 PM – Trim the tree with Elegant Insights

1:30 PM Simple Little Goods quality handcrafted leather gifts

02:00 PM – Mama Otter’s Tidbits affordable jewelry treasures for the holidays and beyond

03:00 PM – Elegant accessories with Elegant Insights

04:00 Happy Hour Q and A: Bring your own beverage, sit a spell, and get those questions answered!

05:00 PM – End of day.

The LGS10 Directory of entrepreneurs

Welcome to Let’s Go Shopping! The 2025 showcase begins at 9AM Pacific time on Saturday, November 1st, and continues on Saturday, November 8th at 9AM Pacific time.

Check out these fantastic businesses ready to help you tackle that gift list, and who can be contacted using the details below. Shop ’til you drop from the comfort of your couch!

Happy holidays from all of us!

Wright Turn Only

Crafted with vision, not sight – distinctive wooden treasures to warm every holiday heart.

Ray Wright
801-560-9866 -call or text
www.wrightturnonly.com/
wrightturnonly@gmail.com

Blind Delights

Handcrafted, natural, affordable, and environmentally friendly skin care.

Stephanie Barrera Valdes
781-839-0628
blinddelights@gmail.com
blinddelights.shop
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/10074076551878
Instagram: 
www.instagram.com/blinddelights?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
TikTok:
 https://www.tiktok.com/@blinddelights?_t=8gEtz3v8U4E&_r=1

Simple Little Goods

Quality handmade leather goods.

Chuck Winstead
502-509-4445
simplelittlegoods@gmail.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/people/Simple-Little-Goods/100075977329182/?mibextid=ZbWKwL

Braille Wear

Totes, Aprons, and accessories with tactile embroidered Braille and/or print and tactile images. Ready-made items and custom items available. Fun and unique gifts for everyone!

Terry Keyson
805 338 9853
braillewear.shop
Braillewear4u@gmail.com
Instagram: @braillewear4u

Elegant Insights

A distinctive collection of jewelry, gifts, and accessories, all handcrafted, made in the USA, and embossed in braille or with precision engraving. Get your sparkle on!

Laura Legendary
702-605-1265
elegantinsightsjewelry.comcustomer.service@elegantinsightsjewelry.com
X (Twitter): @ElegantInsights
FB: www.facebook.com/Elegant.Insights/
IG: www.instagram.com/elegantinsights/

GuideLight Solutions

It Works! We Use IT ourselves.

Barry Scheur
617-969-7500
barry.scheur@gmail.com
2220 Windsor Run Lane, Apt. 58
Unit CC-G18
Matthews, NC 28105

Blind Girl Designs

Whimsical white cane prints on aprons, totes, Tshirts and hoodies! Great holiday gifts!!!

Tricia Waechter
862-448-1011
blindgirldesigns.com/
tricia@blindgirldesigns.com
molly@blindgirldesigns.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blindgirldesigns
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blindgirldesigns/ 
Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@blindgirldesigns

Gifted Back – Gifted Blind Artists, Crafters, and Knitters

Discover one-of-a-kind holiday treasures handcrafted by talented artisans who are blind or have low vision. Give a gift that truly gives back! Custom requests welcome!

Pearl Mecenas
619-433-4493
pearl.a.mecenas@gmail.com
www.GiftedBack.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/giftedbackcause
Instagram: www.instagram.com/giftedback/

A. T. Guys

Smart technology for your smart life.

J. J. Meddaugh
269-216-4798
atguys.com
support@atguys.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/atguys
Mastodon: atguys@mastodon.social

Scentsy with Nini

“Fill Your Life with Fragrance”

Nini Urschel, Scentsy Fragrance Consultant
916-206-1151
nini95626@sbcglobal.net
nini.scentsy.us
“Sensational Scents with Nini” Private Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/groups/272770334027562/
“NV Wickless Scents & More” Facebook Public Page: www.facebook.com/pages/category/Product-Service/NV-Wickless-Scents-More-125248947558448/

Mama Otter’s Tidbits

Treasures, Treats, and Trinkets for Every Taste.

