Etsy Seller Interview with Alexis and Brandon of TinyBeeCards

How TinyBeeCards 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 Alexis of Tiny Bee Cards, a happy and colorful Etsy shop and small business creating cute and funny cards, stickers, enamel pins, and gifts. I work together with my husband, Brandon, in the shop. I do all the illustrations and design, and he helps with a lot of the business side and with packing and shipping. We started the shop when Brandon was out of work and we were both looking for a change in our work lives. I happened to make him an otter greeting card for Valentine's Day that said "To My Significant Otter" on it with otters holding hands like in the meme video, and he loved it so much he told me I should start a whole shop! And that's exactly what I did. The otter card is still one of our bestsellers today.

My shop grew from there, and I spend a lot of time thinking of new cute puns and funny phrases to illustrate. Deciding what to sell is always difficult because there are so many illustrations I want to create, so I try to find guidance through what is working for my shop on Etsy already. I create my products first by sketching the concept on my iPad, then I create vectors of the design and finalize it. For greeting cards, we print, fold and hand make most of our cards in-house, and we also hand make our magnets and pinback buttons. For stickers and enamel pins, we choose manufacturers with great quality work.

Favorite items

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

My favorite items are probably the otter cards since they started my business, so they have extra meaning for us. And also, because otters! The birthday version of that design does especially well.

I also get excited when anyone purchases something new that I created for the shop, and one of my recent favorites is my "Don't Worry, Be Capy" sticker. I love capybaras because of how chill and relaxed they seem, and I'd been thinking of creating a capybara illustration for a long time.

Another of my favorites is my "Churray, it's your birthday" card and my "Churray!" sticker. I try to create work that really radiates joy and makes people smile, and I feel like the churro design does that well!

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?

I think it was just about a week ago when I first made my first sale. It really encouraged me to keep going because I felt like there could really be potential there! And it took about another 6 months or so before I could quit my day job. I remember having just a couple orders going out per day in the beginning and being so happy!

Currently, I'm focusing on working on the SEO for my listings so that customers can find me in searches and pinning items to Pinterest. I'm still trying to crack the code of the Instagram algorithm, and while I'm not convinced that it's worth most artists' time to do so, I haven't given up on it quite yet!

ManagingTinyBeeCards

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?

My shop is run by just my husband and I, and we ship orders usually 3 days per week, or every day if it's near a holiday where we get a lot of orders and customers might be needing their cards and gifts in time for the occasion. We both pack and ship orders on those days, and the other two days per workweek I focus on drawing new illustrations for products, while Brandon either does freelance work (he's also a VFX artist!) or helps work on the business side of things.

I use Shipstation to print packing slips and create all the shipping labels in one place, and it makes it pretty easy with all the presets you can set up. I also use a Dymo label printer to print all the labels, which saves a ton of time. I use Procreate for sketching designs and Adobe Illustrator to create vectors for them.

The future of TinyBeeCards

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

I plan to keep creating more items for my shop, and right now I'm thinking about how I can branch out with my work that might be a little different from the rest of my shop. The Tiny Bee Cards shop has always had a certain look because of constraints I had placed on it artistically—like using a lot of geometric shapes and creating logo-like designs, but right now I'm trying out more hand-drawn styles and I'm thinking about incorporating some more texture into my work. I think I want to branch out a little because, after 8 years of running my shop, I'm ready to evolve a little more.

Business wise, I would love to be able to outsource a little more, and I think that's the next step. Whether that means outsourcing more of the fulfillment or hiring a digital assistant, I'm not sure yet. But I'd love to be able to work a little bit less!

Advice for new sellers

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

Be patient and keep tinkering with things. Take notice of what is and isn't selling in your shop, and try to take some direction from that feedback. It also helped me to sell at some in-person markets and listen to what people say about my work, what they do and don't like, and what's selling, and listen to any requests they may have for some types of things they were looking to buy. If something does well that I made, I think about what else I can create that's similar or maybe just put that design on a different type of product. But I find that listening to people and trying to incorporate all their feedback really helps my shop.