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How penumbraAustria 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?
My Etsy shop is called penumbraAustria, and I craft and sell handmade fetish accessories like collars and cuffs. When I started self-employment, I wanted to be a designer and create gorgeous gowns for weddings and events. I opened my tailor shop in 2013 but soon found out it wasn’t all that glamorous, at least not for me. When I could bring my own visions to life, I had the best time, but that wasn’t the case most days. There were many alterations to existing garments and price discussions involved since people were used to clothes being cheap.
Luckily, being an active member of my local kink community, I eventually got asked if I could make some accessories for my friends and discovered how much fun that can be. Penumbra started out as a side hustle to my actual shop, and I never thought I could earn a living by doing just that. Oh boy, was I wrong?
As my products got more attention in my immediate surroundings, I searched for a way to reach a broader audience and found that on Etsy. I believed this was an easy option to sell worldwide, which, again, showed me that I actually had no idea how this business worked. You can find the extended version of “How I started making sales” in one of the following questions: The short version is that I had to learn a lot! Product photos, keywords, texts, marketing...
Deciding what to sell, on the other hand, was easy for me. I knew my audience since I was a part of it. It always bothered me that there was little whimsy to the standard fetish accessories one could buy in shops or find easily on the internet. Being a trained fashion designer and seamstress, I was convinced I could find more exciting ways to create them. A mechanical engineering background made me comfortable working with machines that are usually not found in a taylor shop, so I started doing laser-cut designs (which are still a fan favourite and something Penumbra is known for today).
Favorite items
What are your favorite items? What makes these so special? Why do you think these items might be selling well?
The items I love most are the collars from our “incision” collection. That’s how penumbra got started; these are the designs people recognise us for. My personal favourite is the “No. 8” collar, which we call “the butterfly” when no one else is listening.
Our customers also seem to like the design a lot, even though our “incision No. 4” collar is still the one we sell most, by far. Maybe because it has a romantic touch, with the cut-out heart design in the front.
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?
Phew, honestly, it took me forever to actually make sales. I don’t know when exactly I opened my Etsy shop, but my first sale was in November 2015. In the time between then and January 2018, I only made seven sales, which was disheartening.
In 2018, I decided that I needed to change things and learn how this platform worked. I took an online class in “How to Etsy”, changed product texts and photos, finally understood that these keyword things were super important, and slowly, some money started to come in.
I knew that I worked in a niche market, which made it easier and harder at the same time. Collars are our most bought product, and trying to get them found and stand out from the crowd was a trial-and-error game (that we’re still playing).
In October 2019, I closed my tailor shop and made penumbra my main source of income. It was a very scary step, but it paid off. We’re not only selling on Etsy but also have our own webshop, and we try to squeeze the occasional fetish fair visit in.
We mainly use Instagram and Facebook for posting about our products, but I think that word-of-mouth recommendations and the glowing reviews we get from our customers are what really attract new people to our shop. Right now, we don’t specifically try to get people into our Etsy shop from the outside but rather attract people who are already on Etsy by using good keywords and getting good reviews.
Managing penumbraAustria
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?
Currently, I’m running most of my business alone. Up until recently, I had a part-time employee in the workshop, and I will start looking for someone new soon.
A small team assists with various aspects, apart from creating the products.
My mom handles shipping labels and customs forms for me, and a team of three freelancers rebuilt the Penumbra website and shop with me a couple of months ago and is still maintaining it so it runs smoothly.
We have another freelancer who started to work on marketing with us a couple of weeks ago.
For me, having amazing people who work well together is super important to take some of the load that comes with this business, and I’m super grateful to have found the ones that currently support me.
I run everything from my workshop in Austria and love to be involved in every step. Everything takes place in the penumbra workshop, from making the designs to creating the products to packing and shipping them.
My freelancers are all from Germany, and we do bi-weekly check-ins via Google Meet to make sure everything runs smoothly.
Especially when working with so many freelancers, finding an organisation tool was a top priority. We decided to go with Trello for the website restructuring, and I found it so useful that it’s now an important tool to keep my work week structured, even apart from team projects.
Since English is not my native language, but at least 50% of our customers don’t speak German, Grammarly is my go-to to make sure my texts, product descriptions, and emails don’t have major mistakes.
For photo organisation and easy editing, I use Adobe Lightroom, but if anyone who reads this ever finds a different tool that works well for sharing and organising photos in a small team, I’d love to hear from you! Lightroom is perfect as long as it’s just me, but we found it not that practical when trying to share folders as a team with multiple accounts.
When I started out wanting to make Etsy work, I used Marmalead to find keywords, and maybe I will do so again in the future when we decide to revise our listings.
The future of penumbraAustria
What goals do you have for your shop in the future?
Well, of course, I’d love to reach an even bigger audience with my shops and have someone working with me in the workshop full-time. That would make going on holidays so much less stressful.
Actually, though, my main goal right now is not only to grow the shops but to find a way to help normalise speaking about sexuality and desires. My personal bubble is very open-minded, and I was lucky enough to have a family that fully supports me working in an unconventional field.
Alas, not everyone is that fortunate, and some people still have to hide having any sex life at all. For many, it’s still not common to talk about these topics with friends, even though they’d love to do that, and it makes me sad to hear that.
I recently started a professional education programme that centres around sexual education to gain a deeper understanding of how we and our bodies work, and I hope to put that knowledge to good use in the future. I’d love to have a platform to speak about sex and BDSM openly and help better understand how diverse “normal” can be.
Advice for new sellers
What’s your advice for a new seller starting an Etsy shop?
Have patience and work hard.
Selling online is not as easy as I thought when I started with penumbra.
However, it’s also not rocket science. If you’re passionate about what you’re doing and produce great-quality products, there will be a way to sell them; you’ll just have to learn how.
Some things will take time and trial and error, so be prepared to adjust and make changes.
What helped me most was doing an Etsy course (alas, the one I did doesn’t exist anymore) that taught me all the basics and what to watch out for. If you’re brand-new to selling online, finding a course like that might be a good idea.
