How Textileish 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 name is Ramona, and I am the founder and owner of Textileish, a small business where we make and sell decorative pillow covers and create unique pillow combinations that are specially selected to fit different spaces. We consider ourselves more than a pillow shop. Our purpose is to offer our customers an effortless experience when choosing pillow covers for their homes. Besides offering preselected pillow combinations, we also offer free consultations where our customers respond to a few questions on what they would like, send us photos of their space, and will receive a personalized selection of pillows from us that best fits their space.

A little bit about how we started I was born and raised in Romania, but in 2018, I met my now husband, Ismael, and moved to NYC. This is the start of Textileish's story.I always knew that I loved entrepreneurship, and my desire had always been to work for myself, so moving to the United States and starting over seemed like the perfect time to fulfill my dream. It took a while until I figured out exactly what I wanted to do, but after much thought and analysis, it became clear. I had opened and managed a clothing manufacturing factory in Romania. I had the skill of sewing, and I absolutely loved anything related to interior design. I was sitting on our sofa one day, looking at our dated throw pillows, and it suddenly dawned on me: pillow covers! I knew how to make them; I could do them at home, and besides that, it was related to my passion for interior design.

My husband supported and encouraged me all the way, and in August 2020, we opened our shop on Etsy. We had a humble start, I would say. At that time, we did not have any savings that we could use to invest in opening the business, and taking on debt was not an option. However, we received a gift of $400 from some friends of ours, and we used that to buy a sewing machine and a few yards of fabric. We started with just a few products, and for any sale we would make, we would reinvest the money to buy new and nicer fabrics. We did not pay ourselves anything out of the business for almost one year.

Our process is pretty straightforward. We source the fabrics online, making sure that we see a sample before deciding to purchase. We test-wash the fabric to see if it shrinks and if yes, we will make sure to preshrink it before production. Because of this, all our covers are safe to be washed. As we started to grow, we invested in two industrial sewing machines, which make the process much easier. Once we have the finished products and have made sure they meet the highest quality standard, we are ready to ship. That is the most fun part!

Favorite items

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

This is one of my favorite products in our shop and is kind of representative of the theme of our entire collection: earthy, neutral tones, both lighter and darker. I love brown and green, and you will see that quite a bit throughout our shop.

Sofa Pillow Cover Sets, Pillow Combo Set of 5, Brown Green Cream Throw Pillow Covers, Pillow Combination Sets, Couch Pillows Modern

Another reason I chose this pillow combo is that it includes most of our bestselling individual pillows. The black plaid pillow is definitely the star of the show, followed by the cream floral and olive floral one. I believe our customers love these combinations because of the natural look and subtle use of color.

Black Plaid Pillow, Modern Minimalist Pillow, Charcoal Throw Pillow 18x18, Geometric Pillow Cover 20x20, Dark Brown Pillow, Plaid Cushion
 Cream Floral Pillow 20x20, Modern Designer Pillows, Charcoal Floral Throw Pillow, Block Print Pillow Cover Cream Gray Throw Pillow 18x18
Olive Floral Pillow, Dark Green Floral Pillow Cover 20x20, Olive Throw Pillow Covers, Decorative Pillows for Couch, Khaki Throw Pillow 18x18

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?

We had our first sale in about 3 (long) weeks. I remember the beginning days when I was going to the post office across the street from our apartment with one package every few days and saying to myself that one day I would go every day. It took a while to get there, but today we ship close to 200 pillow covers a week.

Etsy has been a fantastic platform for us to launch our shop.We did use social media to attract customers, but most of our buyers (80%) found us directly on Etsy. We have seen that as we do our part and offer a great product and outstanding customer service, Etsy will direct more and more people to our shop. We have also been fortunate to be featured by influencers on Instagram and have had visits to our shop from the LTK app.

Managing Textileish

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?

As I previously mentioned, I manage the shop with my husband. We do everything from sourcing the fabric to cutting, sewing, ironing, packaging, and shipping. We also manage the online part of the shop, take product photos, list the products, and do customer service.

We use Quickbooks for our bookkeeping and accounting, Canva for editing photos and creating content for social media, and since I love spreadsheets, we organize all our shop information in Google Sheets.

The future of Textileish 

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

We opened our own website on Shopify last year, and although we love Etsy and it will remain our main source of sales, we are looking to diversify. Besides our own website, we also started selling wholesale on Faire, and we want to expand in this direction as well. Another goal we have this year is to get help in different areas like production, marketing, and customer service.

Advice for new sellers

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

Whenever someone asks me what the secret to our success is, I like to give the example of our snowflake pillow. At the beginning of our shop, I had this one navy pillow that would simply not sell, no matter how much I worked on the SEO or photos. But since back then every sale mattered, as we needed the money to reinvest, I was determined to do something about it. Christmas was around the corner, and I came up with the idea of embroidering a white snowflake on the navy pillow. That became our bestselling pillow for that time!

The best advice I could give someone who is just starting is to never give up, never stop learning, and never stop changing whatever does not work. I strongly believe that anyone can be successful on Etsy, and the reason so many shops fail is that they did not persevere as long as they needed to see the breakthrough. It took us more than a year to have constant sales and significant revenue, and it was not an easy journey. But we took small and constant steps; we always improved our product, and even though we did not see the results we wanted, we pressed forward. We never lowered our quality standards, and we were there to serve the customers, not to prove them wrong.

I would also add that it is critical to have a why. What is it that you dream of, and how can an Etsy shop help you achieve that? My great desire was always to work for myself, and another big why for our family was to pay off my husband's student loan. If you do not have strong motivation, it may be easy to just give up. I am happy to say that today, two and a half years after opening our shop, both I and my husband work full-time in our own business, and we are on track to being completely debt-free this year. And last but not least, if you are a person of faith, ask that God guide you along the way in your business. We believe we wouldn’t be here without Him.

Alura Team
Alura Team

Alura is your all-in-one platform for selling on Etsy. With more $500.000+ gross sales over four years selling on Etsy, Alura is built by experienced sellers for sellers. Start with a free account and explore all the features you need to start, run, and grow your Etsy shop.