Etsy Seller Interview with Erica of WickedBride

How WickedBride 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 name is Erica, and I founded Wicked Bride®. In 2009, after searching painstakingly for one-of-a-kind invitations for my Halloween wedding in Boston, I was inspired to make my own. Wicked Bride = Halloween + Boston + Wedding

Those invites landed me in a magazine, and for several years I had the honor of designing some pretty amazing invites for some pretty amazing couples. But life changes, right?

Even back in 2009, there were a million new tools to help plan your wedding—websites, apps—but I always relied on my trusty planning binder. We were never apart. Jokes were made about the binder coming with me on my honeymoon. So, in 2018, I launched a line of planners guaranteed to be your new best friends.

I'm a firm believer that design is not "one size fits all" (unless you’re a poncho), which is why everything I create is fully customizable to fit your unique style. All of our wedding planners are made right here in my home studio, from cover to cover. Our wide variety of styles and designs means every bride can find the perfect planner.

Each product is made by hand in my studio, with love. Almost all of my materials are sourced right here in the US, except for one small piece, which I import from overseas. Great care goes into each and every order we ship out into the world, and we want customers to love it as much as we do.

Favorite items

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

My absolute favorite item is my bound wedding planner. Why? because it’s all mine! Unlike other shops that white label and drop-ship their planners, I make each and every one from scratch. I design, print, and bind every page, and I print and wrap every cover. I like to think each is its own little work of art; since customers select their cover and foil colors, each is unique!

I’m particularly in love with the fern design; it’s directly inspired by the swaths of ferns we have growing around our woodland home.

Yes, the planners sell very well; my LGBT planner is a massive hit. I’m very proud of this planner, and to my knowledge, this is the only shop selling one. It is non-binary and totally inclusive—just the right fit for a multitude of wedding situations.

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’ve had an interesting Etsy journey, so my first sale actually happened in 2009 for a custom handbag! At the time, I was working at an interior design firm and I took our discontinued fabric samples and turned them into one-of-a-kind purses and totes. But in late 2009, after we became engaged, I decided to change gears and focus on wedding invitations. Wicked Bride was born when we decided to marry on Halloween the following year.At first, I only had samples listed on Etsy, as all my orders came through my website. As I grew, Etsy grew and I began to understand the power of the platform. 

When I sold my letterpress and moved from invitations to planners, my Etsy shop really took off. I use a combination of factors to attract customers; great product images, a diverse collection of designs, and an important mix of short and long tail keywords for good SEO. Brides also LOVE to TikTok their planners and planning process - I think there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t get a "found you on TikTok!" message!

Managing WickedBride

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 only me, and sometimes it’s a lot to manage. During peak seasons, my husband will pitch in to help pack and ship orders, but the design, printing, and production are always on my plate.

Using Vela to perform bulk uploads of my shop on multiple platforms is key. I review the "guts" of my planners every six months, so that means changing descriptions and images across the board if details in the planners change. Having a tool that can perform all of these edits simultaneously is crucial to keeping my listings current.

I also use Shippo to print all of my labels because I sell on multiple platforms. Shippo allows me to batch label product lines across all of my shops effortlessly, which makes packing easier and gives me more time in the day for other tasks.

I use the entire Adobe Creative Suite for creating and producing designs and orders, along with editing all the product photography.

The future of WickedBride

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

To keep growing and learning. I have a standalone site off of Etsy that I’m constantly improving, but Etsy is still the powerhouse behind all of my orders. I was also invited to open a shop on Amazon Handmade, but I haven’t had a break to get that rolling, but it’s a goal to accomplish before the end of the year! My dream is also to partner with a retailer to bring my planners to brick-and-mortar stores, but I haven’t found the right match yet.

Advice for new sellers

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

Start ugly. Nothing is ever going to be as perfect as you want it to be at first. But just start. Start somewhere, anywhere. That’s the hardest part. Once you get going, you’ll learn new things, refine products, and hone your photography skills. Put yourself out there and see what happens—you might be surprised!

Also, it’s important to have zero expectations. Yes, things go viral, and some people are overnight successes. But that’s the exception, not the rule. I’ve been selling on Etsy in some shape or form since 2009, but it wasn’t until 2018 that I hit my first 1,000 sales. Keep going, keep learning, keep growing, and you’ll get there!