Etsy Seller Interview with Hayley of RubyWrenCards

How RubyWrenCards 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?

Ruby Wren Designs started in 2009, but I’ve always been drawing, crafting, and having an obsession with making greeting cards. I started making and selling greeting cards to my friends in school, and my A-Level art project was based on some of the greetings and design companies I was involved with when I spent my free time as a gift blogger in the early 2000s. I always knew I wanted to design greeting cards for a living, and Etsy gave me the platform to start my own business. My work has changed a little over the years as I’ve found inspiration in new things along the way, but I’ve always aimed to keep my products personal to the customer and celebrate being a small designer-maker rather than a big, faceless business.

Favourite items

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

My handmade mini-envelope cards are my favorite to make; they are handcrafted from scratch and contain hidden personal details that are unique to each customer. It’s quite therapeutic to fold tiny envelopes out of paper, and it’s always fun to see what people choose to hide inside. There have been proposals, birth announcements, and more!

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?

I remember getting my first sale as soon as I listed items, and I had to rush to the shops to buy packaging envelopes because I was so unprepared! I was lucky that I opened my shop during an Etsy community event where people were shopping to give sellers their first sales. That first flurry of sales was placed by some lovely customers who were celebrating undiscovered shops, but it took years to build up my shop after that. It wasn’t until I really started researching SEO, tags, conversion, etc. that I knew I had to put the work into the storefront itself as well as my products.

Managing RubyWrenCards

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?

The business started as just me in 2009, with help from family during busy periods. Nowadays, my boyfriend helps me with the day-to-day running of the business, and my sister creates artwork for some of the printed greeting cards. This year I started using Etsy shipping labels with a thermal printer for my order fulfillment and found that made a massive difference to how we dispatch orders—everything looks neat and professional, and it gets marked as dispatched automatically.

The future of RubyWrenCards

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

I’d love to keep doing what I do forever! I have so much fun designing new products, creating orders, and seeing what customers think when they send me lovely reviews. I’ve recently opened my shop up to international orders, so seeing more of my cards go across the world would be fun too!

Advice for new sellers

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

Make products you love! Your excitement and passion will come across when talking about them and showcasing them in your shop, and if your shop is successful, it’s always better to be making lots of what you enjoy. As a customer, browse your own store often and see what they see. You might spot things that put customers off. Customers are visiting your shop and clicking on your products because they’re excited about what they’ve seen when browsing... Make sure they have all the information they need to make that purchase. I find my Etsy conversion can vary day by day, but I like to keep an eye on it and think about what I can improve on my listings to improve conversion.