Etsy Seller Interview with Kaitlyn of WesternMaineChaga

How WesternMaineChaga 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?

I’m Kaitlyn Schanz, one of the owners of Western Maine Chaga. My brothers, Andrew and Austin, and I founded this business in 2017 when all three of us were still teenagers. We sell Maine chaga mushrooms that have grown wild in the mountains of western and northern Maine. All of our Chaga is sustainably and ethically harvested in a way that ensures its regrowth. We do all the gathering and processing ourselves, examining each and every mushroom by hand so that we can ensure it remains at the highest level of purity. Chaga mushrooms have been used for centuries across the world to help boost immunity, fight inflammation, and improve overall health. Knowing that’s what our customers are looking for really motivates us to provide the cleanest, most natural, and most wholesome chaga possible.

Favorite items

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

Our most popular item, and the one that I recommend to most people, is our bags of chaga chunks. We sell these by the pound and half-pound, and you really receive quite a lot of chaga in a bag. Using chaga chunks is my favorite way to prepare tea, and the best part is that you can reuse the chunks at least three times! That’s a lot of tea per chunk.

If a customer is looking for a really convenient way to take chaga, that’s when I recommend our chaga tea bags. You brew this like any other tea, and it really takes the time and works out of preparing chaga. You don’t have to worry about forgetting the pot on the stove, something I’ve done too many times. Each tea bag contains about two teaspoons of ground chaga, and we fill and seal each bag by hand.

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 still remember the first sale we ever made on Etsy, a month or so after we opened our shop. I got the notification on my phone, and I went running out the door and jumped on the ATV to go find my brothers and tell them the amazing news! We were so unbelievably excited that this risk we had taken, starting our own business so young, had begun to pay off. We ended up getting a 5-star review on that first order too. Since then, we’ve really built up a loyal clientele, with people returning again and again to buy our Chaga. We do very little to advertise our shop, as we already struggle to keep up with demand. The vast majority of our gathering is done during the winter, as it’s very hard to process chaga properly during Maine’s humid summers. We tend to sell out during the summer months.

Managing WesternMaineChaga

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?

My two brothers and I are equal partners, but we definitely fill different roles in the business. Andrew and Austin do the gathering. And it’s very hard work! It involves a lot of snowshoeing with very heavy backpacks on, often in below-zero weather. Andrew does the majority of the chaga processing—the cleaning, chunking, grinding, and a lot of the packaging. I run the "online" side of things. communicating with customers, organizing all of our finances, ordering packaging supplies, and, of course, shipping! We try to have very quick shipping times, which means a lot of extra trips to the post office. But it’s worth it when so many of our reviews mention how surprised they were to get their packages so quickly.

The future of WesternMaineChaga

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

Our business has grown a little each year since we started it. Ideally, we’d like to continue that. This is a side hustle for us; we all have other jobs, so time is at a premium. We’re looking forward to continuing to build up our client base of happy, loyal customers. Eventually, we’d like to get some of our products in an actual brick-and-mortar store. That’s always been a dream of ours.

Advice for new sellers

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

I can’t emphasize enough how important presentation and appearance are. We really tried to find the most aesthetic packaging possible when we started out, and we still get compliments on it. For us, we went for a lot of natural colors—browns and greens—to reflect our all-natural product. Of course, packaging has to be practical too, which is why we ended up switching from Kraft bags to burlap bags for our chaga chunks. The Kraft bags were getting beat up in the mail, and it just ruined the experience for the customer to open a package and have their product look battered. I also think high-quality photos for your listings and the About You section are so important.

And of course, customer service is probably the most important part, especially if you want people to return to you to buy again. This means a timely response to any questions they have, quick shipping times, and a willingness to chase any issues they might have—even if it’s not your fault! If the postal service loses or damages a package, we make good on that, even if it means taking a loss.