Etsy Seller Interview with Meg of ElliesPartySupply

How ElliesPartySupply 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?

Hey! I’m Meg, the founder of Ellie’s Party Supply. We specialize in modern, on-trend DIY balloon garland kits and party goods.

I started the shop in 2000, just before the pandemic started. At the time, I had a graphic design and marketing business, and to be honest, I was feeling bored. I decided to start a side-hustle in my spare time. I came across an entrepreneurship board where people were talking about their businesses, and one woman wrote about how she started a balloon decorating business and it had really exploded. I thought to myself, "That sounds fun! But I didn’t want to spend my weekends going out and decorating. Since I have started many online businesses, I thought there must be a way to do this online. I figured that instead of I could create DIY kits at home that could be shipped out to customers and they could set them up at home.

I did a little bit of Etsy research and realized this was a fast-growing niche with little competition at the time. So, I opened my Etsy shop, created a few listings, and waited to see what happened.

This is the first business I went into with zero expectations. It was just for fun! But to my surprise, within a few days of creating my shop, I got my first sale. And then another. And then, sales started to become consistent, and I was in business! Within six months, I had a top 1% Etsy shop, and the business became so successful that I shut down my other business to take this on full-time.

I source professional quality balloons from professional balloon distributors, and now I even have my own brand of premium balloons! At the beginning, I packed my kits in little plastic bags and started small. Now, we use custom boxes and professionally printed how-to guides, etc. We have come a long way!

Favorite items

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

We just designed and manufactured our very first line of tableware products for Halloween. My favorite line is the Groovy Halloween plateware. Since starting the business, I always thought it would be awesome to use my design skills to create my own paper products, so this is an exciting first.

I also still love our DIY balloon kits. The most popular over the last two years have been our Pooh Bear inspired kits and our Boho neutral color kits. Boho has just been a popular look for showers, parties, and home goods the past couple of years, so those have done well.

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?

The first sale came around day 3 of listing my shop. I was shocked because I had zero sales or reviews for customers to refer to. I attribute the initial success to the SEO work I did on my listings and finding a niche that was trending yet unsaturated.

Today, things have definitely changed in this niche. When I started, there were a small handful of shops selling DIY balloon garland kits. Now, there are dozens, if not hundreds! So I can no longer depend on just SEO traffic because we get a lot less of it due to the number of competing listings.

We created an Ellie’s Party Shopify store and have a mailing list to keep up with customers and potential customers. We are very active on social media, and we do influencer collaborations to get most of our imagery and to get our name out there.

Managing ElliesPartySupply

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?

In the beginning, I did everything on my own. Ellie’s is now a team of six! I have been very lucky to find team members that are amazing at what they do and get along beautifully. We have two warehouse workers who manage our warehouse, pack orders, and create our kits (we still pack all kits by hand). We have one marketing and social media manager, one operations manager, a customer service rep, and myself.

We use a combination of ShipStation and a software called Finale to manage inventory and shipping. When an order comes in through any channel, it deducts the inventory from Finale, and the order comes into ShipStation for printing and fulfillment. We also use Finale to scan products as we pack the orders. Because we have so many skus and we have to build our kits using hundreds of different raw materials (our balloons are of different sizes and colors), our backend is a bit complex and we need to carefully monitor stock for both raw materials and finished goods.

The future of ElliesPartySupply 

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

Because DIY kits have become such a saturated market, I hope to find new ways to diversify our offering to stay current within Etsy. I also hope to grow our Shopify channel and our wholesale distribution business.

We also just moved to Orlando and have a new warehouse space with a retail area in the front! I hope to open up shop to local wholesale customers, and eventually, open our doors for retail to the public.

Advice for new sellers

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

Go for it!! You have nothing to lose by starting an Etsy shop. I didn’t spend a dime on inventory until I got my first sale. That is the beauty of Etsy—you can make your products to order, so you just need sample images to show your work.

I’d highly recommend using a tool like Alura to research your niche. Like I mentioned above, I chose a niche that was trending upward in searches but had minimal competition. Look into sub-niches. For example, DIY balloon garland kits are just one small product within the greater party supply category. Is there a product or theme within your niche that is trending?

Once you’ve chosen your niche or core product offering, use your Etsy research tool to find the best keywords to use for your listing. I believe my listings took off because I optimized my titles, keywords, etc. to get found quickly in search. I would recommend starting with at least 8-10 products to make your shop look credible.

Finally, clear, high-quality images are so important to give your products a professional look and draw in the customer.

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

Question: How much is your monthly revenue?
Answer: $60,000 (all channels combined)

Question: What is your average profit margin?
Answer: Our cost of goods is around 25%, but we have a lot of overhead between payroll and our warehouse. Our net profit is around 25%. 

Question: What is your shop’s conversion rate?
Answer: 1.4%