Etsy Seller Interview with Karin of Poyura

How Poyura 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?

Hi! I’m Karin. I started Poyura back in 2019 with my sister, Jenny. On our Etsy shop, we sell stationery like stickers, washi tapes, art prints, notepads, and many other things. We design things that spark joy, like plants, flowers, animals, and food. We also get inspiration from our Asian culture. Our most popular categories are illustration and decor stickers for journals and polaroids. I have always had an interest in art since I was a kid. Art was something I wanted to do growing up. However, people have told me many times that it isn’t something you could make a living from. And after hearing that countless times, I started to believe it. It made me feel conflicted because it was my dream to become a full-time artist.

The more I grew up, the more lost I felt because I didn’t know what else I wanted to do. Especially in college, I was really questioning my life. It made me feel uncomfortable to know that my study was something I had to do for the rest of my life. I chose to study UI and UX design because it allowed me to be creative. Don’t get me wrong! I learned a lot and liked it, but it wasn’t something I saw myself doing for many years. After some time, I told myself that I should at least try to pursue my dreams and see what happens. I started to look around and tried to find ways to support myself with my art. Most artists I followed back then made a living by doing commissions. But I wanted to do something that a lot of people could use and not have a drawing made for one person only. Around that time, more and more artists started their own online shops, selling merchandise with their art.

An online shop was perfect for what I wanted. I told my sister that I wanted to sell stickers with my art on Etsy. I thought it was straightforward to open and run a shop. But my sister saw the necessary steps behind them. She helped me a lot with making it a reality. First, we registered Poyura as an official business. Then we tested different sticker papers, ordered a cutting machine, and figured out how to ship mail internationally. There were definitely times when things got overwhelming. Neither my sister nor I knew how to price our products; we had zero experience with accounting; we had no clue how to write shop policies; and so many other problems arose when we were setting up our Etsy shop. We did a lot of research, and after about three months, we were ready to launch our shop. It was the beginning of our dreams. We would print and cut our stickers from our home studio and share them on Instagram.

Favorite items

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

My favorite item in the shop is the stamp washi tape, especially the whale stamp washi tape, and the Lunar New Year bunny stamp washi tape. There is something special and satisfying about seeing your idea come to life exactly as you imagined it. Our stamp washi tape is the newest item that we added to the shop, and it is the most fun I have ever had designing a product. I get to draw silly drawings on a tiny canvas. And surprisingly, they are well received in our shop. I think it is because not a lot of shops sell these yet, so they are quite unique.

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 took us about a month to get our first sale. Back then, it was mostly Etsy that brought traffic to our shop. We didn’t do a lot of marketing ourselves because we didn’t want to come across as pushy and sell things. Now, we mainly use social media to bring customers to our shop. We are using Instagram because it is a platform where we can share our products through pictures. We are trying to branch out to different platforms like Twitter, TikTok, and Youtube. I like to use YouTube because you can upload longer videos to better connect with your audience than through an image. I feel like it is easier to build trust with long-form content than with short-form content. It does take more time and effort to make long-form content, but I think it is worth it.

Managing Poyura

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 run Poyura with my sister, Jenny. One thing that I have learned from working with a partner is to communicate well. We learned it the hard way, but we have improved a lot since then. Nowadays, we have a daily meeting before we start to work where we tell each other what our plans are. We have another meeting at the end of the day to share how our day was. Not only do the meetings help us know what we are working on, but they also give our day structure. By ending the day together, we remind ourselves that it is time to stop working and that we should rest. Having strict working hours allows us to have a better work-life balance. If you never go to work, you never leave work. We have monthly shop updates with new products. The process is usually the same. We design new products, cut stickers and outsource products, make content for social media, create new product listings, launch a new collection, and then pack and ship orders.

These are our favorite tools and apps that we use for our shop:
Notion: In Notion, we share a board where we organize tasks by ‘doing’, ‘future months’, and 'completed'. It is really useful because you can keep track of your progress, ask questions, and assign tasks to people.
Sell on Etsy: We use this app to pack orders and reply to questions from customers.
Grammarly: English isn’t our native language, and we make many grammar mistakes. We use Grammarly to check our text. For example, when I’m writing the subtitles on our Youtube videos, product listings, emails, and interviews like this,
WaterDo: This is an adorable app that gamifies your to-do list. When you finish five tasks, it will give you a reward for your own island. It motivates me to finish my tasks in a fun way.

The future of Poyura

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

Recently, we started filming studio vlogs to share tips and behind-the-scenes footage with our community. To make better vlogs, I want to improve my storytelling and editing skills. Also, it would be awesome to attend conventions and open a physical shop. We would love to meet our community and chat with them! These are our long-term goals, so it won’t happen anytime soon, but we love to dream big!

Advice for new sellers

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

First, it is important to do market research if you are a new seller. Find out what people are interested in and what they need. You can do this by sharing your work and asking your audience for feedback. You can make changes along the way. Keep your community up to date with what you are working on, however small it is. People love to see what you are working on behind the scenes.

Second, once you know what your community likes, focus on expanding your product line. You could open your shop with a small product line, but it is better to have more items because customers like to browse a fuller shop. You could choose to consistently add more products over time. An idea on how to expand your product line is to offer your products in different varieties. For example, different colors, bundles with a small discount, gift sets, etc. Our most popular variation is tiny stickers, where we turn our existing sticker sheets into tiny sheets. Our community loves the tiny stickers because the small size works really well with decorating polaroids.

Third, it is important to build a community on social media. Be active, engage in people’s posts, and make friends with other sellers in your niche. You can learn a lot from other sellers and help each other out. 

Last but not least, remember to take care of yourself! It isn’t easy to run a business. There are endless tasks, but you are not a robot. You can’t pour from an empty cup, so plan time for rest, hobbies, and time with family and friends. Rest is also productive!