Etsy Seller Interview with Anastasia of SoGoodLinen

How SoGoodLinen 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 Anastasia Burma, the designer and owner of sogoodlinen on Etsy. We create and sell linen clothing for both women and men, as well as linen bedding, table linen, and curtains. I initially began my business by selling handmade products made by Ukrainian artists, but later I decided to create something of my own. In early 2019, I started SoGoodLinen by selling linen bedding sets, and within a year, we launched our first women's clothing collection.

When I decided to design products myself, linen was an obvious choice. I love natural fabrics, linen's texture, and its tactile experience. For me, linen resembles the texture of nature, and its colour palette also captivates me. Since I couldn't sew well enough, I started making linen bedding with the help of my mother-in-law, a safer option to begin my business.

In a year, I found a beautiful dress from an Australian brand that I wanted, but the shipping cost was enormous. Following the advice of a friend in the sewing industry, I decided to create a similar dress here in Ukraine, primarily for personal use. I designed the dress of my dreams, chose the fabric colour, and had it sewn. That marked the beginning of linen clothing by So Good Linen. 

Despite my country's (Ukraine's)  challenges, including the invasion that forced us to relocate our workshop, we survived. Before the invasion started, we had our own workshop in Kharkiv, but after that, we had to move to another part of our country and start everything from scratch. Today, we have a small workshop and continue to create and sell our clothing worldwide. The support we receive from clients in different countries fuels our determination!

Right now, I have three people on my team to design and promote our brand (we all work online from different parts of the world) and four people in the workshop who create and sew all the garments. My mom and I create all the designs and manage our Instagram and Etsy shops. We have an SMM manager who creates all the content for social media. Additionally, a designer creates all the patterns and templates for the garments.

All our clothing is handmade and meticulously checked by my team and me to ensure remarkable quality for our customers. As we have our own workshop, we can provide a personalised approach to all our orders and customers, allowing us to adjust sizes and create custom-sized garments. Each piece of clothing is designed as if it were for me. That way, I know exactly how to sell it, wear it, and present it from the best angle.

Favorite items

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

I have a funny story about our colour palette. When I first started working on our women’s collection, I studied how to start a fashion brand. In the course, they taught us to create a moodboard of the colours, shapes, etc. before launching the collection and starting to design it. So I chose 5–6 colours. However, I couldn't find those exact colours in any fabric shop. Consequently, we ended up choosing terracotta and moss green colours instead. I hated them that time just because they weren’t my initial plan. But they turned out to be our bestsellers for the past three years.
Currently, I love these colours, and I adore our garments in them. Terracotta is vibrant and lively, while moss green offers a unique shade of green with deep colour tones. These distinct features are likely why our customers appreciate them so much.

We had sold these sets in both colours hundreds of times, and all our customers said that this was the best thing that happened to them.
Also, I’m literally in love with the fuchsia colour and this set.

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 achieved our first sale within a week: a chocolate linen bedding set. For clothing, selling a saffron wrap dress took 5–6 days." "We began by using Etsy ads from the start, which helped drive our first sale. We continued to use these ad tools, leading to an increase in our organic results. Later, we embraced social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram to attract more customers. However, Etsy itself remains the primary driver of our sales.

Managing SoGoodLinen

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've been running my Etsy shop for four years, handling various tasks such as managing our website, designing clothing, overseeing our teams, and ordering supplies. While Etsy is essential to our sales, it's not our sole source of revenue. I have a team to assist me with other tasks, but English fluency is necessary for managing the Etsy shop, and as our main language isn't English, I personally handle it.
My mom and I work from home, while our SMM manager and designer of patterns work remotely. Our workshop is located in a separate building, which also serves as our office sometimes. However, as a mother of two kids (5 and 8 years old), I dream of having my own space to concentrate and work peacefully."

In the early days of our business, all stock items, fabrics, and patterns were at my home. I dedicated a part of our bedroom as a workspace to accommodate all the work-related items. So right now, I’m a happy person because I have all my supplies and fabrics at the workshop. At home, I keep some accessories, stationery products, and a portion of the stock. This setup allows me to pack orders from home, prepare for photoshoot days, or even take product photos.
I often order accessories for clothing, have them delivered to my home, and check them personally before driving them to the workshop. Being a bit of a control freak, I want to ensure that everything is of high quality, both before and after we create the clothing.

As for managing my Etsy shop, I use apps and programmes.

KeyCRM. A programme that helps me manage orders from different platforms like Etsy, WordPress, and Instagram. I can also track shipping and make customer notes. It’s a super helpful app for me right now because I don’t need to check each shop separately, and I can also manage the workshop, its loading, and processing time.
Adobe Lightroom: Useful for managing our product photos, allowing bulk editing and cropping to various ratios for different platforms.

Adobe Illustrator: Sometimes we need to make a design on the photo, combine our colour palette and add the names of colours to it, create banners, ads, etc. As I’ve been a graphic designer in the past, I can use this app, and it really helps me achieve my goals.

Grammarly: Since English isn't my native language, this app ensures professional customer communication.

Google Sheets: all our financial information, cash flow, p&l, etc. are there. For me, it is perfect, as I can have access from all of my devices and from any place in the world. So I often use cloud services in my work.

Notion: As we have our team in different places and I’m not always with my workshop team, we use Notion to plan and check our operation tasks. I can plan tasks here for each of the team members and then follow the results. Also, we use it as our content calendar to promote Instagram.

As for the shipping, we use a consolidating service here in Ukraine. We have a Ukrainian company that works with Etsy sellers and offers great discounts for express shipping via FedEx and DHL. This allows us to compete effectively with American sellers, as our shipping times are often faster. We can ship our product to Europe and the USA within 5–6 calendar days.
I have an additional website where I can create shipping labels for all my customers, and then I need to write some numbers on the package and send it to this company. They print all labels and ship them worldwide. For me, this saves a lot of time, as I need to just pack everything to ship worldwide and send it.

Usually, I have a member of my team who makes all the packaging, but I’m really a team player, so at the end of the day, I can help with packaging or take all the orders with me at home and pack them there while watching my favourite movie.

The future of SoGoodLinen

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

Our goal is to establish the brand sogoodlinen globally. We want people to seek items specifically from our brand when looking for linen clothing, rather than just searching for generic terms like 'linen costume.' Building a strong presence on social media will contribute to this goal and boost sales on Etsy and our website.

Advice for new sellers

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

I think everyone who wants to start selling something has to choose what to sell, not according to some trends or some successful shops, but based on their passion. ‘Doing what you love’ is key for me to continue working with my Etsy shop daily.

Professional photos are essential for attracting customers and creating a brand. Be the best in your category, and ensure that your photos are outstanding. Also, it’s essential to have different photos from different angles so the client will understand what he or she is buying.

Take time to optimise your keywords and listing names, as they are crucial for customers to find you. Utilise tools and apps to assist in this process. Don’t rush it, because it’s the best investment for your Etsy shop. 

Be consistent. You need to work on your Etsy shop every day to achieve results. And you may not have them in the first few days, but eventually, you will get what you want! For me, it’s better to grow slowly and be stable, and I’m very grateful to Etsy for such an opportunity. Also, I am grateful for the support of our amazing team and customers. I look forward to continuing this meaningful journey of creating timeless and sustainable clothing for all to cherish.

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

Question: How much is your monthly revenue?
Answer: $5000-7000 

Question: What is your average profit margin?
Answer: 20%

Question: What is your shop’s conversion rate?
Answer: 0.4-0.5%