Charlotte Lang
mamaotter1@gmail.com
www.mamaotter.com

Thank you for patronizing these wonderful businesses. Please allow for extra shipping time, as delivery services slow down over the holidays. Custom and handcrafted goods require more time to complete and ship as well, so we appreciate your patience as we tackle a surge of orders. Wishing you and yours a joyful holiday season.

Ready for a little retail therapy? Let’s Go Shopping!

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Meeting ID: 867 3257 4292
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Laura

March is the Elegant Insights founding month. We began offering our braille jewelry collection in 2011, and we made our debut at the American Council of the Blind national convention. Recently, while browsing through files of unfinished blog posts I wanted to complete, I ran across an ancient article I had written for a now-defunct blogging platform, lost to the digital graveyard. After amusing myself by rereading some of my old posts, I realized that one article in particular might be a great candidate to revisit now, as I reflect on the previous 14 years as owner and designer of Elegant Insights Braille Creations, and to share some lessons learned.

The old article began like this:

My new business is called Elegant Insights, and I refer to the entire product line more generally as Elegant Insights Braille Creations. I’m selling Braille-embossed jewelry and accessories for both men and women, and even though the web site is still in the, um, beta stage, I first wanted to test market the products with a relevant, large group, so I decided to exhibit my designs at a trade show.

I have never attended a trade show before, not as an exhibitor, anyway. I’m not into arts and crafts, I do not think of myself as a particularly creative person. I have somewhat serviceable oral and written communication skills, but beyond that, I’m not really very good at much of anything. Seriously.

Wow, did I ever sell myself short. Lesson number one — it’s cringy, but it’s timeless — believe in yourself, or no one else will.

You might imagine, then, how nervous I was to participate in this show. It was the American Council of the Blind 50th Anniversary National Conference, and the expected attendance was around 2,000 people. if this new business was going to bomb in a big way, I would learn that in very short order. I had taken on entrepreneurial ventures before, and I was well familiar and comfortable with the administration aspects of a startup small business, but I felt very insecure about how my designs would be received. What if people hated my jewelry?

I need not have worried. Cutting to the chase, the show was a great success, but not because I sold tons of jewelry, although I did. Rather, it was because of all that I learned.

The buzz surrounding my debut and the enthusiasm about the products really encouraged me to step outside my comfort zone and to network and promote my new enterprise to everyone and anyone who would listen. I found myself showing off my jewelry to the waitress in the coffee shop at the hotel, the people with whom I sat in the airport, the cab driver who drove me to the venue. I relentlessly and shamelessly promoted my products, and I think that the incredibly positive response helped me a great deal to feel empowered to take risks and permit myself to experience the resulting discomfort. Lesson number two: You can’t play the game with sweaty palms.

There are a few things to take into consideration, though, if you’ve never sat a trade show as a reseller. First of all, the trade show business is a multi billion dollar business, and there is no end to the ways in which you are enticed to spend money, before you ever leave your house. Think about it: You do have to fly to the venue if you do not live nearby, you have to pay for the hotel room, which may or may not be available at a conference discount rate, and you must make your reservations and pay for the booth space, well in advance. This means you have incurred a significant expense before you’ve sold a single item.

From there, you give your bottom line the side eye, as you begin the trade show already in a financial deficit. If you want to send anything to the exhibit hall in advance of the event, you are usually required to use the event sanctioned “drayage” service, which enables you to ship your products, displays, tech gear and marketing materials directly to the booth. I had never heard this word before, so I had to look it up. Drayage is a type of freight transportation that moves goods over short distances, usually within the same geographical area, typically from a port to a nearby storage or distribution center, using a dray. A dray is a vehicle used to haul goods, especially a strong cart or wagon without sides. Dray is an old word, from Middle English. Obviously, nowadays, a dray is a truck.

Using a drayage service can be very convenient, especially if you plan to use heavy or elaborate displays, or if you want to exhibit product that will not fit into a suitcase. However, it can also be very expensive, as this service often employs union labor, which means you are not allowed to carry boxes into the exhibit hall yourself. Plus, at the end of the convention you’ll have to ship it all back.

