Etsy Seller Interview with Kate of SweetMamaMakes

How SweetMamaMakes 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?

My Etsy experience began in 2014, when I opened the first version of my store. I sold physical goods like baby blankets and watercolor paintings. I mostly directed traffic from my growing Instagram account to my Etsy shop and made about 300 sales overall. In that year of business, I experienced the highs (like dozens of sales in one day) and the lows (like multiple rounds of hand-dying fabric my mom had shipped me from across the country after the very specific fabric I needed—and had already sold pre-sold products—went out of stock for months). I was a stay-at-home mom and worked every naptime and late into the evenings to complete orders on time. It was a wild ride.
After a year, and when I found out I was pregnant with my third child, I decided to close that shop and take a long break from Etsy.At the time, I didn’t think I would ever return. But four years later, I found myself curious about a different sort of venture there. My passion for sewing had not been lost during those quiet years, and I loved creating unique things for my girls to wear. I had purchased several sewing patterns online over the years, but mostly created my own. I liked having creative control over the outcome, and I loved trying to make trending items with my own unique spin. There was something about turning an idea into a tangible paper pattern that really stirred my creative juices. So, in 2019, I took my shop out of vacation mode and released my first digital sewing pattern: the May Bonnet.I got a handful of sales that first month, and then by month three, I had made $700. I was ecstatic! I quickly got to work turning more beloved items into sellable patterns, leading me here today.

Favorite items

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

I have an affection for my May Bonnet, being the first one.

I’m also super proud of my Flutter Bloomers.

 My favorite item, however, is My Knotted Gown sewing pattern.It is also my best-seller!

It is a pattern I sewed up many times over for my own girls, long before I had thoughts of becoming a pattern-maker. I have good memories of making these gowns when I was pregnant with them, the whole time envisioning what my babies would look like in them.
On the practical side, I love that they have ties at the bottom to keep feet and legs warm, and to make diaper changing really easy. 

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 made my first sale within the first two weeks of being on Etsy. I’m sure it helped that I had a previous track record and good reviews that my customers could scroll through before buying, although they were pretty outdated. After I got my first updated 5-star review, I started getting a lot more traffic and sales. When I (re)started my Etsy shop, I knew I didn't want a dedicated social media page (as I had the previous time).Right now, social media can be a big source of stress, and I am consciously trying to limit my time on it. So I decided to forego the traffic from there and see if I could make it on my own.

Thankfully, there are so many helpful tutorials now on how to use good SEO to drive Etsy traffic to your shop. I rely on that, Pinterest, good photos, and good reviews that build trust for future buyers. Occasionally, a buyer will message me and ask if I have an Instagram page they can browse. One day, I may feel I can dedicate more time to that community, but for now, I am thankful for the traffic I get from Etsy alone.

Managing SweetMamaMakes

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 am a completely one-woman shop. Thankfully, there is no shipping involved since I sell digital products. But I do spend a lot of time on the front end, trying to create quality products that will sell well and create repeat customers.
Etsy handles fulfillment for me, which is also a bonus. About once a week, however, I receive messages from customers who had trouble accessing their patterns, so I have learned how to quickly get my patterns sent out, no matter where I am in the world, when a customer in need comes calling.
Some of the apps I rely on to create and sell are:

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Affinity Designer: I use this to draw all of my patterns. Before I was making any money, I didn’t want to invest in a more pricey program, so this was a great budget-friendly alternative. Prior to this, I had never used a vector program, so I am self-taught (over many hours of Googling and YouTube tutorials).
Adobe PDF subscription: A PDF subscription is a must for pattern sellers, as this allows me to organize and layer my patterns and instructions to make them work best for my customers.
Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop: I use both of these to edit my photos and to create photo tutorials for my patterns.
Tailwind: I use the Tailwind subscription to frontload pins for Pinterest, and they publish them for me on a schedule. I really don’t enjoy some of the more business-y sides of the business, so spending a day scheduling out pins is, to me, much more enjoyable than trying to do a few every day.
Pinterest: After Etsy, Pinterest is the second-best driver of traffic to my site.
YouTube: I put video tutorials for all of my patterns on YouTube. This is something I added in 2021 (two years into my business), and it has greatly cut down on the number of how-to questions I receive from my customers; I’ve also gotten a lot of positive feedback from them. And, not to be ignored, it has also been a small but valuable driver of traffic to my shop.
Alura: I use apps like Alura to research SEO and get ideas for my keywords, tags, and descriptions. I also do research there to see what’s trending and which products in my niche are underserved. I often wonder how my first round on Etsy would have been different if I’d had access to these resources!
And then, of course, are my workhorses: my Babylock sewing machine, serger, and coverstitch machine. With these, I test and re-test each size of my patterns, tweaking them until I’m happy with the final results.
And I couldn’t do my job without a phone camera, a basic home printer, and a scanner

The future of SweetMamaMakes 

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

In 2023, I anticipate going "full-time" with my shop as I will be sending my last baby off to kindergarten and therefore won’t be relegated to working during nap times or evenings only. I can’t wait to add new patterns, update my pattern illustrations, and create more YouTube tutorials.

Advice for new sellers

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

You can find great success on Etsy with a little bit of work! Do your homework on SEO and be a reliable, generous, and humble store owner. In the beginning, block out what everyone else is doing and create your own products with your own unique beauty. Find your path to success, and then repeat the formula over and over.

Best of luck!
-Kate

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

Question: How much is your monthly revenue?
Answer: $600-1700/month. My slowest months are October-December and my busiest are in the Spring.

Question: What is your average profit margin?
Answer: Since I am selling digital, almost everything is profit. I do pay for a few necessary tools, but overall, they take little away from gross totals.

Question: What is your shop’s conversion rate?
Answer: Average around 4-6%