How PaperAdventureCo 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 - I’m Emily, and I create on-the-day wedding stationery for couples looking to incorporate a theme into their wedding day. My Etsy journey started in 2016 after I received my first invitation to a friend’s wedding. It was a beautiful navy blue pocketfold invitation, and I was blown away by how gorgeous it looked and how luxurious it felt. My first thought was, I bet I could make something like that.

I started by creating a few simple designs and putting them on Etsy. After much trial and error, I started to realise that there was a niche for couples looking to create a theme for their wedding. I’ve since focused on expanding this niche and now offer a range of on-the-day wedding stationery for couples who want to give their table names an interesting theme—from places they’ve travelled to, their favourite drinks, movies, books, fictional characters, and more!

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 travel-themed table name cards. I think that the places you have explored with your partner and that are important to you both are such a big part of who you are as a couple and what makes your story unique. I love that couples want to share those adventures with their guests on the wedding day by naming their tables after these destinations; it’s so much more exciting than just having table numbers!

Often, couples will choose to write a description on the back, explaining why each place is so important to them. I adore reading these stories and getting an insight into their lives together.

Travel Theme Wedding Table Names | Destination Table Numbers | Cropped Countries l Travel Table Numbers l Destination Wedding
Travel theme wedding table plan, seating chart

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 six weeks from opening my shop to making my first sale. It’s funny looking back because my designs were so basic and my listings looked so unprofessional—it's amazing that anybody bought something from me!

For the first couple of years, Etsy was more of a hobby for me. It was only when I started treating it like a business that I saw sales start to take off. The biggest shift was starting to focus on a niche, expanding my range, and improving my strategy by taking more professional photographs, understanding Etsy’s SEO, and building more efficient processes.

By using Etsy’s tags effectively and optimising my listing with keywords, most customers find me by searching on Etsy; I often appear on the first page for my particular niche. I also make use of coupons to bring back warm prospects who have liked my items or added items to their basket without checking out.

Managing PaperAdventureCo

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 managing my shop! I create my designs in Adobe Illustrator and Procreate. Once I’ve created the design for each order, I’ll send it to my clients to make sure they’re happy with how it looks and minimise the chance for mistakes.

I use a professional printing company to print and deliver my products (I wasted far too much money trying to get my own printer only to realise that outsourcing is far easier).

The future of PaperAdventureCo 

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

The ultimate dream would be to make my small business my full-time job so that I could be my own boss. I’d love to expand my product range even further and become known as one of the main suppliers for anybody looking for custom on-the-day wedding stationery.

Advice for new sellers

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

Don’t wait to be perfect; just get started! You don’t need to have completely nailed your branding or wait until you have a fully fledged strategy and perfectly polished listings to launch; just open that shop and start adding products, and you can work out the rest as you go. Too often, perfection gets in the way of progress; the best way to learn is through trial and error.

And make sure to have the Etsy app on your phone so you can do a happy dance every time you hear that ‘cha-ching’!

Alura Team
Alura Team

Alura is your all-in-one platform for selling on Etsy. With more $500.000+ gross sales over four years selling on Etsy, Alura is built by experienced sellers for sellers. Start with a free account and explore all the features you need to start, run, and grow your Etsy shop.