Etsy Seller Interview with Corinne of CorinneMelanieArt

How CorinneMelanieArt 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?

Hi there! I’m Corinne, and I’m a professional artist. I sell fine art prints of my artwork on my Etsy store. I specialize in high-quality, extra-large fine art prints on canvas. My goal is to make walls and spaces more beautiful and bring joy to those who fall in love with my paintings. I began selling on Etsy in 2014—gosh, that was nearly 10 years ago now! I knew I wanted to sell art online, and when I heard the suggestion that I could create paintings digitally with my computer and a Wacom, combining my love for technology with art, I knew that was exactly how I would do it. It was easy to get started because I could paint my paintings digitally, which cost virtually nothing, and I could delete and start over as many times as I needed to until I felt like I had something truly sellable without wasting too many physical resources. It was easy to list these online because, as soon as I completed a digital painting, I could use Photoshop to create the images of the artwork hanging in a room. Once this was done, both my product and my product photography were ready to sell!

I started selling digital prints, downloadable artworks that customers could purchase for a really small fee, download, and print themselves. This was a great way to get started and get a few runs on the board and a few positive Etsy reviews that provided my store credibility. Once my store gained a little more momentum (and I believed a bit more in the value of my own work), I started selling higher-value physical art prints.

Favorite items

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

It’s so hard to pick a favorite! My first item I will share with you is this piece, "Cumulus II."

When I started getting really consistent sales, I have to credit my cloud paintings as the niche I found that let me do it. Not many artists were painting clouds back in 2017 when I made this collection, and I was so lucky that if you searched ‘cloud paintings’ on Google, mine would come up first. I also dominated the first few pages of search results on Etsy if you searched for ‘cloud paintings’ (as a subtle brag, I think I still do!) The next item I’ll share with you is this one, "Tokyo Bloom."

This artwork was painted recently and shows how far I’ve come and how my style has developed. Abstract florals are very sellable, marketable, and popular right now, so this piece really shows my direction for the rest of 2023.

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 didn’t gain momentum and consistent sales until 2027–18. I remember the difference being really amazing product photography. Before, my product images were a bit average, and one day I found this gorgeous room that I was able to transpose my art into for all of my product photography, and it paired with the cloud paintings so well and just took off. I also pinned all of my images to Pinterest, linking back to my Etsy store, and one of the pins went viral; I think it had about 20k pins, and that drew consistent traffic into my Etsy store for several years. Now I have a high budget for Etsy ads. I know there are mixed feelings out there about Etsy ads, but for me, I’ve found it to be really beneficial with ROAS at least x4–8 consistently. I also still use Pinterest a lot to create pins of my artwork in rooms and link them back into the Etsy store, which drives organic traffic into my store. As I also sell my work via my own website, I have to be tactical in splitting my marketing efforts between the Etsy platform and my own website. I share a lot on social media via my Instagram and Facebook pages; however, this mostly directs to my own website. If I didn’t have this, I’d definitely be directing all of my social media efforts to Etsy too.

Managing CorinneMelanieArt

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?

Because of the high value and large size of my artworks and because it doesn’t make sense for me to hold stock as there are so many sizes and variations, my business model is ‘made to order’. Once someone places the order for the artwork, I have it custom made in the size and framing finish of their choosing.  Because I’m in Australia and most of my Etsy sales are in the US, I have a fine art printer and framer based in North America that finalizes my fine art prints for me and frames them before shipping them on my behalf. I manage all of the administration and customer service in my Etsy store and have one team member who helps coordinate orders with the fine art printer and framer. Once the North American framer ships the artworks for me, I receive the tracking numbers and pass them on to the customers.

Here are my favorite tools and apps:

1. Hubspot: Task management helps me communicate orders to my team members; she can then mark them as complete when done.
2. Photoshop: I use Photoshop to create all of my product imagery, mocking up my paintings on walls so customers can visualize how they look in a room.
3. Wondershare Filmora: I use Wondershare Filmora to create my 15-second Etsy listing videos.
4. Office 365: I love the Office suite for my admin: OneDrive,  where I save all of my artwork print files in a shared folder so they can be accessed by those who need them; Word, where I keep it simple using word files to document my business processes and work instructions; and Excel, where I keep track of limited edition prints and my pricing spreadsheet, where I keep track of my profit margins.
5. UseMotion: Motion is a newer addition to my toolkit, which I absolutely love; it combines task and project management and automatically syncs what I need to do in a day to my calendar. It is literally like having a personal assistant remind you of your priorities for the day and schedule them for you.
6. Xero: I use this for my accounting and business reporting.
7. Pinterest: I use Pinterest for my external marketing of my Etsy products and also use it to create visualizations and moodboards to keep all of my business ideas and inspiration in one place.
8. Zinnia: Journaling keeps me motivated, and I’ve moved away from paper and love to journal on my iPad Pro (with a paperlike screen protector so it feels like paper!) The Zinna app I love because it gives me complete creative control over my journal and I can convert it to PDF and print it too if I really want to.

The future of CorinneMelanieArt 

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

Currently, I average about 10 orders per week, and I would love to double this! I just love sharing my art with the world, and it’s such an exciting way to make a living. Increasing my sales numbers on Etsy is definitely my number one goal.

Advice for new sellers

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

Starting my Etsy store was a happy mess of trial and error. As a new seller on Etsy, I’d recommend having a strategy from the beginning:

1. Plan your brand and product aesthetic so you can be consistent with that. Use a vision board, and keep coming back to it and refining it.
2. Plan your business model: will you focus on automation and passive income (i.e., digital prints) or will you sell higher-value, luxury products that may involve more work but have a much larger payoff?
3. Plan your finances out; map out all of your products, how much they cost you to make, and what your profit margin is. Keep an eye on this and always tweak your pricing to ensure you remain profitable.
4. And on that note, make sure you truly value your own work. I see so many Etsy shops selling products at rock bottom prices because sellers think they will get more sales. Sometimes the opposite is true. If you really do value your own time and work, price it accordingly. Ironically, some buyers are attracted to higher-priced items because, with that price tag, they believe they will be of high quality. The best thing I ever did was shift my pricing to a higher bracket, and customers continue to see the value and purchase my work.

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

Question: How much is your monthly revenue?
Answer: In 2022, my revenue averaged $20k USD per month on the Etsy platform. This year I’m experiencing a drop in sales, averaging $15k USD on the Etsy platform per month. I think this is due to a combination of factors, but the external economic environment is definitely one of them.

Question: What is your average profit margin?
Answer: This differs slightly by geography due to using different fine art printers and framers, but in the US I aim for between 60 and 70% gross profit margin against the cost of goods sold (COGS). Taking into account other operating expenses, my net profit margin is around 40%.

Question: What is your shop’s conversion rate?
Answer: My conversion rate is 0.3%. This is lower than many other stores, but it’s okay because my average order value (AOV) is quite high.