Etsy Seller Interview with Aranza of zazations

How zazations 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?
Aranza McMitre is the owner and founder of Zazations. We make funny and sarcastic products for men and women, as well as custom products for the whole family. Zazations was born right after I turned 30 years old. I wanted to have a business of my own after working my whole life for somebody else. I wanted something that belonged to me, something to be proud of.

Back then, I was living in NYC and working with children for 10+ hours a day in order to make a living. While being part of that world and after meeting many parents, I noticed they were fond of wearing both funny and sarcastic t-shirts with sassy Mom and Dad Life sayings and shirts with their kids' names on them as well. In those days, it wasn’t easy to find products like these online. I’ve always been the sarcastic type, and noticing this market niche is what inspired me to start Zazations.

At the beginning of 2019, I made a realistic plan to launch my business and gave myself one year to try new things and make corrections before quitting my job in 2020. By then, my business had to be profitable. I had no choice. I’ve always loved Etsy, and I decided to use it as my main selling channel because 86% of sellers are women, and you have the chance to launch a business without a significant investment thanks to their free tier, which is especially made for entrepreneurs who are just starting out.

I wanted a business that would allow me to work from anywhere since my husband and I wanted to travel for a bit before finding a city to finally settle down in. This is why I decided to make Zazations a drop shipping and print-on-demand business. I started my shop by creating just T-shirts and mugs with funny and sassy quotes, and then, after some time, I added tank tops, printables, hoodies, and sweatshirts to my catalog.

Favorite items

What are your favorite items? What makes these so special? Why do you think these items might be selling well?
Personalized Dad Shirt with Children's Names. This has been a customer favorite and best seller for two years in a row. This is one of my favorites because it allows dads to wear their kids’ names proudly with a very elegant and unique design. I’ve received many compliments on this product, and the fact that it has been used so many times as a gift for new fathers or even as a pregnancy announcement makes me extremely proud.

Mom Shirt With Kids' Names. Similar to the aforementioned dad shirt, this mom design has been bought as a gift for many moms during Mother’s Day, and I personally love it because of its feminine and classy design.

It Isn't a Dad Bod, It’s a father figure. This was one of my first sarcastic designs for dads. It became a customer favorite in no time. This shirt has been featured three times in Buzz Feed as part of the "Best Gifts for Dad on Father’s Day." This shirt is the perfect combination of dad humor and a father figure, and that’s why it is one of the items I get the most compliments on.

Get Naked-Unless You’re Visiting That Would Be Weird. This is the most beloved digital download and my personal favorite. The idea behind it came from a customer’s recommendation, which turned out to be a very popular home decor design at our shop.

I’ve Seen More Private Parts Than a Hooker. This item was created specifically because of what we went through during the pandemic, and it became a hit in record time. It is still one of the best gifts we make for nurses two years later.

Zazations is very popular among yoga enthusiasts, and this specific tank top is the star of the show. It was the t-shirt that started it all within this community, and once I saw how popular it was, I just had to create a whole collection for yoga lovers.

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?

My first sale was 2 weeks after I published my first product, back in July 2019. At the beginning, sales were few and far apart. It wasn’t until I did some serious research on Youtube, blogs, and successful Etsy owners' stories that I finally started learning about Etsy SEO, good titles and descriptions, and the importance of good listing quality, specifically good pictures, for the sales to start coming more often. This was about 4 months after opening my shop.

Managing zazations

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 run Zazations entirely on my own.All the way from designing the items to marketing, managing orders, and providing customer service. Something I have in mind for the upcoming busy season in 2023 is to bring one of my siblings on board to help me with the business.

Zazations is a drop shipping and print-on-demand business, and I work with a high-quality printer provider that has different fulfillment centers throughout the U.S.

The way it works is as follows: We make all the designs and promote them on Etsy, and once we receive an order, we send the design and garment information to our provider, who processes it, prints it, and then ships it directly to the customer.

In order for Zazations to work properly, there are a number of tools that I’ve had to master and couldn’t live without:

Adobe Photoshop: This is the magic sauce behind my shop. I make all my designs with it. I find it very friendly and easy to work with, and if there is anything you need to learn, there are a million Youtube videos showing you the way.

E Rank: This is one of the most important tools in my shop since it allows me to find the best tags to use and what’s trending on Etsy, as well as take a closer look at what my competitors are doing, among many other things. Using this tool has been a game changer for me.

Canva: I’m a big fan of this platform because it allows me to create my Etsy and social media banners quickly and efficiently. By this, I mean Instagram posts, stories, etc. It has a ton of professional-looking designs, and because they have an app, you can create anything from your phone.

Tailwind: Thanks to Tailwind, we have almost 5K followers on Pinterest with almost 2 million monthly views.

This website and app have been such a lifesaver when it comes to Pinterest. I started gaining all my followers after I discovered it.

Tailwind allows you to schedule all your pins ahead of time. I schedule between 30 and 50 pins per day, depending on the season. This is how I started gaining the most followers.

Place It: Place it is a fantastic website with extremely unique mockup designs. You can choose between mockup videos, flat mockups, model mockups, etc. depending on what you’re looking for, is very user friendly and offers a variety of options.

Inc File: This is the tool I used to register Zazations as an LLC. very user-friendly and quick process.

Turbo Tax:  Turbo Tax is such a godsend since it makes all tax-related tasks quick and easy.

Flo Desk: It took me a little while to find a good email marketing platform for my emails since the websites that offer this service for free offer limited functionality and don’t have the best designs.

Flo Desk might be a little pricey compared to the rest of the platforms, but its classy and elegant designs make the price worth it. very user-friendly, with beautiful and eye-catching landing pages that make a great first impression.

The future of zazations

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

I’m planning to continue with Etsy and grow my listings to 1k+ as well as my sales to 10k+.

However, I also plan to have my own ecommerce website by 2023, since having an independent online presence for your personal brand is very important nowadays.

I would also like to expand my products to different marketplaces like Walmart and Amazon in the near future.

Advice for new sellers

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

You will be very happy starting with Etsy, as it is one of the best platforms out there. I would suggest learning about Etsy SEO since it is quite different from traditional SEO. Etsy has its own way of working, and it is critical to understand it. Once you start getting a sense of it, I would totally recommend opening an account on Erank for tags, trends, and ideas to start introducing it to all your listings.

Good pictures are also a must, so if you’re photographing your own products, take some time to learn about product photography. There are many great online resources for this, like Youtube or Udemy. Good customer service is a vital factor. Treat your customers in such a way that they would be crazy not to recommend or return to your shop.

In addition to that, there is always something to learn! Allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from them. It took me months of trial and error before I started understanding how Etsy works, and because it constantly changes its algorithm, I’m always learning as well.

Enjoy this process. It will transform you and make you extremely proud to look back and see what you’ve achieved.

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

Question: What is your average profit margin?
Answer: About 25-30%

Question: What is your shop’s conversion rate?
Answer: High season is 8-9% Low season 2%