Etsy Seller Interview with Andrea of StickersSwissMade

How StickersSwissMade 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 "StickersSwissMade." I sell small stickers for planners and bullet journals, mostly functional stickers that are small enough to fit into any box of a monthly overview, for example. Some of my food stickers are used by people who make jam to show on the lid which fruit they have used. But normally people put my stickers in their planner to highlight or track their daily activities. I`m from Switzerland, and I wanted to show that in my shop name. Planner stickers are widely sold on Etsy, and traditional names like "plannershop" or "stickershop" sounded too mundane to me, so I decided to incorporate my country's name into the shop name.

Paper planners in ring covers were always a part of my life. I started with a small Filofax cover in high school, which evolved into bigger A5 covers over time. In 2014, I discovered the whole world of US planners and all the accessories that are being sold for them. My very first purchase of stickers was actually made on Etsy. I have received them and right away wondered if there was some way to make these myself. It looked quite simple; all you would need is some kind of machine to cut them and sticker paper. This led to studies on YouTube, where I learned about the cutting machines of various companies. A few months later, after testing and cutting and making all kinds of stickers, I thought, well, what`s the next step? Sell them on Etsy!

I finally opened up my Etsy shop in the beginning of 2015, with only a few listings and, when I look back on them, horrible pictures. But, as my shop evolved over time, I got better at using my cutting machine and created much better listing images. A few years after I opened up my Etsy shop, I started my own home page, which is now used mainly for my blog posts about the planner world. I mostly write about paper and pens, about having planner peace or not having planner peace. In January 2021, I opened up my second Etsy shop, PlannerPrintsByAndy. This shop is for printable planner pages where nothing will be shipped; people can buy a digital PDF and print any pages themselves.

Favorite items

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

I actually like all my items on Etsy; otherwise, I would not sell them! I have stickers for sports, for household chores, just for decorating, and stickers that can be used for tracking or in bullet journals. People can use them as reminders (if I have to clean the bathroom on Monday, then stick the icon for "cleaning" on your daily Monday page). Or, the other way around, when did I do something the last time (when did I change the towels the last time)? Put the sticker in your planner on that day. Or when is payday? My stickers are small, they are not overwhelming, they don`t take up too much space, and they have lovely colors. I guess this makes them easy to use, and you can even put more of them on any daily pages or into monthly boxes. For example the towel stickers.

Or the payday stickers:

Or just for decoration some water color flower stickers:

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 did not take long to earn my first sale; if I remember correctly, it was about a week after I listed my first items. Since then, there has been a steady flow of sales—not very much, maybe only one per day—but steady over the years. Right now, I solely rely on Etsy search and Etsy ads. I`m not very good at social media; I do not post regularly on Instagram or Facebook, and it actually annoys me to be honest.

Managing StickersSwissMade

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`m the only one who handles my shop. My shop is still small enough that I can do it myself alongside my day job. My main tool is my cutting machine from Silhouette, a Cameo. This is still my first one, which I bought years ago and is still working very well. a printer to print out all the sticker sheets before cutting (in different materials, paper or transparent, for example). Another piece of hardware is my dependable Dymo printer, which I use for all address labels. Otherwise, my main tool would be my computer to create all the stickers in Silhouette.

My listing images are created in Canva or Adobe Photoshop Elements. For Canva, I pay a monthly fee to get access to better tools within the program; for Adobe, I use the free version, which is fine for my needs. To add some real-life images of my stickers, I use my mobile phone camera and a light box. In addition, I use an excel sheet from Paper+Sparks for my accounting, and this is also needed, especially here in Europe, for a legal company to provide legal texts.

Whenever I receive an order, I create the stickers accordingly. I do not have any stickers premade; this would be a waste of sticker paper and money in the end. I always create them when they are ordered. I send them out in small envelopes and bring them to the post office. I do not have big items; my small sticker sheets fit perfectly well into a small envelope.

The future of StickersSwissMade

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

Actually, I have no big goals; my Etsy shop is my hobby, and I will keep it up as long as I like to. My only goal would be to break even in the end; this worked out in all the years, but sadly not in the last two years of 2021 and 2022. Corona and the shipping delays to the United States, in addition to the economic situation around the world, have slowed down any sales. Most of my sales come from the States, so I rely heavily on working postal systems, but shipping takes a very long time right now, and people are not willing to wait 3 weeks for their stickers.

Advice for new sellers

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

Do it!  Opening an Etsy shop is simple, but there is a learning curve in terms of listing and description of your items and images.Look at other listings on Etsy in your niche and try to find out what is very important to add to your description. For example, the size of each sticker is more important than the size of the whole sheet! Only then can your customer decide if a sticker fits in a certain place or might be too big or not.

And, which is important as well, do not forget the legal side of any business. Selling worldwide means abiding by laws, especially here in Europe where you have some very important ones like the GDPR, refund laws, or recycling laws for your packing material. Or, I guess this is valid for each country's tax laws! Even if you have an Etsy shop to sell your hobbies, it is still a legal business with laws to abide by.

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: In 2022 my conversion rate was 1.5%