Etsy Seller Interview with Yael of Yoola

How Yoola 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 Yael, but everyone calls me Yoola. This is also the name of my Etsy shop !

I opened it in 2008 on the advice of my sister to sell a stock of wire crochet tube necklaces I made too many of. At the time, wire crocheting was not my business, just a hobby to keep my hands busy and my heart happy. I began by selling the jewelry I made, but when I realized people were super curious to hear about my technique and learn how to DIY my designs, I began to publish PDF tutorials, later on video classes, and much later on, I began designing unique wire crochet tools and accessories to make the work easy and fun.

Favorite items

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

My top favorites are my decorative pomegranates and pendant lights, but they are not my bestsellers, I assume because they come with a high tag price, but their DIY kits and patterns are very popular, which is a win-win situation for my shop.

Another top seller is my hoop earrings. They always have been. I wear them myself on a daily basis. They are a simple, popular design with a handmade touch. I guess this is why they are so popular.

The 3rd top seller is my YoolaCuff, a wire crochet wide cuff bracelet. It is simple yet super impressive. Clients love it a lot. It can be an evening piece of jewelry but also casual, depending on what you match it with.

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?

My first sale took a few months to come. I did not know anything about selling online at the time, and Etsy in 2008 was a small family-like community. I asked for advice in one of the forums and offered a meaningful reduction for the first five orders to get things going. They sold out overnight.

Since my etsy shop is very established, there are links leading to it all over the web, in particular on Pinterest. My main traffic source to my etsy shop is "direct links", so it's hard to know exactly where from. I also have a shopify website called YoolaDeisgn.com to which I send the traffic via newsletter, Facebook, and Instagram these days.

Managing Yoola

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 manage my business on my own. After trying different models over the years, I decided I'd rather keep the business at a size I can DIY rather than be an employer. I don’t use any apps to run my shop, just excel sheets. Saying this out loud makes me wonder if I'm missing anything good that is out there.

The future of Yoola

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

My goal when it comes to my etsy shop is to keep bringing new customers that don’t already know me and my technique. It has become so hard to be found on etsy. I hope to get more feature inquiries and interesting collaborations. I love collaborations!

Advice for new sellers

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

My advice for new sellers is that they MUST have amazing photographs, well written titles, tags, and descriptions, and to not rely solely on shoppers coming from Etsy, one must have great Instagram and Facebook pages. It used to be easy to rely solely on internal Etsy traffic, but this is no longer the case.

I'm not sure how easy it is to sell on Etsy if you are not taking it 100% professionally. It used to be a fun place for armatures and people with interesting hobbies to meet up, but I'm afraid that is no longer the case. On the other hand, Etsy offers these days great tools to manage your shop and business, and makes your shoppers feel safe when shopping. I built my brand here. I've seen it through so many changes. Even if it's no longer as cozy as it used to be, Etsy is home.

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

Question: What is your shop’s conversion rate?
Answer: 0.4%