Etsy Seller Interview with Katy of HelloFridaysStudio

How HelloFridaysStudio 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! My name is Katy, and I’m the coffee-drinking, colour-loving creative behind Hello Fridays Studio. Hello Fridays Studio is a small business that provides colourful gifts, personalised cards, prints, and homeware. I started my Etsy shop as a way to explore my creative side and make use of the doodles and illustrations I was making for fun in my spare time! My style is a mixture of hand-drawn illustration and typography, along with a fun use of bright and bold colours. I use my skills as a graphic designer and illustrator to come up with new designs for personalised cards, cushions, and prints.

I design, make, and create all from my little home studio in England, and I get such a lovely sense of gratitude when I see the positive feedback from my customers. I just love seeing how they use my cards to send messages of love and celebration to friends and family! There’s nothing quite like seeing your art in the ‘wild’! I also particularly enjoy working on designs that will feature in nurseries and children’s rooms. The idea that I’m helping to create a bright, colourful, and engaging space for a young person to play, learn, and grow is just lovely.

Favorite items

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

My favourite item is my Here Comes the Sun print. It was one of the very first prints I created for Hello Fridays Studio and one of the first items that sold in my shop. A highlight for me was when Holly Tucker MBE liked my Here Comes the Sun print post on Instagram. I was so unbelievably chuffed that the founder of Not on the High Street appreciated something I had designed in my tiny bedroom! It was a pinch-me moment, and it was the first time I felt really proud of putting something out there in the world!

I also really love my personalised new home card that features a pet bowl for your furry friend and my graduation cards, which are also really popular. I drew the illustrations by hand and then used Adobe Illustrator to turn them into digital illustrations. I always feel really proud of things I've created in this way; I feel directly connected to them, having drawn them by hand.

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?

It took me a good couple of months of experimenting and changing directions to get that first sale. I remember when I made my first sale and I heard the famous ‘Cha Ching’ sound for the first time ever. I was sitting alone in my living room at the time, and I literally jumped up and started dancing around the room in pure happiness! Someone liked something I made! They liked it enough to spend their own money on it! It was an amazing feeling.

When I first started my Etsy shop, I initially offered Etsy branding packs for other Etsy businesses, utilising my skills as a graphic designer, but I soon realised it wasn’t the path I wanted to go down. I didn’t sell any of those! So, I decided to just have fun and start creating things that I liked; that’s when I began offering prints. This then led into greeting cards and other printed goods like my alphabet cushion, which also sell really well. I remember when I started offering birthday cards from the bump to pregnant people. Those cards were really popular and really helped my sales grow!

Attracting customers is difficult in today's market, but I try to use social media and look after my customers to promote repeat business. Look after your customers, and they will return if they have a great experience buying from you. I have people who buy from me over and over again, and that really does make my heart smile! It’s really hard to promote yourself as an artist; we often shy away from selling ourselves as creators, but I think it’s vital sometimes to put ourselves out there. I’ve also experimented with Etsy tags and Etsy ads to boost sales. My advice is to use any tools you can, whether that’s social media or SEO, but most importantly, use yourself! You are your brand; don’t shy away from showing the face behind the creations. That’s what makes us stand out!

Managing HelloFridaysStudio

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?

It’s just me, although sometimes I wish I could clone myself to get more done! I do everything from social media to design creation, production, and post-runs. Apps and tools are vital time savers for me. I use Facebook Meta Business Suite to schedule my social posts in advance and Chat Gtp to help me with my listing descriptions. A lot of artists are scared of AI and its capabilities. I understand the frustration from a copyright point of view; however, it is a great tool to save time with things like idea generation, social captions, and product descriptions. I have also used tools like Alura to gain insight into what listings are doing well and what ones need a little help. I also use Quick Books to take some of the hassle out of taxes and Envato elements for things like fonts. Canva is also a great time saver to make social media posts simply and quickly!

The future of HelloFridaysStudio 

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

I would love to expand my range and grow in a more sustainable way. I did away with plastic cello wraps for my greeting cards a while ago and replaced them with cute paper bags. I want my products to be as recyclable as possible, so the more eco-friendly greeting cards and other products I create, the better! So it’s definitely a goal of mine to ensure I have a low impact on the environment around me. I’d also like to work on getting more traffic to my stand-alone website and expand my range of cards on Thortful.

Advice for new sellers

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

Start with creating what you like and go from there. It’s easy to give up when you aren’t making sales, but use that as fuel to create more! Don’t be afraid to change direction and change it again until something sticks. It’s ok to scrap an idea and start again; that’s the beauty of platforms like Etsy; you can mould them into something unique and personal.

When I first started, I didn't have enough money to buy a good, high-quality printer, so I started by selling printables for customers to print at home themselves. After a while, I sold enough to invest in my first ever printer, a giant A2 Epson 10-colour printer that was so big it used to shake the tiny desk it rested on! I was so proud of myself at the time. The moral of this story is: try not to let a lack of resources stop you from creating; find a way to put your art out there; the world always needs more art!