Etsy Seller Interview with Tomoka of piggiesagogo

How piggiesagogo 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?

Hello, I’m Tomoka from piggiesagogo, a crochet pattern shop especially good at seamless amigurumi patterns. I was born and have been living in Japan, the place granted as the homeland of amigurumi (amigurumi is a coined word in Japanese, meaning "working stitches (with crochet or knit or some crafts like macrame, tatting, nalbinding, basket weaving, or something like them) and wrapping). " This word is regarded as being created from the word "nuigurumi," meaning sewed stuffed animals.

The start is banal: my mother is a multi-crafter and taught me many things: sewing, knitting, embroidery, and crocheting. I found myself feeling most comfortable crocheting when I was young.

Since then, crocheting has been just one of my hobbies for so many years. But, after several years of typical startup messes in my twenties, I thought it was enough and decided to do more of myself. In early 2014, I started publishing crochet patterns on other craft sites, and eventually I came to put prices on some of my patterns. Selling finished crochet products didn’t seem good to me, mainly because the prices would be too high if you put them simply based on the hours you spent: crocheting is so time-consuming. I thought selling digital items was a good idea instead, but unfortunately, it was not so popular in my country at that time. So I had to start writing English patterns and searching platforms in English, and finally I swam to Etsy.

To create a pattern, first I crochet by making notes, then I crochet by making a fair copy of my notes, and the next is crocheting by taking photos for tutorials. As for the tools I use, Affinity Photo, the designer, and the publisher are my colleagues. At first, I started making crochet diagrams by using an app named Stitchworks Software (this is now under a Creative Commons licence, and detailed information is available only on Ravelry, a needlework community site).

Favorite items

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

This month (July 2023), I’ve just published the English edition of my first crochet garment pattern: the Sazanami Sweater, aka Ripple Pull.

Sazanami means ripple in Japanese. Months before I published the English pattern, it was warmly welcomed by Japanese crocheters. I think it is because there are not so many comfortable crochet garment patterns available in Japanese (especially for winter sweaters). Not only size-inclusive, you can make this sweater with any yarn you prefer. I enjoyed having my pattern testers try many sizes and modifications. Sometimes my patterns go viral. One of them is my isopod pattern, which has more than 139K likes on TikTok.

I tried to make the whole shape realistic and biologically faithful. I think customers recommend my patterns in this respect.

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 has been a couple of months since I started selling (or publishing—I started Piggiesagogo with free patterns at first, and I don’t remember exactly when I signed up for Etsy) my patterns. And the second sale was not soon after. Also, it took another 4 years for me to create one of the recent best-selling items. I use several social media sites. However, reviews seem more attractive to new customers. Maybe I need to try to increase review numbers to grow my business.

Managing piggiesagogo

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?

Yes, I do it all by myself. Because I mainly sell digital patterns delivered automatically after purchases, shipping and fulfilment usually don’t bother me. It is so lucky for a non-native English speaker like me! Of course, sometimes I send luggage to my customers. Most of them are domestic ones, so I use apps for domestic delivery businesses as necessary.

The future of piggiesagogo

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

Just for fun, I’d like to make as many dog patterns (please see my dogs on Etsy) as possible. 100 is ideal. As for a more serious business issue, I think I need to try approaching Japanese customers to buy more digital items. There are not so many individual crocheters (not big publishers) selling digital patterns by themselves in Japan. The more the market grows, the more individual businesses grow. At least to some extent.

As for technical matters in crochet, I’d like to discover more and more approaches to seamless crocheting. Ripple Pull, my newest pattern, is also made from this point of view. I'd be honoured if I could widen the possibility of crocheting even just a little.

Advice for new sellers

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

Do it in good faith. Sorry, I can’t say what I mean well.

Oh, I once heard from an Etsy agent that we need to fill Etsy listing titles as long as possible to get found on search, and spaces between words always need to be 1 byte. Maybe this will help your listings get highly ranked.

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

Question: What is your shop’s conversion rate?
Answer: 2% as alltime average, 3-4% at the most.