There are also innumerable ways you can decorate, illuminate, and enhance your exhibit booth, and the event company will offer you a list of products and services guaranteed to heighten an attendee’s shopping experience. Signage, electrical hookup, telephony (for accepting credit cards), wi-fi, tiered advertising plans and promotional bag inserts, and even a trash can, are all available at a cost. Admittedly, this particular show was not as expensive as say, the massive Consumer Electronics Show (CES) might be, but for me, the expense was breathtaking. For example, the convention exhibit fee included one table and two chairs. There were four of us working the booth. When I asked if I might have two extra chairs, I was informed that I would have to pay an additional $75 per chair. Hard pass.

Boy, did my feet hurt.

We haven’t even addressed the cost of the additional inventory you’ll need to last the duration of the event, or any marketing or promotion dollars you’ve already spent to raise awareness about your appearance at the show. If there are hundreds of other exhibitors, how will people find you? Why should they buy your products instead of your competitor’s, who have a fancy multi-table booth, a video playing constantly on a wide screen, customized promotional giveaway swag, discount codes, free popcorn, lots of literature and plenty of chairs? All it takes is money. Lots of money.

Don’t forget, you have to eat while you’re there. Hotel food is expensive. Want to eat off-site? Got transport? Transport is expensive. Oh, and don’t forget, if you plan to be joined by your employees, you’ll have to pay for their airfare, hotel, ground transfers, and food as well as paying for their time working the booth. Ka-ching!

It’s simple math, really. If you are not selling enough to cover your daily expenses, you are going to have to move a lot of product. This dawned on me very early on, as the bills piled up, so I decided to make the trip more about building excitement and interest for my new business, and hoped to capitalize on that excitement in a way that would pay off long after I unpacked my suitcase. Lesson number three: Exhibiting at a convention might be a break-even proposition at best.

If you are a small business owner, offering products or services, an artist selling your work, or an independent consultant seeking to drum up clients, consider ways to conserve your resources before the convention, and plan to heavily promote your appearance in advance, as well as to identify ways to leverage the exposure after the event. For example, ask friends or family to work the booth with you, instead of paid employees. You may still have to pay their way, but at least it’s lighter on the company payroll. You can even share the hotel room and split the cost. Pack groceries, and request a room with a refrigerator. Better yet, if you have a friend or family member who lives near the convention, stay with them if possible. These suggestions are probably obvious, but inexperience can be costly. If the merchandise you are selling is inexpensive, as compared to, say, the software company in the next booth over, they may only need to sell one or two site licenses to pay for their booth space, but you’ll have to sell many more items to pay for yours. Lesson number four: You’ll have to work a lot of conventions or trade shows to make the effort profitable.

Finally, there are no guarantees. I’ve exhibited at conventions where the attendance was abysmal, and consequently I incurred unsustainable financial loss. Convention coordinators or event hosts are only obligated to promote the conference itself, not to put a spotlight on your company. Therefore, you’ll have to do all the heavy promotional lifting. This is why you may consider marketing your appearance at the event in the local area beforehand, so long as visiting the exhibit hall is free and open to the public. Promote the event to relevant groups, clubs, or businesses and encourage them to stop by your booth. Always be sure to include your assigned booth number in all of your marketing. Lesson number five: No one cares about your business as much as you do. It’s all on you.

These are just a few things to consider when exhibiting your wares at a trade show as part of an overall marketing plan. Over the years, I’ve been selective about what events I attend, and, since the pandemic, I jump at any chance to participate in a virtual event. In fact, in an effort to expand my reach, I’ve hosted many of my own virtual events. Use meeting platforms such as Zoom or Teams to create a community, and of course, take advantage of social media. If you need more ideas on how to promote your small business at low or no cost, just use your favorite search engine. You’ll be surprised how many opportunities you’ll find. Most of the time, promoting your venture is a long, slow grind, broken up by intermittent growth spurts. Oh, and wear comfortable shoes.

Sparkle on!

Laura

Let’s face it, there aren’t invectives enough to hurl at the year that began described as the “Roaring Twenties,” and quickly turned into the year from hell. As far as I’m concerned, it cannot conclude fast enough. If you are among those who have suffered from the ravages of the novel Corona Virus, you have my sincere sympathies. If you have lost a friend or loved one to Covid-19, you are in my heart, and I grieve with you.

