Etsy Seller Interview with Kairen of CelebratelyInvites

Favorite items

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

My favorite invites are the Woodland Animals range, as they are just such cute little animals to have on baby shower invites. The invites sold well, so I expanded the range for birthdays too.

My other favourite is the sparkle range. These were a happy accident when I was playing around with Photoshop one day. I loved the way they look like they are popping out of the page. Quite a lot of customers like having an invite with their age on it, so I created these in a way that they can edit part of it to be the age they need.

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 think it took a couple of weeks until I had my first sale, which totally took me by surprise as I wasn’t promoting my shop anywhere. Since those first few weeks, I have since gotten to grips with Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram and use them to promote my shop. I have to admit though, I was bitten by the Etsy bug and opened 2 more shops, so now I do have someone to help with social media. It took me ages to hand the social media reins over, but it makes sense to concentrate on your strengths and delegate the tasks that don't excite you.

Managing CelebratelyInvites

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?

This is just my opinion.In theory, selling digital items is passive income and there are days when it is, but there are always messages to answer, new designs to create and accounts to be done with. I have worked with accounts before, so I was happy doing my own accounts until I went VAT registered last year. Then it was time to delegate the accounts side to an accountant and switch from Excel to an accounts program.

My must-haves use every day.

Paper and Sparks-what I used for 2 years before moving to an accounting program. They do brilliant excel accounts designed for Etsy and are always on hand to answer questions.

I had already started to move over to them when I found my accountant, and he loves Quickbooks, so the move was sped up.

Photoshop: I admit I don't use Photoshop to its full potential, but I am slowly learning. fantastic for mockups with its smart object function.

Procreate (Procreate is a drawing program for the iPad). It’s an amazing program. I have always been artsy but had to start at the beginning when I tried digital drawing. I used lockdown to finally get to grips with Procreate and ended up opening up another shop in lockdown for my clipart.

Etsy Snippets-In Etsy you can create and save replies to quickly reply to customers. This is such a time saver.

The future of CelebratelyInvites

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

My goal is for CelebratelyInvites to continue growing as it is. I feel very lucky that sales increase month on month, but not at a speed that I can't cope with. I see CelebratelyInvites as a part of a set of shops, and now that it is at a very good place, I can focus some of my time on my other shops.

Advice for new sellers

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

Read the Etsy handbook and then read it again.

When starting out, it's natural to look on Etsy to see what everyone is charging for an item that's similar to yours. Don't undercut your competitors. Instead, know your value and offer more value for money.

Do your research. If there are a lot of similar items on Etsy, that can prove there is a demand, but it can be hard work to be seen amongst the competition. At the beginning, try going after the ‘lower fruit’ where there won't be as much competition and you'll have a better chance of being seen.