Etsy Seller Interview with Arina of ByDarkTales

How ByDarkTales 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 name is Arina Franzén, and I am the founder of Dark Tales Artisan Perfumery, which can be found as ByDarkTales on Etsy. I create peculiar, historical, and literary-inspired perfume oils. Every scent is an olfactory tale that takes you on a journey beyond reality—to an old library, a medieval abbey, a deep forest... you decide.

 Prior to venturing into the world of fragrances, I worked as a professional writer and biographer, holding degrees in both history and psychology. Although I used to write in two genres—history and fiction—I always felt that words weren't enough to capture the depth of my experiences fully. For example, do you remember the scent of your first kiss? Or a trip to France? Would you like to live these flashes again? With a sharp sense of smell and a fascination for fragrances, I began capturing moments and experiences through scents, allowing me to re-experience them again. Plus, I was eager to quit an office job and start a business of my own. This is how Dark Tales was born.

 It all began in July 2019 as a hobby, and by October, I had my little shop running on Etsy. Since then, the studio and my team have expanded. In September 2020, we obtained an official brand registration, and in the fall of 2022, we moved to a new studio location in the heart of Uppsala. Dark Tales is a botanical perfumery, meaning all our products are organic and cruelty-free. We source materials worldwide: essential oils, bottles, packaging, labels, description cards, etc. It’s a very complex network of logistics. Perfumes are created in-studio by hand, making Dark Tales a niche indie brand—a sort of exclusivity.

Favorite items

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

My favorite listings are the perfume discovery sets: the Complete Discovery Gift Set, the Discovery Set of Eight Perfume Samples, and the Quadro Perfume Sample Set. It is beautiful to work with samples—despite their miniature size, every single one of them has so much power inside, partly because of their botanical nature and partly because of the stories they keep. Samples, just like with any other perfumery house, are always a bestseller. Fragrances are a very delicate and individual matter that you would like to test first before purchasing a larger volume.

Another favorite listing is Gothika, a "liquid church" fragrance. Our most controversial outside-the-box perfume It carries the notes of a Gothic cathedral: old polished wood, incense, candle wax, soft dust, and ancient stone. It’s a love-or-hate scent; nothing in-between.

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?

Now that we have a steady flow of orders every day and a wide network of customers, it’s hard to recall how it was in the beginning. But I cherish those times; it was exciting, scary, challenging, and even reckless, but very fun. I believe that there are many shops that will tell the same story: the first sales came from the closest circle—family, and friends. I had a lot of people who wanted to support my start-up business, and I am most grateful for it. The first ch-ching came within hours after I posted about my Etsy shop on social media.

Back then, perfumes by Dark Tales looked entirely different from what they do today: a lack of labeling, not-so-professional photography, and lots of handmade stuff like gluing boxes ourselves and similar. Every sale was a treasure; it still is, but in 2019, it was "Wow! I just made one more sale!". The most exciting part started when my customers were people I didn’t know—I was so flattered that my products were actually interesting to people other than my friends.

The network of customers started to grow. Most people were buying perfume samples, and if they liked the scents, they returned for full bottles. This started a huge snowball of interest. Customers were sharing their experiences of wearing our perfumes with their friends, and then they came to buy our perfumes too. It also goes down to the nature of the product: say that I fall in love with the fragrance that an entire stranger is wearing. I can come and ask what it is. So, in the end, our product started selling itself. Today we focus our advertising, again, on sample sets. These are our target listings. If we have a sale, in most cases, it means that the person will return for another perfume. We have many customers who have been with us for years.

Managing ByDarkTales 

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?

I started my business as a solopreneur with great help and support from my husband, Tim Franzén, who eventually became my "partner in crime". It was many nights that we spent side by side packing all orders that flew in without a break. Today, I also have an assistant, Madeleine, who is my hands and eyes in the studio. Now she spends most of the time fulfilling the orders and making perfume batches, while I focus on creating new scents and working on bespoke orders.

Here are some handy tools that I use in business:

Canva is a splendid platform for creating all kinds of designs.

Grammarly: As a non-native, it was my English teacher in every single text.

Chat AI: It was a crazy discovery this year. We don’t use it for writing texts for us; we ask it to "rewrite" or "rephrase" what was already written, and the results are marvelous!

Google: Gmail and Google Drive with their many options for storing, working with files, and sharing within the team. Mostly, we use Google Sheets for all business calculations.

PostNord Business Portal: For creating shipping labels from Sweden.

Snapseed and VSCO are phone apps for quick photo edits.

Motionleap and Videoleap are phone apps for social media posts.

Wix is a platform outside of Etsy that hosts our official brand’s website.

The future of ByDarkTales

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

The long-term plan is to open a physical boutique in Sweden with our products. This idea sounded surreal even two years ago, but with the current spin and constant order flow, it becomes Dark Tales’ next step. And that is the final goal.

Advice for new sellers

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

Dare it! Start where you can, providing the best products that you can offer at the moment. Practice and time will tell what works and what doesn’t. After learning how Etsy functions and what products sell, your experience will guide you through. I recommend perfecting a beautiful product display from the start; after all, images are what sell first. Set up the correct keywords so the listing catches a good ranking in search. Be very clear in product descriptions. Try to ship orders as fast as possible; customers appreciate it. Provide the best customer service. And, most important, believe in yourself! If you have a clear goal of where your business will grow, work for it, do your best, and the results won’t make you wait. Good luck!