Etsy Seller Interview with Mara of InspirationArtz

How InspirationArtz 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?

Here is how I started: At the end of my career as a helping professional, I was winding down for retirement and wanted to start my own small online business doing something creative. I don't have any formal training in art or design, but it's been a lifelong hobby and something I've worked at to develop skills. After a bit of research, I started to see the potential of print-on-demand products for the gift market—doing the design myself at my computer with a printing partner to handle the actual physical product.

My first product was a printed mug, and these mugs are still my main focus, though I've tried offering some other printed products (with varying success). I do all the design work myself, using Photoshop. Most of my designs are text-based, using a range of fonts and colour effects, and I offer personalisation as an option with most of my products. I love selling on Etsy! The customers are great, and there can be a personal element in tweaking a design to meet their needs that you won't find on any other platform.

Favorite items

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

My very favourite items are ones I created specially for someone I know. When my son completed his yoga teacher training, I created my first "Awesome Teacher" mug for him:

Then I adapted the yoga teacher design for a whole range of other teachers. These are some of my favourites because there is a wonderful energy with these mugs; they are generally purchased as gifts, often by a parent wanting to help their child find the absolute perfect gift for their piano teacher, Tae kwon-do teacher, and so on.

Another favourite is this policewoman mug, which I created for a friend who was entering the police academy:

This one is not really able to be adapted to any other group, but just this one design has made several sales, which I'm happy enough about.

And another of my favourites—and a customer favourite too—has been this social worker mug. This was not designed for any one particular person, but having worked for myself as a helping professional, it did come from my own heart!

Of the other products that I've offered, ceramic ornaments have been the most successful. Even more than the mugs, people buy these as personalised gifts or family keepsakes. I had great fun designing them, and again, there is a lot of energy in making something special for these customers.

Just for the record, I also made several designs that have not sold at all, as well as these ones that have been extremely popular. You have to be open to customer feedback and be prepared for lots of trial and error.

It's hard to predict what will sell well, but gifts with positive energy and a positive message, sometimes a bit quirky, are often what a customer is looking for, and it feels good to be able to meet this need in a creative and uplifting way.

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 opened my shop at the beginning of November 2017, and it took me a few weeks to make my first sale. But it actually took me a few weeks to really get a good number of listings up, and I wasn't really expecting the shop to take off right away. Then, with the holiday season, I started to get new orders every day or so, and then a couple of orders in one day. It took a while for me to get on top of the fulfilment process, so I was happy to have a slow start while I was finding my feet; it was enough to keep me encouraged and motivated, but not so much that I got overwhelmed.

My main method of attracting customers is through SEO in the titles and tags I use in my listings. I've done this right from the beginning, and it means that customers who want your product are able to find you in an Etsy search.

I also get a small but significant number of sales from Etsy ads, which I used almost from the beginning. I have a very small ad budget, and I monitor it so that I don't waste money advertising designs that people don't buy, and this strategy has paid off for me.

Managing InspirationArtz

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?

I manage my shop myself, doing all the design work, research, and marketing with three different professional printing partners (also small businesses) who manage the printing, packaging, and shipping of the physical products.

I have tried using automated fulfilment apps offered by my printing partners, but over half of my orders are for personalised products, which means I have to create a new unique design file and send this to the printer manually. So now fulfilment of orders is mostly a semi-automated process where I upload some information to the relevant printing partner, and they handle it from there. When I started my shop, I used a couple of SEO/research apps (Marmalead and then eRank). I don't use these now, but they were very helpful in the initial research process.

The future of InspirationArtz

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

Right now, my shop is doing comfortably well with little attention, which is a good place to be because it allows me to focus on some personal projects and family demands. I do have plans to add more product lines and more designs once I have the time to give this the attention it deserves. Meanwhile, I want to continue making my current customers as happy as possible!

Advice for new sellers

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

Don't be intimidated, but be prepared to put in a bit of effort in the beginning to get your shop and listings set up and looking appealing with good product photos, titles, and descriptions. Etsy makes this fairly easy, but there is also a lot of help out there (free and paid courses) that can be worth using to give you confidence in the beginning, as well as some useful tips and ideas. (This is what I did.) Your first listing will be the hardest to do, but after that, you can copy and paste a lot of the description, and it will become much easier and faster as you go.

Learn from other sellers, but don't try to copy—it's bad karma and never works very well! Find or create your own niche, a market that fits what you have to offer, and you will have a good chance of being successful.

Be patient. You might make a sale very quickly, but even so, you will probably need to tweak things and try a few different products and ideas to see what people like. Listen to your customers, both in terms of what sells and what doesn't, and in responding to customer queries and requests. Etsy is a very personal marketplace, which is one of the great things about having an Etsy shop. It's very satisfying to design or make a product and have it be exactly the right thing for your customer!