Etsy Seller Interview with Melanie of BootlegBotanicals

How BootlegBotanicals got started

Introduce your Etsy shop and tell us your story. How did you begin and decide on what to sell on Etsy, and how do you create your products?

My husband Ryan and I started Bootleg Botanicals after a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2014. After starting to play with making alcohol at home and developing a couple herbal blends we liked, we decided to see if other people would be interested in our product idea. Our initial goal of $5,500 was smashed in days, and the campaign ended 30 days later with $31K in pre-orders.

Bootleg Botanicals are herbal spice blends that are added to unflavored alcohol and steeped like one would make a cup of tea. Instead of using chemicals, we wanted our spirits to rely solely on natural flavor and color. Since herbs and spices have been used to flavor spirits forever, we thought it would be fun to use an age-old technique.

Absinthe and our take on the classic Old Fashioned Cocktail were our very first experiments. At the time, we were still recovering from the 2008 recession, and money was very tight. Ryan loved Absinthe, but it was out of our budget. He also enjoys starting a random DIY project now and then.

One day the internet took him down the rabbit hole, and he decided he wanted to buy a Still and make his own Absinthe. Not wanting to get raided for breaking the law or accidentally starting a fire in the condo, I told him that wasn’t going to happen. I convinced him to try maceration first.

After sourcing lab-tested, organic ingredients in a raw, unaltered state and some experimenting, Ryan and I decided that the spices infuse faster and impart the most flavor if they are ground first. As it turns out, ground spices release more of the natural oils and cut infusion time from weeks to hours.

We took a very scientific approach when developing our recipes and hosted several blind taste test parties with our friends and Kickstarter backers to dial in the flavor profiles before settling on the final recipes. It took months and a lot of wasted alcohol. There is a reason we offer a Gin 6 and a Gin 9. Tests tests 1-5 and 7-8 were BAD! 

After successfully fulfilling the Kickstarter orders, I set up our Etsy shop in August of 2014. We were excited to see our very first Etsy sale arrive in our inbox a month later.

The shop's growth was slow, with only one more sale the following month. Thankfully, shortly before the holidays, the shop started to take off, and our very first 5-star review came in. By the end of 2014, we had 42 new customers.

Bootleg Botanicals has continued to grow over the past nine years, and we were able to purchase a manufacturing facility for making our spice blends in 2019. Today, we still hand batch each and every vial of infusion spices from lab-tested, certified dry herbs and spices. It is still just the two of us, and we pride ourselves on maintaining the same rigid standards we started with nearly a decade ago.

Favorite items

What are your favorite items? What makes these so special? Why do you think these items might be selling well?

Absinthe, our Botanical Gin No. 6, and the Ginger Beer spices are our favorite go-tos. Each is very versatile and can be used in a variety of our favorite cocktail recipes. I’d say the Gin goes the quickest in our house, especially as the Arizona Summer heat sets in. A G&T is refreshing on a hot day. It is also the fastest to infuse and has twice the alcohol volume of our other blends. We enjoy infusing unflavored white rum, which might sound odd at first but is delightful.

Of the three, Absinthe is our most popular sales item, but each has its time to shine. Ginger Beer was extremely popular during COVID but seems to have slowed now that the pandemic is over. I think Gin has fans and haters. It seems like you either love or hate Gin, and some people are nervous to give it a try. Our Botanical Gin has converted some non-Gin drinkers, which always makes us smile.

I think Absinthe is mysterious, and that adds to its allure. It also has a lot of different herbs going on, which makes it harder to source ingredients. Some of the eleven ingredients we use in the Absinthe blend are hard for us to get from time to time.

Ginger Beer brewing is fun, and when you have a gallon of it, you can make up to 32 different Mules. Who doesn’t love a good Mule Cocktail?

Botanical Gin No. 6 is so good it can be sipped neat. It has a slightly sweeter flavor, and the herbaceousness is really refreshing.

Getting sales on Etsy

How long did it take for you to earn your first sale and how do you currently attract customers to your Etsy shop?

It took a month to get our very first Etsy sale. The next month was another single sale, and by November we were starting to gain traction. Over the past nine years, there has been a steady trend in our Etsy Sales. September through January are solid. It seems our product does best as a gift item on Etsy. February–August is generally very slow. It fluctuates year over year with social and economic variances in severity. I think our sales have varied partially due to Etsy's algorithm changes. I noticed the sales were declining a couple years ago and have actively worked to hone our SEO on the platform. I also opted to pay for marketing on Etsy to stand out in the crowd, which had been working but now seems to have stopped.

Managing BootlegBotanicals

How do you manage your shop? Are you running solo or do you have any team members? What tools or services do you use to run your shop and how do you handle fulfillment?

Ryan and I have always run Bootleg Botanicals alone. As a small business with limited resources, I try to bootstrap wherever possible. We have integrated XPS Shipping with our Etsy Shop to process shipment postage and manage tracking. It is a free service and has greatly improved our workflow. Orders come into Etsy and are imported automatically into XPS, where I compare shipping rates and print postage. Once the postage is printed, the tracking number is reported to Etsy and marked as completed. We then make the product that is ordered, box it, and drop it off at our local shipping store.

The future of BootlegBotanicals 

What goals do you have for your shop in the future?

I’d love to see the shop start to grow again. It’s been stale for the past couple years, which is a bummer. I’m hoping that some updated images and text improvements will help.

Advice for new sellers

What’s your advice for a new seller starting an Etsy shop?

While I love Etsy and our loyal customers on the platform, I always advise that online entrepreneurs showcase their products on multiple sites, including one dedicated to their brand. With so much competition, I’ve found that it’s beneficial to avoid keeping all of your eggs in one basket. Etsy has been very successful for the gifting side of our business, but currently our business website is outperforming it on the individual purchase side. Enjoy Etsy for its strengths and try to mitigate any weaknesses. On the SEO front, I’ve found that the title description is very important, and you want to use as many keywords as you think your customers will respond to. Play with images, and be sure to include several variations. We found that adding shipping to the overall price of our product helped increase sales. Everyone loves free shipping!

Some sellers really get inspired by hearing numbers. Feel free to share these if you like.

Question: How much is your monthly revenue?
Answer: Our average monthly revenue for 2022 was $900

Question: What is your average profit margin?
Answer: We try to aim for a 50% profit margin, but shipping costs vary from time to time.

Question: What is your shop’s conversion rate?
Answer: Our conversion rate for the last five years:2022 = 1.3%2021 = 2.5%2020 = 3.6%2019 = 1.7%2018 = 1.8%