Etsy Seller Interview with Tyler of Everything Etched AZ

How Everything Etched AZ 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 business began as nothing more than a personalized wine cork holder for my mother on Christmas. I decided to hand-etch a shadow box by hand to create this wine cork holder. The final product was so well received I decided to bring these keepsakes to Etsy. 

In October of 2013, EverythingEtchedAZ was born. What started as a one man operation with only a couple of tools quickly turned into a fully loaded workshop with 8 laser engravers and a growing omnichannel business that includes our website, Amazon, and a brick and mortar storefront. 

Despite these other channels, Etsy remains our strongest platform making up 60% of our revenue.

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?  

It didn’t take long, likely a week or so. Having joined in 2013, I would be considered an early adopter of Etsy. It was easier at the beginning, when the market wasn’t so saturated. 

But over the last few years, with tools like GlowForge and Cricket, the personalized gifts industry is inundated with new sellers everyday. We know we have to stand out from the crowd, so we attract new customers with products we know our competitors can’t create with consumer grade laser engravers. 

We also provide an industry leading turnaround time for made-to-order gifts. In this hyper busy world combined with the growing expectation of 2-day shipping because of Amazon. Everything is last minute - and instead of fighting this, we embraced it. 

We found ways to introduce technology and automation in an industry that hasn’t seen much advancement in technology. This allows us to get personalized gifts shipped the same day with a very small team.

Additionally, we are very dedicated to providing top notch customer service. 

Managing Everything Etched AZ

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?

Aside from myself, Everything Etched currently has a team of 5. I have 3 people on my production team (engravers and shippers), 1 designer and my wife. 

My wife Liz Ann is our Brand Manager, as she has a background in digital marketing and graphic design and has been a part of Everything Etched for about 2 years now. She handles our ecommerce, marketing, and Etsy “maintenance.” By maintenance, I mean we are always actively working on our SEO, product images, listing set up, and anything that improves the customer experience.

We are always running ads, always. But we don’t just set it and forget it, we actively monitor our ROAS and rotate out our underperforming products. We view Etsy stats and Google Analytics every day and actively check in on what searches are trending for that week. We upgrade our images on our listings when we see they are getting stale and we also make it a point to consistently add new designs and products, at least 5 every month.

As for order management and shipping - this last year we were able to create a proprietary software that allowed us to streamline the entire ordering process. Our customers can now create their own orders using our pre-designed templates, eliminating the need for a designer to create every order we receive. This system then tracks the order at every stage from designing, to engraving, to quality check and shipping. 

The tool we made integrates with ShipStation, which is the only other software we rely on daily that isn’t proprietary to our company. With this software, we’ve reduced errors by 75% and increased our output by 200%. 

We may be in the business of bespoke gifts, but as craftsmen, we shouldn’t be afraid of technology. By embracing technology, we’ve found out how efficient we can really be.

The future of Everything Etched AZ

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

Immediate Goal: Remain on the Star Seller list. When we saw that Etsy was officially rolling this out, we knew it would drive consumer behavior. Much like the AirBnB ‘SuperHost’ tag, the Star Seller badge evokes trust without the customer having to do any of the research.

Unfortunately for us, Star Seller is hard to attain because we do custom orders all the time.

So oftentimes we can’t meet delivery dates, not because we aren’t moving fast enough but because the customer changes their mind on what they want their design to look like or can’t get us their information in time. It’s a new challenge for us to tackle but we believe it’s worth it.

Short Term Goal: Do our best to navigate the supply chain shortage, as we have the demand but we are beginning to lack the supply.

Long Term Goal: Stay ahead of the curve, be the trend setters, and provide engraved products that are unique to us.

Advice for new sellers

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

As mentioned before, embrace technology. It could be the hurdle you need to climb to reach a new sales threshold. Plan out your production process and find tools to help. If you ever want it to go big, start thinking about your process early. Simplicity is key to handle growth.

Also:

• Don’t get defeated if your sales plateau, it happens, and when it does don’t just analyze your own shop but look at other sellers on Etsy and see what is working for them. 
• Hope for the best, plan for the worst. My story may sound successful but the path was not linear. In 8 years my business has literally had to survive a fire, a flood, and a pandemic! You never know what’s around the corner. 
• Celebrate the win. Be proud of yourself. Recognizing accomplishments helps build excitement and that excitement helps drive you and your business forward.

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

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How much is your monthly revenue?

Our top Etsy store does over $40k a month.

What is your average profit margin?

60%

What is your shop’s conversion rate?

Answer: 3.9%