Etsy Seller Interview with Lisa of LisaCiccone

How LisaCiccone 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?

I’m Lisa Ciccone, an illustrator and paper artisan from Italy, and founder of LisaCiccone on Etsy. My beautiful and stimulating job ranges from portraits to illustrated books, from handcrafted stationery to wedding coordinates. I design, realize, and sell original illustrations, diaries, notebooks, custom photo albums, and a huge variety of paper goods using certified and recycled paper.

In 2015, after a degree in architecture and a few years in an illustration school, I started taking my first steps as a freelance illustrator. While I was practicing drawing, looking for my own style, I began to create staffs with my hands. Oh, I've always had an artisan's soul! I’ve always loved stationery and colorful drawings, so I combined the two into original products.

In the beginning, I didn't have a long-term vision for the business, but I created it with love and experimented all the time. My goal was to set up a workspace where I could create custom stationery for paper lovers. So, one piece at a time, I started setting up my laboratory. I was looking for a way to start earning with handmade paper stuff, but I only had my blog and a social account on Facebook. Then I knew about Etsy! Etsy was already internationally known, but in Italy, it wasn’t used very much. I wanted to relate to the first customers and personalize commissions. So I jumped in and opened my Etsy shop, LisaCiccone, where I started to sell portraits, fine art prints, and notebooks.

A month after opening, I started doing my first sales. It was very exciting to be found by customers from all over the world! Sales have increased steadily, and just under a year ago, I officially opened my own business. The entire production process, from conception to graphics, from printing to cutting, takes place here, in the heart of the Italian peninsula, among the Abruzzo mountains.

In the Lisalab, I make sustainable choices every day: I only use certified and recycled paper, I try to limit the use of plastic, and I even recover the smallest cuts of paper by obtaining tags or small postcards. I've never bought shipping boxes; I prefer to use secondhand packaging and give it new life to ship my products far and wide. Over time, thanks to the numerous pieces of feedback I received, I was able to adjust the shot and make my offer more coherent and personalized! Today I feel really lucky to share my passion for paper with so many people; we’re a beautiful tribe! I love thinking that a simple sheet of paper can become the keeper of our secrets, a travel diary, and a confidant to entrust with the most important memories. Now Lisalab offers over 100 products, shipped daily all over the world!

Favorite items

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

My favorite products are my baby diary and travel photo album.

My baby diaries are top sellers, translated into 3 different languages, and bought from all over the world, from the U.S.A. to Australia! It’s a really special creation for me, both for its success with customers and because I was inspired by the diary that my mom wrote for me. The photo album was one of the first books I placed in the store. Years ago, a friend gave me the idea to create untraditional photo books with illustrations on the cover. I dreamt it, and some days later the first album was ready. Until Brexit, I used commercial albums, but now I finally create them entirely in Lisalab!

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 had my first few sales within a month of opening my shop. These days, I attract customers through my blog and local buzz. Now I prefer a more complete strategy, such as ads, SEO, newsletters, and social communication.

Managing LisaCiccone

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 worked alone from a corner of the living room in my old house. Me, my computer, paper, gouache, and a small printer. In 2019, sales were growing, and I could no longer operate on my own, so I asked my partner to work together! It was a leap in the dark! Today, after 7 years, I have created a big, beautiful, and colorful laboratory at home, a creative space that I called Lisalab. It’s a studio house where my partner and I work and live.

We have two separate rooms. In my room, there are two tables, a computer, a sofa, and a big library with all my books and paper stuff. I love meeting friends and customers here! I love to paint, create new designs, write emails, make calls, study, apply to social media and do so many other daily tasks. In the other room, my boyfriend works all day to print stationery, bind books, help me prepare orders and shipping, take care of the website,

There are 3 big printers; we bought the last two weeks ago, and we can print much more material and faster now!

There’s a manual cutter and tons of tools. Here we store all of our inventory stationery.

In our three-story house, we also have a warehouse for the storage of shipping products on the ground floor, where the couriers leave and load the pallets. On the first floor, there’s the Lisalab, a large terrace, and lots of light. On the second floor, we have a kitchen, living room, and bedroom. In short, a real home studio!There is also a third business partner: our super-furry cat Margot!
There are the apps I use in my small business.
Adobe Photoshop: I love the entire Adobe suite, and I use it to create graphic design, banners, and messages for my shop. I usually use Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and many others.
Adobe Lightroom is the best solution for photo editing. With this tool, you can edit multiple photos at once, which is a huge time saver!
Later: to plan my social content (on Instagram and Facebook)
Google Drive: To share folders with my partner
Trello is a beautiful app to organize projects into boards. I love it because you can use it for lists, sticky notes, photos and ideas, documents, and reminders. It’s perfect to plan my year and save all my new product ideas.
WhatsApp Web: We have a business chat for reminders and notes.
Snapseed: to edit photos for social media
Paper calendars and planners: I still love to use paper for my daily notes.

The future of LisaCiccone 

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

I’d like to increase my daily sales thanks to influencers, collaborations, newsletters, and social profiles. I dedicated the first months of the year to studying marketing and web strategy, so I hope to go forward!

Advice for new sellers

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

Etsy is an ever-growing marketplace, so it's increasingly difficult for a new seller to emerge. It takes a lot of patience and perseverance. The shop must be looked after day after day as if it were a child to be looked after.

It’s very important to take your time to build your shop step by step: clear titles, beautiful photos, accurate descriptions, the right keywords, selling conditions, and shipping prices.

You may need to experiment and try new ways to show and sell your products. Find your own way!

Once you find a visual way to show your brand, maintain visual coherence to make it more recognizable.

And last but not least, have fun in your creative new job!