Etsy Seller Interview with Sydney of Juniper Plum Paperie

How Juniper Plum Paperie 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?

We started selling on Etsy back in 2012 (Juniper was later started in 2019) when we couldn’t find bedroom and bathroom artwork for our kids that we loved. 

I decided to create some items on my own, and my husband encouraged me to open an Etsy shop to sell the artwork. I was a stay at home mom of 3 kids, and it gave me a way to earn some extra income on the side.

Favorite items

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

I pour my heart and soul into all of my designs, and it’s interesting to see what sells well and what does not. This is not always something that I can predict, but I always try to take what I learn from how items sell, and tailor future products towards what I think our buyers are increasingly looking for in a design. 

My favorite items in my shop would be anything from the suite here.

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 was fortunate enough to start selling on Etsy when the market for digital artwork was not super popular, and I was able to sort of own that corner of Etsy for a number of years. 

We received our first sale within a couple of days, and we have been lucky enough to grow more and more every year (with the exception of the last two years due to COVID and event limitations).

Managing Juniper Plum Paperie

How do you manage your shop? Are you running solo or do you have any team members? 

My husband and I both work daily on our shops that we own, and while I do most of the designing and product creation, he works the sales, customer support and logistics portion of the business. This has become our full-time career, and we couldn’t feel more blessed. Roles have changed a lot over the last 9 years, but we’ve been able to establish pretty clear responsibilities between our two sets of workflow.

We also have (at any time) 1-2 graphic designers on staff (working remote) to process orders and respond to some specific customer inquiries. We used to have quite a few tools in utilization, however, we have been able to automate a lot of tasks that we used to spend hours on. 

Currently, our main tools are our customer facing design web tool Corjl (and have used the other popular tool in the past Templett) and Vela for bulk listing editing whenever we need to make link changes or pricing changes.

The future of Juniper Plum Paperie

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

Our shop(s) are constantly changing and evolving in an effort to meet and exceed what our customers expect from us. We are always trying new tools, new order processing procedures and tweaking how we list items in order to get the most important items and features in front of our customers which can be difficult sometimes working within Etsy’s parameters.

We were lucky enough to reach our initial goal a couple years ago of 1 million dollars in sales on Etsy, and our next goal is to hit 5 million USD in revenue on Etsy. In order to achieve this goal, we continue to come up with new designs that keep up with Etsy trends and social data, and offer them in a way that gives our customers as many options as possible without making anything overly complicated. 

While the current digital niche on Etsy is not without its challenges, we are confident that if we continue to work hard, treat our customers with respect and continue to innovate, we will be afforded the opportunity to serve our clients for years to come - all while growing our home business.

Advice for new sellers

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

It’s never been a better time to start an Etsy shop! We remember how hard it was to break through back in the early years, and Etsy has really made some positive changes to ensure that even a brand new shop receives the same opportunities as veteran sellers. 

While we have certainly heard some negative feedback regarding Etsy’s algorithms, it is great that such were put in place to ensure that shops with little to no shop score receive boosts and/or advantages to help them succeed early on. 

Also, we have welcomed the opportunity to help new sellers where we can (and have even run some workshops to help others get into what we do), as we love to see the community grow.

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

Question:

How much is your monthly revenue?

Answer:

Roughly $24,000 - $29,000 per month. COVID and event limitations have dropped those numbers, but we are beginning to see levels even out and begin to grow again.

Question:

What is your average profit margin?

Answer:

Prefer not to answer

Question:

What is your shop’s conversion rate?

Answer:

Typically, 1 of every 12 customers that visit our shop purchase within 30 days.