Etsy Seller Interview with Drew of ManaForge Proxies

How ManaForgeProxies 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?

ManaForge Proxies started as a creative outlet and turned into something way bigger than I expected. I’ve been playing Magic since 1995, and while I love Commander like most folks do, I mainly play Standard, so I’ve always cared about both how a card functions and how it feels in play.

The shop began as a way to design the kinds of cards I wished Wizards would print - cards with custom art, cool themes, and a bit of personality. I’ve always wanted to create artwork for this game, and I started tinkering with my versions of cards almost a decade ago. What started as a hobby turned into gifts for close friends who also play the game, and from there, I’ve accidentally built a business that I love and am proud as hell to call my own. I didn’t set out with a big business plan. I just wanted to make cards that were fun, high quality, and worthy of a deck you’re proud to sleeve up.

One of the elements of the business that makes ManaForge special for me is the connection I’ve been able to build with my customers. A ton of the sets I’ve created came from ideas and requests people have sent in. Players aren’t just buying cards -they’re part of shaping what ManaForge Proxies becomes. That collaboration and mutual passion is a huge part of the shop’s growth.

Everything’s designed, printed, and packaged by me, by hand. I’ve been a designer and developer for almost twenty years, and my workflow leans heavily on what I’ve learned throughout my career. I have a handful of tools that I use regularly, but the main software I use when designing my products is Procreate, Photoshop, and Illustrator. I tend to obsess over the details, so sets can come together super fast, while others can take up to a year to finish; I’ve learned not to force the creative if it’s not feeling right. 

Favorite items

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

It’s tough to pick just a few - like I said, I tend to obsess over the details of the sets I release. If I had to pick, I would have to say the sets from my Retro Horror Novel series and the sets from my latest Final Fantasy series.

The Retro Horror Novels series is my baby - hands down. The first set took me over a year to create, and it’s been one of my favorite design challenges I’ve ever taken on. Each set contains cards that exist within the Magic ecosystem - typically, the staples that people know and love. I take the text from the actual cards and reimagine the entire layout to look like a horror novel paperback cover from the '60s or '70s. I love Spook, and there’s something about the design from that era that’s always had me hooked. 

The Final Fantasy series is one of my newer releases, and it has been SUPER successful. Magic is releasing a crossover set that takes place in the Final Fantasy universe, and that’s definitely been a massive contributing factor to the success of the series thus far. Final Fantasy has been my favorite video game franchise for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been drawing characters from the games for almost as long. So far, I’ve released Volume One and Volume Two of the series, and I’m currently working to finish several follow-up sets as 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?

Try to learn why, and constantly be refining and iterating on everything. I still don’t have it figured out, but I am motivated daily by the trends being up and to the right. 

I currently have a handful of methods for attracting and retaining customers. Etsy ads are easily my largest spend - once I knew how to calculate my ROAs, I was able to make informed decisions about spending money to make money. I still have a long way to go regarding how well I know and use the Etsy ad platform, but it has been a massive variable for me growing. 

My packaging also includes collateral that incentivizes customers to purchase again. Those have QR codes embedded in them to make it easy, and that seems to have been a successful tactic as well. 

For customers who buy a significant amount from my shop or continue to place orders, I also create a unique coupon code that gives them a better discount than I run in the shop, and I encourage them to share the code with their playgroups. 

I have social profiles but admittedly have not leveraged them at the level I know I need to from an advertising and content standpoint. That’s actually a big part of my roadmap for the next twelve weeks.

Managing ManaForgeProxies

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?

I’m flying solo through and through on ManaForge. I do all of the design work, and when a set is ready for production, I work with my printing partner to ensure the final product is the absolute highest quality possible. I’m lucky to work with their team; they are one of the largest card game manufacturers in the space, and they also are behind loads of Kickstarter campaigns that go to market. 

On average, I have at least one or two weekly deliveries of inventory hit my doorstep. I personally pack and ship all of the orders myself, and ManaForge has grown to the point where my fiancé, Shay, is likely going to start helping me with the business - fulfillment, listing SEO, etc. 

I use a handful of tools to run and grow the business, Alura being one of them. I built my website on Shopify and that has allowed me to identify a slew of tools needed to make inventory management suck less - one inventory management system to rule them all. 

The future of ManaForgeProxies

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

I’ve thought long and hard on this for over a year now. This has been a wild ride, and I love creating artwork that resonates with players around the world. At first, it was a “let’s see what happens” type of experiment with low expectations, but at the end of Q3 2024, things spiked hard for me on Etsy. I continue to look at data, try to understand that data, and learn from it - having data inform my decisions is my biggest takeaway since I started this journey. 

Advice for new sellers

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

Again, learn to understand your data and let that inform what you do with it. Never stop tinkering or creating the things you love - that’s most likely why you started this in the first place. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and defeated when something you are proud of doesn’t move, but the data could reveal that you aren’t showing your product to the right person. The data will tell you where you need to go. 

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

Question: How much is your monthly revenue?
Answer: Currently averaging around 10k

Question: What is your average profit margin?
Answer: Average of 80%

Question: What is your shop’s conversion rate?
Answer: Averaging around 2% and working to increase that metric