Last year in August, I decided to open up my own Etsy shop (https://www.etsy.com/shop/NoteCardCreations). I was not sure at the time where this adventure might lead, but it has been a fun hobby for me. I decided to open an Etsy shop featuring handmade note cards as a creative outlet that allows me to be a bit crafty. I have enjoyed paper crafting as a hobby, especially scrapbooking. When I decided to embark on the journey of opening up an Etsy shop, I wanted to use paper to create something that would be both useful and practical.
As I began opening my Etsy shop, I found the step-by-step process on their website incredibly user friendly. It was really neat to see some of the cards I made take shape into actual listings available for customers to search for and potentially purchase. At first, I spent a lot of time reading through the Etsy forums to help get acquainted with the process of setting up your own shop, as well as advice from fellow shop owners. I learned a lot from these forums and implemented these tips. The most helpful information I learned was actually from another Etsy seller, who offered shop critiques (https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheBuzz). This lady spent time looking at my shop and then sent me a completely personalized 5-page shop critique specific to my Etsy shop.
Throughout this process of creating listings for my note cards, I learned a lot also about SEO (search engine optimization). You really have to think like a buyer and include key words or "tags" to describe your item as they would so your items can be found. I found myself redoing a lot of the initial pictures I took of my cards too to try to achieve the best lighting and optimize the settings on my camera to create the best pictures I could, as the pictures themselves are what captures a potential customer's interest first.
Etsy also offers its sellers a shop stats page, where you can check out various aspects of your shop. This page shows how many views each item in your shop gets and even what time of day the views take place, as well as which key words are used by potential buyers that land on the items viewed. This page also shows which items are being chosen as favorites.
I started off by creating a variety of blank note cards with various designs on the front, so they could be useful for multiple occasions. Then, I added birthday cards, anniversary cards, sympathy cards, and thank you notes. Both holiday and seasonal cards were next to join the list, along with special occasion cards. When I browsed through other card shops, I noticed many of them included mini note cards, so I created some of them too to add to my shop. I also added in a few religious cards. Lastly, after I had exhausted my list of ideas of every possible occasion I could think of that someone may want a card for, I came across card kits that offered all the materials and layouts for different types of cards to make. These kits were really fun to put together.
When I first opened my shop, I wasn't really sure whether I would even get any sales. There are a TON of shops on Etsy, especially ones offering handmade note cards, so it is a very saturated market to try to get into. A little over a week after I opened my shop, I got my first sale! It was the most exciting thing to see that there was an "Etsy transaction" that appeared in my e-mail inbox. I am up to 49 sales currently, mostly single cards, although I do also offer note card sets. Speaking of sales, the cards that have sold have been the ones that I didn't think would; for example, several summer-themed cards have sold along with...get this...two Happy New Year cards (I don't really see a purpose for sending someone a Happy New Year card myself, although maybe it is an alternative to a Christmas card?)...and two Fourth of July cards to someone in CANADA, which seems a little strange since they celebrate their independence day on July 1; maybe there is some other July 4th celebration up there I don't know about. I have had a couple of sales to Canada and another international sale to Austria. I have noticed also some of the people buying cards from my shop are repeat customers.
My biggest misconception when starting this adventure was that I did not need to spend much time marketing my cards; people would just eventually find me. As I mentioned before, there are a lot of different card shops on Etsy. You really have to be unique from all other shops or work really hard to be found. There is a lot of advice regarding this topic on the Etsy forums as well. I decided to focus my marketing strategy on Etsy customers by investing in the search ads offered on the site itself. This allows your items to show up first at the top of the page in search results.
About a month ago, a lady from the Des Moines area contacted me after finding my note cards on Etsy and asked if I would be interested in offering my cards as consignment items in her new gift shop opening soon (you can check out "Sweetly Said Bouquets & Gifts" on Facebook). I was really excited about this opportunity and told her I would be interested. This was something I had thought about doing in the past, but I just never branched out beyond the Etsy site.
Below I have included pictures of some of the cards offered in my Etsy shop. The link to my shop is also at the top of the page. This has been more of a hobby for me than anything, but now that I have had my Etsy shop open for a year, I just wanted to blog about the experience as I look forward to where this adventure might take me next.
