Etsy Seller Interview with Alina and Eugene of CherryCoob

How CherryCoob 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?

Hello! We are CherryCoob. We are making and selling on Etsy crochet car steering wheel covers and other accessories for cars. It's a great way to add more hippie and boho vibes and personality to your car interior decor.

To be honest, it’s quite a common story for craft brands—all were started in childhood. In my case, it was passion for everything that was crocheted and knitted. My grandma taught me the basics, but she didn’t crochet well enough. It was more than 30 years ago, and YouTube didn’t even exist, so the most that I know I learned by myself from books. I really loved to knit and crochet and made it all my days long. I was always eager to find something unusual and new and make it. When I grew up, like most people, I preferred "serious work". So for some time, I had been working in marketing for different companies. It was an interesting experience, and it gave me a lot, but it did not give me a feeling of satisfaction. I quit, and my journey with myself finally began. I even started my own blog about handcrafted brands and interviewed many famous crafters from all over the world. This subsequently brought me back to the idea of knitting. On Etsy, everything began with Harry Styles' knitted sweaters. The sweater was at its peak of popularity, and I decided to try to make it and sell it on Etsy. Everything worked out well. There were a lot of orders. I didn’t have time to knit sweaters by myself, and my eldest daughter Alisa, who also loved knitting since childhood, joined me, and our small family business was started. But we still didn’t have enough hands to handle all the issues, and finally my husband, Eugene, joined us. He helped with shipments and communication with clients. Finally, our lives became easier! Later, my husband helped us with hiring new crocheters; other crocheters joined our team, and our team grew. Some time later, we found crochet car steering wheel covers, and we really loved the idea of making such car accessories, so we started producing them.

Favorite items

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

It may sound cliche, but we love absolutely everything we do. Perhaps our model with sunflowers is one of the most iconic for us. For us, it carries the symbolism of our country. In the summer in Ukraine, there are a lot of fields with sunflowers. Sunflower fields with blue skies look exactly like the Ukrainian flag. And besides this, it was the very first model that we created and our very first bestseller.

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?

Our first items began to sell quite quickly.

To be honest, we weren’t completely sure about our whole idea of crochet steering wheel covers. We were committed to working long and hard and thought it would take a week or more to get an order.

But the first sale happened literally a day after we posted the listing, and it was quite a pleasant surprise.

From the very beginning, we mostly get our customers organically through SEO, and yeah, sometimes we use advertising and sales.

Managing CherryCoob

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?

Our company at the beginning consisted of three people: me (Alina), my husband (Eugene), and my daughter (Alisa).

At first, I did everything by myself: crocheting, making photos and videos, creating all listings, making SEO and other marketing stuff, packing, dealing with shipments, and handling communication with clients. It was total madness!

Nowadays, I don’t do everything at once and crochet with my own hands as much as I used to. Nowadays, I mostly focus on developing new designs, photography, and marketing.

Over time, with the growing number of orders, my family gradually became my team. At first, my daughter helped me with crocheting and communication with clients, then my husband joined us and helped with shipments. A little later, he really helped us with hiring and training crocheters.

The future of CherryCoob

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

Oh, we have a huge number of ideas, from creating new designs to creating new products. We really hope to bring them all to life.

Unfortunately, almost from the very beginning of the existence of our small business, there were two upheavals: COVID and the war with Russia. This, of course, greatly affected sales. Especially the war...

Despite the war, we quickly returned to our business. All our orders during this period were made and shipped on time. Our store remains a Star Seller, but many people are afraid to make orders and simply don’t place orders as much as they did before the war. This, of course, affected our plans, and despite our quick success in this niche, everything turned out not to be as easy as it could be, so we have a lot of unrealized ideas.

Advice for new sellers

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

The first and most important thing is understanding how Etsy works and its SEO. Many beginners make the same mistake, thinking that the most important thing on Etsy is creativity. Yeh, it’s quite important, but first is SEO, and only then creativity.

The second most important thing is to really love what you do. Etsy is not a magical place, and working here you always have to face difficulties and new challenges, just like in any other business. But it is love for one’s work that always serves as a source of strength and makes it possible to overcome any obstacles and difficulties that happen, even when, from the outside, everything looks like success.