Etsy Seller Interview with Héctor of hekreations

How hekreations 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?

After getting my degree in Audiovisual Communication, I finished a Master’s Degree in 3D & Visual Effects. It was the time when I discovered (thanks to a music video made by some friends, Blackpanda), geometric or polygonal-style masks. Loving low-poly aesthetics and the do-it-yourself concept, I decided to design and publish 8 masks for Halloween 2018—this was the starting point of this adventure.

The creation process is very simple: I use front- and side-view reference images to design in 3D the desired animal or object (in Autodesk Maya), trying to make the model look as similar as possible to the represented element with the fewest geometric shapes possible (since the more polygons you have, the more pieces there are and, therefore, more time is required for assembly).

Favorite items

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

I would choose the following 3 products:

I would highlight them from the rest of our designs because I personally love the shapes of these masks and the photoshoots with them were great. (And that's why I think they tend to sell quite well.

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 we launched seven paid designs all at once in October 2018, 15 days before Halloween, we only needed 2-3 days to get the first sale. We ended October 2018 with 30 sales, but in November 2018, we barely made 5. Beginnings are complicated, and all shops have their ups and downs, but with passion, perseverance, and dedication, everything comes along.

To attract sellers to our shop, there are three things we consider essential:

• Design the best possible product. We take much longer than our competitors to launch new products (we track them monthly), but we prefer quality over quantity. We don't want to sound conceited, but the reality is that some of our competitors have 4–5 times as many products as we do, but only sell 30% more per month.
• Generate top audiovisual content (pictures and videos) to show the product.
• Publish content adapted to each social network (Instagram, Tik Tok, and Pinterest), using the right keywords and hashtags, so that people end up discovering your product.

Managing hekreations

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?

It is basically a family business. My parents, who own a tax and financial consultancy, take care of all the administrative, financial, and legal sides of the business. My brother is in charge of taking the pictures and editing the video tutorials. I am in charge of designing the products, recording the video tutorials, and editing the pictures from the photoshoots. I am also in charge of managing social networks and customer management.

Regarding the tools:

We use Google Spreadsheets for statistical purposes.
The Etsy API helps us get information based on products from other shops to create our roadmap.
We also have a script that tracks the sales of our shop and those of our competitors on a daily basis in order to see the growth and evolution of our niche and the sales per month of other shops.
As these products are digital downloads, no physical shipments are required.

The future of hekreations 

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

Our vision is to become the favorite company for people looking for low-poly, unique, and quality products that do not have a negative impact on the environment. (We plant a tree for every mask or accessory we sell.) Additionally, just a year ago we started making low-poly sculptures in stainless steel, and we would like to continue growing in this new niche. (Example here)

Advice for new sellers

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

First: research, research, and research. Analyze the sector in which you want to start selling; how many shops are there, how many products they have, how many sales they have achieved, etc. Then, do the best you can (at the beginning, you will not do everything perfectly, but you will improve with practice and time), be constant, and have patience to overcome all the bumps that may arise.

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

Question: How much is your monthly revenue?
Answer: Depends on the month. In 2022, from 150 to 900 sales per month.

Question: What is your average profit margin?
Answer: 70%

Question: What is your shop’s conversion rate?
Answer: 2%