The pandemic has changed our lives in so many ways, large and small. From changing the way we work to changing the way kids will go trick-or-treating, one of those ways has to do with how we shop now. As a person who is blind, I have always made good use of any delivery services available and accessible to me, but my online shopping habits have reached a whole new level of expert as I acquaint myself with the intricacies of shopping via apps, apps, and more apps. Consequently, my garage is filled with boxes that I will need to flatten and add to my recycle bin. Delivery people have worn out my front walkway with an almost daily delivery of supplies for my business or household. But that’s nothing compared to the mountain of cardboard awaiting my post Christmas cleanup, as I add even more online holiday shopping to the mix.

Shippers were signaling changes to holiday delivery services back in August and September. Among those changes were shipping rate increases and warnings about slowdowns. I can confirm that, as of October, the slowdowns have already begun.

Consider this: Because of the restrictions imposed by the need for social distancing, retailers have announced that they planned to forego the usual Black Friday madness, that crazy chaos involving store stampedes and fistfights over prized toys or electronics, opting instead for ongoing promotions. In fact, some big-name department stores have already announced their Black Friday deals will be available throughout November and beyond, so the urgency created by the Thanksgiving weekend sales frenzy will be a non-issue.

Further, fewer people will be traveling to see their families this year. With seniors and vulnerable people at risk, along with the need to avoid gatherings of people in indoor settings, many people will be shipping gifts to their loved ones, rather than hosting Christmas festivities. Think about how many more packages that will mean moving through the shipping system.

As a small online retailer, I can easily imagine shipping is going to be a nightmare this holiday season. It’s a great convenience to get your order acknowledgement and a shipping notification, along with a tracking number for your purchase, but in many cases, a tracking number does you little good once the package has become stalled somewhere along the line.

Your first instinct might be to think that a lost or mis-routed package can be found and redirected with the all-important tracking number, but in reality, there’s not much that can be done once the package is on the move. At various points along the way, your package is scanned to confirm it has arrived at a distribution center, a relay hub, or a local postal facility. If all goes well, you can follow your item as it makes a fascinating journey across the country, which is never a straight line from point A to B.

Once your package goes off track, though, there’s very little you, or your retailer, can do. I have absolutely no control over the route a package takes once it leaves my premises. Ah, you may be thinking, but what about an investigation? There are provisions in place for hunting down lost or misdelivered boxes, right? Aww…You are so cute. What a lovely thought. But, no. The reality is that an investigation means you will probably spend, at minimum, a maddening amount of time on hold, while a cranky clerk looks over the tracking history of your item, as you have already done, and then tell you that they’ll look into it, but that they can make no guarantees. Even if they can find the location of your item, it’s not as if there is a person who can pick through the avalanche of packages and send yours on the right path to its destination. It can take months for that Gordian knot to be untangled. With the mind-boggling number of packages being handled this holiday season, you can be almost certain one or more of your items will not arrive in time to get wrapped and under the tree.

My advice is to think ahead, to shop early, to be patient, and realize that you have no control over any of this, and that if a gift is so important that you would be heartbroken if it did not reach its destination on time, you might want to invest in a door-to-door, overnight courier service.

If there were ever words of wisdom to cling to, in an effort to cope with this awful, awful year, it would have to be, “this too shall pass.” That’s scant comfort, though, when a child is disappointed Christmas morning when Santa’s sleigh was late, when you hoped to have a happy holiday with your extended family, but thanks to the pandemic, a socially distant Christmas is all you have to look forward to. With the scary proposition of interminable lines of potentially infected people at the post office or UPS Store, packages that seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth, due to the increased burden on shipping services, and porch pirates who help themselves to your gifts when they do arrive, this holiday season promises to be a less than perfect way to end a perfectly miserable year. But with some planning and patience, understanding and the realization that we are all (still) in this together, it might be the best time to focus on the reason for the season, those things that really matter, and shrug off those shipping snafus. The good news is, the 2020 nightmare is almost over.

Happy Halloween!

LL