How Stitchingmesoftly 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?
Hey, I am Emma, and I run Stitching Me Softly from Bristol, UK. I initially launched Stitching Me Softly in 2017 while I was on maternity leave with my youngest daughter. I had made some crochet items for her to wear, and some friends in my local Etsy team encouraged me to list them on Etsy as "made to order" items. These were popular enough for me to catch the small business bug and branch out into selling digital download patterns as well as selling patterns to craft magazines and teaching local crochet workshops. As my audience on social media grew, I had a few people contact me and ask if I sold craft packs to accompany my patterns. This gave me the idea to turn a few of my patterns into full-blown craft kits containing all the high-quality materials and tools you would need in order to make one of my patterns. These craft kits proved to be so popular that I was able to stop working my day job in 2019 and focus on Stitching Me Softly full time. Well full time ish, around the social lives of 3 small children.
I love designing new products and really look forward to the time I set aside to work on new patterns and craft kit ideas. Each craft kit is carefully designed and tested to make sure that the finished items are durable and can be used and enjoyed for a long time. Sustainability is very important to me so all the materials and tools inside the craft kits are either recycled or biodegradable. I was lucky enough to be able to upgrade my packaging to some bespoke designs in 2021, and the boxes are now FSC certified and fully recyclable.
Favorite items
What are your favorite items? What makes these so special? Why do you think these items might be selling well?
My favorite craft kits are the Crochet Basket Duo Kit
and the Retro Granny Square Kit
Both of these sell pretty well for me, and the Crochet Basket Duo Kit was a real hit during the lockdown periods of time when everyone wanted to learn a new fun hobby and add some nice accessories to their homes. For me, they are my favorites as they are the patterns I like to make myself. I really enjoy a simple crochet project; it allows me to unwind at the end of a busy day and have some quiet time being creative. I love to fill my home and work spaces with plants, and having them sit in chunky crochet pots is a lovely way to incorporate some handmade items into my decor. Granny squares are the real basis of crochet and have such a classic look; they are also really versatile, and you can use them to make pretty much anything you want by sewing them together. They are a great place to start if you want to get into crocheting.
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 think my first non-family Etsy sale took a few months to arrive, but I can clearly remember being in the park with my daughter when the Etsy sale chime went off on my phone. I was so excited and had to keep checking the app to make sure it was real. Over the years, I have tried a few different ways to drive traffic to my Etsy shop, and the ones that currently work well for me are PR articles in the craft press and gift guides, and running Etsy ads for my highest-performing listings.
PR definitely works better for me than social media traffic, and the trick is to send your press release to magazines and blog writers who have a similar audience to your shop. For me that is anyone who is writing for craft lovers. I like to read the trend reports Etsy sends out and check to see if I can identify popular search terms that would be relevant to my products. I can then add these as tags to the title and product description. I find refreshing tags and key works quarterly can be a good way to make sure all your listings are staying up to date.
Managing Stitchingmesoftly
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?
At the moment, it is just me in the business, but I do have a friend who works freelance for me a few days per month to help me with packing the kits and keeping on top of material orders. I love having the Etsy app on my phone so that I can easily see when orders come in and communicate with anyone who has any questions or needs help with their order. On a typical work day, I arrive at the office at 9:30 and check through emails and messages before starting to pack that day's orders. The postman collects from me at 12:30 so after that I work on any admin tasks that need doing before heading off at 2:30 to collect my kids from school. I occasionally have some work to complete in the evening at home but I try to save the design work for then so that I can curl up on the sofa whilst I crochet.
I have an account with Royal Mail, so I print all my shipping labels and pop the parcels into post bags ready for collection each day. If my parcels are over 2 kg, they are sent via a courier service instead. Other technology I have found useful:
I use Google G Suite to manage my emails and the listing of my brand website; I also use their analytics tool to evaluate that side of the business.
Later, to schedule all my social media content.
Tiny.png to process all the high-resolution photography so that it is suitable for use online.
Xero to manage the financial side of the business.
Canva to create any design work. From simple Instagram stories to my full trade catalog, they are all made on Canva.
Trello to keep track of trade accounts and orders.
Mailchimp to communicate with the customers who have signed up for my mailing list.
Square helps me take payments at markets and craft shows and also runs the payment section on my band's website.
The future of Stitchingmesoftly
What goals do you have for your shop in the future?
My focus for 2022 was to grow the wholesale and trade side of Stitching Me Softly, which went pretty well, and I now have some stockists around the UK and abroad. I would love to grow this so that I have some stockists in the US as well, and I have plans to attend a trade show there in the next year or two. For 2023, I would like to release a range of new micro and mega craft kits. The micro ones are perfect for stocking fillers, friends' birthdays, or a little treat for yourself. The maxi kits are the kind of thing you would add to your birthday wish list and then have a lovely project to complete over the whole month.
Advice for new sellers
What’s your advice for a new seller starting an Etsy shop?
For starters, I would say go for it; don’t wait until you have everything perfected before getting started. You can upgrade your photography and copywriting as you go along. Look through the Etsy Sellers Handbook; there is a wealth of information in there to teach you how to set up your shop and listings. Etsy has made it super simple; all you need to do is make sure you fill in each section as you go. Then connect with a local team if you can; if not in person, then find a good online community of Etsy sellers who will all be more than happy to answer your questions. Then, once you are making sales, you can track your statistics—what sells well, what doesn’t? Is there some information you could add to your listing to make it easier for customers to buy? Where are your customers coming from? If you find a source that is working really well, how can you take it even further? When I started seeing that my items were being shared by the press, I started reaching out to the writers of those articles and seeing if they wanted information about new products or some more images to use in future articles. The place I have built the business to now has all been achieved by taking lots of really small steps over the past 5 years, and you can do the same.
Some sellers really get inspired by hearing numbers. Feel free to share these if you like.
Question: How much is your monthly revenue?
Answer: Average £1412 through Etsy
Question: What is your average profit margin?
Answer: Average 70%
Question: What is your shop’s conversion rate?
Answer: Average 2.6%
