How MarvlingBrosLtd 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?
Marvling Bros. is a trusted British gift company that makes it easy, fun, and affordable for you to send an impactful message to a loved one. All our gifts are designed and presented in a matchbox to create a present that truly says ‘I’m thinking of you'. A beautiful keepsake, small enough to pop in your pocket yet large enough to create a lasting impression.
The idea originated from a school competition: how much can you fit in a matchbox? Hayley’s 8-year-old son was not enthused, but Hayley, who is totally competitive, set out to win it. So as well as actual physical items, she also tried to expand her list by putting concepts into the matchbox. A grain of rice and a curry seed also represented the concept of a curry takeout. A picture of the Mona Lisa became an art gallery. Of course she did not win and was close to being expelled from the PTA, but Emma totally loved the idea and humor. Two years later, Emma was looking to start a business with all her free time now that the kids were in full-time education. Hayley and Emma were making Christmas cards and despairing about the amount of stress involved in buying presents and even receiving presents, and they came up with the idea of trying to make the perfect token gift. A gift that did not take up too much space or time and could make an impact but equally could be thrown away once used. A gift that could be given and received with pleasure and without guilt
The matchbox seemed a perfect vehicle for this idea, being small, naturally designed to give a surprise reveal, and having a nostalgic history of already wonderful miniature designs and artwork. Plus, Hayley already had a whole list of items and concepts from the school competition!
So for nine months, they beavered away, researching items that would actually fit in the matchbox (much harder than they thought), thoughtful messages, matchbox label designs, and the psychology of gift giving.
In July 2013, they launched their own website with a range of twelve gifts! They did not join Etsy until 2016 when the range had expanded to more than 50 items and was more in keeping with the Etsy ethos, i.e., handmade and personal. Some of the initial designs were overly complicated (a toothbrush care kit for your dog!) or too difficult to find reliable suppliers for the components, especially as they had set themselves the task of trying to source as much as possible in the UK and from small businesses. Some did not post well, and some were just impractical to produce consistently, matchbox-sized turkey-flavor humbugs being a prime example.
The criteria for all our gifts now are that they deliver a great message, look beautiful when the box is opened, contain a unique item, or have a fun mini experience. Our mini marshmallow kit delivers on all these fronts, and packing it has been especially challenging as there is so much in it. This product is actually up for the Gift of the Year Award in 2023, and they have a people's choice award, so please vote for us:
We curate content where we can from the UK. All the gifts contain recyclable materials and are responsibly sourced, even if we have to resort to sourcing overseas. We work directly with small businesses in the UK and overseas and avoid large factories and corporations.
Favorite items
What are your favorite items? What makes these so special? Why do you think these items might be selling well?
My personal favorite is Hot Stuff in a Matchbox. It goes so well with the concept of a matchbox with its cheeky title and contains four of the hottest chillis in the world, which you can’t buy in the supermarket. The four mini bottles look so cute, and there is enough powder in them to make a chilli to blow your socks off. The little chilli Trump cards are perfect for chilli aficionados, full of fun facts, and it is a great bargain gift for that difficult market -- men. It is a real star in our range and has appeared on Good Morning America TV.
I’m also very fond of our Happy Birthday pearl, as you get to have the ultimate birthday experience—to blow out a birthday candle and make a wish—and it has a bucket list of things to do on your birthday. There is a real freshwater pearl in it, making it a really lovely keepsake, and the message—the world is your oyster—is so positive. We originally aimed it for a young audience, with variations for 16th, 18th, and 21st birthdays, but we made more ages available because demand was so high: for 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th, and even 70th birthdays. We recently sold 10 of these to a group of ladies who were meeting for the first time since their school days because they shared a 70th birthday. This product was also shortlisted for the Gift of the Year 2023.
This year we also brought out a mini donut-making kit, which is hilarious. You can actually make three teeny-tiny donuts, complete with icing and sprinkles. We have had such lovely feedback for this one, and it is a great way to get your kids into cooking as it’s so quick and silly. People are quite surprised at how tasty they are. We like all our gifts to have an extra layer of meaning to them via the experience, highlighting that meaningful and fun gifting does not have to cost a lot of money.
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?
We listed our items on March 8, 2016, and had our first sale on March 28, 2016. By October 2016, we were getting orders every day, and we haven’t had a quiet day since. Marmalead has been great in getting our keywords correct, and it is very important you use all those 13 tags given to you when you list them and use them sensibly, i.e., descriptively of your product, so when you turn up in the searches people are not disappointed. Our main objective is to look after our customers by answering their inquiries promptly and addressing any concerns so they are left happy. Then you get good reviews, and ultimately, that is what gets people to trust you and to buy from you.
Managing MarvlingBrosLtd
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 run the business with my business partner, Emma. We design all the gifts ourselves using Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. We use Airtable to monitor stock, allocate work, and analyze sales. Our fulfillment house is a small business in Newcastle that manages all our deliveries and holds our finished products. We have two full-time employees and one part-time employee to handle day-to-day administration and product production. Emma’s daughter Charlotte writes our blogs, makes videos for us, and creates amazing posts for our social media using SocialCam, Canva, and Photoshop. My son Kyle does the bookkeeping using Xero, manages our stockroom at Big Yellow Storage using Airtable, and takes our product photos using Capture One to process the images. From September to November, we have a small team of casual workers who help assemble the products for the busy period up to Christmas. We have a close personal relationship with all our suppliers, and we generally work with small family businesses when we can. We recently outsourced our social media advertising to a small company.
The future of MarvlingBrosLtd
What goals do you have for your shop in the future?
This business is our main source of income, and we hope to retire on a nice pension from it and achieve a few bucket list items along the way. That’s the goal, and the way things are going, it seems achievable. We have set our sales targets and are on a business mentoring program with Entrepreneurs Circle, which I can thoroughly recommend.
Advice for new sellers
What’s your advice for a new seller starting an Etsy shop?
First: Have a product you believe in, are proud of, and are passionate about. Check out the competition beforehand to see who else is doing anything similar (because they will be), so make sure your product or service is different and unique to you.
Second: Learn all the tools Etsy has to offer, as they are there to make your life easier. Download all the reports and make sure you, or your bookkeeper, understand them. The fees may seem like a lot, but each one is paying for a specific service, and you can maximize the profitability (is that a word?) of your products by understanding the difference between the various fees. For example, many sellers offer bundles for low-priced items to minimize the cost of listing fees.
Third: If you are in this to make a living, do not undersell yourself, which goes back to the first step of being proud of what you do. Cost out everything you do, the biggest one being your time, especially for handmade goods. People may complain about the price, but they don’t have to buy it. Other sellers may sell a similar thing cheaper, so you have to have excellent customer service. Part-time sellers do not have time to answer inquiries immediately or change something urgent at the last minute.
Fourth: This is hard if you have done the first step; never take any feedback or review personally. It helps to have someone else answer angry emails or bad reviews. Most of the time, the customer is upset over something that is easily solved. Remember, you are selling online, so it is not easy to determine the size and quality of your products even with great photos and descriptions if the customer has a preconceived idea in their head (the number of times we have been told our matchboxes are not the size of a matchbox because the customer has only ever seen a cook's sized matchbox). So be sympathetic. The cost of a refund is much cheaper than the cost of your reputation in the long run. We have turned very angry customers around with a simple message that shows we are on their side. Lastly, this is my personal tip for life: if you are not enjoying it or are no longer motivated by the end goal, get out. Life is too short.
