Etsy Seller Interview with Olivia of Atiliay

How Atiliay 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 Olivia, and I’m an artist and brush letterer. I offer cards, art prints, PDFs, brush lettering workbooks, and other products that give back in my Etsy shop named Atiliay. (“Atiliay” is adapted from the French word "atelier,” meaning workshop or studio, especially for an artist or designer. It is spelled the way I think it sounds to make it easier to pronounce.

My business started by accident. I was creating handmade cards as a way to raise funds to donate to Food4Africa, a non-profit providing nutritious meals for babies and children in South Africa. Ever since meeting the founder and team behind F4A in South Africa in 2007, I wanted to find ways to support them.

The first time I ran the fundraiser, I did it without any type of shop platform—it was all through emails, word of mouth, and PayPal. I was able to secure over a year’s worth of meals, which gave me the idea to continue to do this and try to support other causes as well. But I knew I needed a more streamlined process, so that’s why I decided to begin selling on Etsy.

My business has changed and evolved over the years as I have changed and evolved as a person and an artist! I began with hand-printed cards and art created from stamps I hand-carved. Then I discovered brush lettering and created a line of greeting cards, postcards, and dry erase stickers by digitising my lettering. I began teaching brush lettering at in-person workshops and started to offer kits as well as digital downloads in my Etsy shop to those who couldn’t attend or lived in other states and countries.

Every item begins with original lettering done with a brush pen on paper or on my iPad. It is then digitised so that I can lay it out, enlarge it, etc., and format it onto a card or whatever product I am trying to create. I have worked with a local printer to get my more popular designs printed; however, all custom personalised cards are still printed, folded, and packaged by me! I pair each item with a non-profit and decide how much to donate. At the end of the year (or sometimes at the end of the month), I tally the amounts and make the donation.

Favorite items

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

My favourite items in my shop are:

I love being able to share this fun art form and help others on their brush lettering journey! This digital set of worksheets has allowed me to do that and reach people from all over the world, which has been very cool. All of my brush lettering worksheets have a special place in my heart because they were a lot of work to put together, and I am proud of the finished product! The other cool thing is that it’s a lot of work up front, but selling them is very easy as it’s all automated and customers download the PDFs immediately. I don’t need to do anything when these sales come in.

These worksheets provide 10 nutritious meals to the Ebongalethu Educare Centre, a preschool and nursery I sponsor through Food4Africa.

Etsy makes selling personalised or customizable items very easy, and these tri-fold cards for dog and cat moms are so fun to make because they include the names of the recipient’s dogs and cats! It’s so fun to read through them, and I love being able to add this special touch! As a dog and cat mom myself, I love reading through the names and imagining how they’ll feel when they open up this card!

A portion of the proceeds from these cards will be donated to The Lange Foundation, a dog and cat rescue in Los Angeles working to save and place homeless animals in forever homes.

Something that surprised me when selling on Etsy was how popular cards were during the fall season around Thanksgiving time! I wasn’t expecting gratitude cards to be such a hit, but it warms my heart to think these cards will be shared with loved ones and make them feel special.

This card helps ChilisOnWheels.org provide vegan chilli and other plant-based foods to those in need of a warm meal.

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?

Since I was selling for my fundraisers, once I launched my Etsy shop, I let all the people who had previously bought it know about it, along with family and friends. So it wasn’t very long before I got my first sale, but this is a bit of a special case and not the typical scenario. I wish I remembered, but I know when I got the first sale from a stranger, it was very exciting!

I do think being on Etsy alone is not enough—you have to be proactive about getting people to your shop! Etsy does a great job of getting you customers, but it can be slow at the start, and I don’t think organic search from Etsy is as good as it used to be, so you can’t just rely on that.

I currently attract customers through my social media (Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and I’m starting to dabble in YouTube), my newsletter, and word of mouth. In-person events are another way, although I don’t do that as much anymore. I am always asking myself how I can get more customers to my shop!

Managing Atiliay

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 a one-woman show, so I do manage everything from product creation, marketing, shipping, etc.

It has taken some time, but I feel like I have streamlined my process of fulfilling orders. It’s a bit easier because I don’t have a very wide range of products, so mostly it’s shipping out cards.

 Here are some of the tools I use to run my shop:

Adobe Illustrator: I majored in fashion design in college, and we utilised Illustrator a lot. Looking back, that has been so helpful because I still use it almost every day! It’s what I use to layout my cards, create my PDFs, and create images for marketing and newsletters.

Adobe Photoshop: I don’t use Photoshop as much as Illustrator, but I do use it to edit photos in addition to the editing capabilities my iPhone has.

Canvas Phone Holder/Light: I use this to take photos and make videos for my shop. I don’t use the light much (natural light for the win!) but the holder is so helpful and versatile. 

Rollo Printer: I love my Rollo printer! It has helped me save a tonne on ink, and the labels print out quickly and easily! It may be a bit of an investment, but if you are consistently shipping orders, this is so worth it! You can also use it to make stickers for packaging. I highly recommend it; this is a must-have for me!

The future of Atiliay 

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

I’d like to bring in more traffic for my instant download products, which include brush lettering worksheets and greeting cards. Since I don’t need to package and ship these items, it frees up my time to focus on other areas of my business! I am also living a more nomadic lifestyle and bouncing around from city to city and state to state. The fewer products and packaging materials I need to bring with me, the easier it is, so digital items are something I’d really like to focus on!

Advice for new sellers

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

Be as detailed in the listing as possible, and utilise images! For example, you can (and should) list the measurement of a product in your description, but having a photo of your product beside a ruler or a diagram of the measurements can be more clear to customers and easier to understand.

Make sure your titles are clear and accurately describe what it is you’re selling. It’s better to be direct than to come up with a creative name. Consider what people are typing in when searching for your product category.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but for any type of online business, photos are so important—they are the only thing your customer really has to go off of! Try to use natural lighting, edit your photos, and show your product alone without any props, as well as with props, how it can be used, etc.

You are going to come across customers who don’t read your listings or give you a less than 5-star review for things that are out of your control or that they missed while browsing your item. Try not to let this get to you! Don’t let one negative interaction out of many positives bring you down. At the same time, if you do make a mistake (we are only humans!) or a critique is warranted, try your best to resolve it, learn from it, and move on.

Be flexible and open to change; know why you are doing this; and keep at it!

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: My average conversion rate since 2013 is 2.5%