Etsy Seller Interview with Caroline of CCADesign

How CCADesign 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 shop is called CCADesign (named for the parent company, Carolina Creative Arts, Inc.), as I wanted to avoid anything that played on the words "bow ties" and didn’t limit me if I decided to branch out from bow ties into other products.

I learned to sew at a pretty early age and maintained my sewing skills through college, my first career in international banking and my second career as a portrait photographer. After moving from England to Connecticut in 1990, I sharpened those sewing skills at the Parsons School in New York and reignited my love of fabrics and design.

When my family moved to Charlotte, NC in 2002, I spent 3 years working in a couture design studio making wedding dresses, ball gowns, cocktail suits, and tailored day wear. After my wonderful boss moved to Florida, I was left without a professional sewing avenue until inspiration came from the unlikeliest of places: my then college-age son. About to spend too much money (that he didn't have) on a designer bow tie for a formal, I made him one instead. It was an instant success among his friends, and before I knew it, I had orders for more-it was time to go public, so I came to Etsy with a great handmade product and a lot of optimism!

Approximately 15,000 bow ties later, CCADesign is going strong. I choose fabrics that reflect every personality and concentrate on making affordable gentlemen's accessories of impeccable quality. In addition to individual sales, I am a trusted resource for wedding parties, and I love working with brides and grooms to add important style flourishes to their special day. I offer a range of child-sized bow ties, suspenders and pocket squares in addition to adult-sized ones, and those have been an important expansion to my product line-up.

With an impressive selection of fabrics, I have become a go-to source of bow ties, pocket squares, cummerbunds, and suspenders for any and all events. I use cotton and cotton blend fabrics and avoid making my products in designs that can be found anywhere else. My accessories start conversations and make the wearer feel and look special—and a little piece of me goes into every order. Everyone deserves a little luxury in their lives, and my colorful handmade accessories provide it in an affordable way.

I source my fabrics largely through the internet and am constantly checking out online fabric stores to find designs that will appeal to my customers. I use a lot of Liberty of London Tana lawn (cotton) fabric as it feels like silk, resists creases, and the colors and designs are eye-catching and have wide appeal. I also use a range of Rifle Paper Co. fabric as it has a cheerful and modern appeal, especially for brides and wedding parties.

I make all my bow ties, cummerbunds, pocket squares, and suspenders myself and am a one-person shop. I only sell through Etsy and don’t have any presence elsewhere.

Favorite items

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

I think the favorite items in my shop are my Liberty of London bow ties, as I love working with the fabric—it feels wonderful in my hands, the colors and designs are classic and classy, and just the process of seeing the fabric turned into something that will bring pleasure to the end wearer makes me happy.

The Liberty bow ties and the Rifle Paper Co. bow ties are probably consistently my best sellers, but since I carry such a wide range (over 600 different fabrics), it’s hard to pinpoint any particular favorites.

The Liberty and Rifle Paper Co. prints are good sellers because the range of colors and designs is wide enough to appeal to a broad range of tastes, and though bow ties are a niche product, they have a certain timeless appeal which seems to transcend fashion fads. I believe my products sell well because I have extremely high standards and don’t sell anything that doesn’t meet those standards.

I have always been very happy to provide bow ties and cummerbunds for same-sex weddings, and one of my best sellers is this classy-and utterly delightful-rainbow tie:

Other favorites (of mine and the public’s) are Liberty’s Birds of Paradise bow tie:

This wonderful Liberty Daisy print cummerbund set is very popular:

And Rifle Paper Co. Rosa in blush is a perennial favorite:

I offer stylish holiday bow ties that get the spirit of the season without sacrificing style:

And I also offer bow ties that have sense of humor like the Matzoh cracker bow tie:

and the flamingo bow tie is always popular!

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?

I made my first sale in March of 2011 within a couple of days of taking my shop live. Since then, I have learned a lot about SEO and how to word my titles and tags for maximum impact. I have also learned that customers often don’t read item listings, so I put important information up front (and sometimes in all caps if it’s really important) and even then I have to send answers to the same questions over and over again because folks don’t read. Rather than let this drive me crazy, I use the Etsy saved replies so that I can send off a quick response and provide good customer service without tearing my hair out!

I use Etsy advertising and have a CCADesign Instagram page, but I don’t promote more actively than that, as I don’t want to grow to the point where I have to hire outside help.

Managing CCADesign

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 run my business by myself and use the Etsy Seller app as well as the desktop for Etsy.com. I don’t use QuickBooks as I have a very good home-grown Excel spreadsheet that keeps track of all my sales and expenses, and then I have an accountant who does my tax returns.

I handle all my shipping myself and use Stamps.com for printing shipping labels. The tracking information is sent directly back to Etsy so that I can comply with their requirements for shipping so as to benefit from their Etsy Seller Protection. I don’t use Etsy shipping labels as I prefer to keep a separate record of my shipping expenses outside of Etsy.

The future of CCADesign 

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

I am very happy with the level of activity I have right now, and since I don’t want to grow the business to the point where I need to hire outside help, I don’t plan on any major expansions. I have other commitments aside from running my Etsy shop, and the work/life balance I have right now suits me very well.

Advice for new sellers

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

The best advice I would give anyone starting an Etsy shop is to get their photography perfect so that people can see exactly what they are buying. Then think about how you describe your items, bearing in mind that people really don’t read things well. I never give out my phone number because I don’t want calls at anti-social hours and because I answer every message very promptly. I do everything through the Etsy messages so that both the customer and I have a full record of everything that is discussed for the avoidance of misunderstandings.

Customer service is really important and though there are some buyers who forget that they are dealing with real people and can be unpleasant, they have been (in my experience so far) fortunately very much in the minority. By far the majority of my customers are pleasant and easy to deal with when interaction outside of the simple buying and selling process becomes necessary. I tend to make sure that I always live up to expectations and exceed them as often as possible, as that always makes for happy customers.

I would urge people not to let their Etsy shop take over their lives and to keep that work/life balance in a good place. That said, if you don’t love what you do, you won’t do it well, so if selling on Etsy gets to be a chore, stop and try something different!