[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message]Niche : Home and Living
Shop link : https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtesanniaHandcrafts
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/artesanniahandcrafts
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/artesannia
Twitter : https://twitter.com/ArtesanniaH[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Tell us something about yourself. What is your niche? How did you get your idea or concept for the business?
I am a Brazilian, with Italian and Jew parents I was born in Brazil and moved to the US. I was an executive my entire life but my only way to remove the stress from my life was to work with my hands. Always was. As a hyperactive kid, my mom thought me how to knit, crochet, sew, and embroidery just to keep up with my energy level and this way, a passion that belongs so beautifully to her was passed to me. When we moved to the US, I continue to build beautiful pieces with my early developed talents and until today, my gift list for Christmas starts in January, each one always receives my love in a handmade product. With time, my friends start to ask me for an embroidery kit for them, and soon I was spending my days testing floss, needles, hoops, Aida cloths, and designs, putting together kits for my family, work colleagues, and to their friends of their friends as well. At this moment I decided to design a logo (another way to use my hands to create) and professionalize my embroidery kit. They have very high-quality embroidery flosses and I tested and use each one of the products in my day by day life. Today we sell a beginner embroidery kit, very complete and even comes with a bag to carry everything, elastic for sewing, and a cross-stitch kit to embroidery or make friendship bracelets. Then, the second step was everyone calling me to ask how do I make such beautiful friendship bracelets and by the phone is virtually impossible to teach anyone, this way our Book How to Make Friendship Bracelets, with a new technic that I developed by myself. My book is free and is available to anyone for download on our website www.artesanniahandcrafts.com. Now I just finished writing another book about embroidery stitches and should be online next week for free download on our website as well.
What are your responsibilities as a business owner?
The responsibilities in a company of just one person are simple, everything is your responsibility…lol. Finances, Marketing, Sales, Packing, Shipping, Customer Service, everything is made by me. I am the one who answers the phone, emails, makes the newsletters, sets up social media or google ads, posts on social media (still learning how to work with Pinterest), and all the other shores. I built my website and manage it as well. I also pack and ship personally each order and when the order is a gift, I also design and print the personalized card that goes with it.
What are your best selling products, what type of materials are used in your creations, how do you design your products, what makes your products stand out?
My best selling product is with no doubt my Embroidery Floss Kit for embroidery and friendship bracelets. This kit besides the book, it comes with 100 colors of embroidery floss, each color has 8 yards and 6 strands. They come wrapped on plastic bobbins with DMC numbers, this way, if you need more floss to finish a work, you can always find the same color just following its numbers. The kit also suitable for cross stitching, so, comes with 40 extra tools and all organized in a beautiful heavy-duty plastic box to keep everything organized.
What do you enjoy most about being an entrepreneur? What’s the hardest about it?
I enjoy that I can share my love for embroidery with the world, is such an amazing way. Just know that each one of my embroidery kits is making someone happy, makes my heart beat faster…lol. The hardest is when I feel frustrated for not having more time to create more kits (a crochet one, maybe?) or books or even post the images of my creations. I have a big house, young kids, 3 dogs and to keep everything on track I need to take some “me” time every day. I wake up at 4 am to meditate, do my ballet classes online, and have breakfast before starting to work. This way I can start my day in full blast.
Who do you sell to (and how do you get customers)? What marketing tools or strategies you use to boost your sales? Are you satisfied with the results?
My clients are 90% of women, and besides meet them on marketplaces like Etsy, I use Facebook and Google Ads. The results have been tougher after the pandemic. Now, with a higher unemployment rate in the country, you need to invest almost double to get the same results on sales.
Do you believe there is a winning formula for becoming a successful entrepreneur? What is yours?
No magic formula at all, each one needs to find your own way to success but I can say that keep the focus doesn’t matter what and the internal balance is my recipe. Many times you will want to give up, tell yourself that enough is enough but if you have no results, start to test some adjustments here and there, work hard and the success will come sooner or later.
What was the toughest moment you have experienced in your business practice? How did you succeed to get over it and move forward?
Ahhhh so many, one of them is the COVID-19 period, and the creativity on new products (like a new crochet doll that we will be launching soon) and promotions, have helped me to overcome the low sale rates of this phase.
What inspires you when you’re creating? How do you get ideas for new products? What are some methods or tools you use to get creative?
Ohhhh my inspiration comes from my life. I love to live and have a passion for this amazing world we live in (everyone says that I look at the world with pink glasses but this is the way that I am), the trees in the fall, my flowers, my kids all of it inspires me. My dance, my meditation, and a cup of red tea in the morning always get my creativity going as well….ideas I have many but to validate it, I use some keyword tools like Long Tail Pro and Google Trends.
Do you ship your product internationally? How do you handle postage pricing? What is the average time it takes from the order to the delivery? Do you use free shipping? If so, why? How do you package your products?
Yes, I do ship everywhere. I use stamps to get discount postage with USPS but now, Etsy launch a very good tool that lets me track the entire process and I am loving it. All the domestic orders are shipped for free via priority mail with a delivery window of 2 business days and 4 to 6 business days if shipped internationally to North America. Sometimes the pandemic has caused a little delay in delivering the orders, but not more than 1 day or 2. I use free shipping and I use bubble packages in the product and double padded envelopes to ship them. The 2 days priority shipping is very expensive, a huge part of my costs but my clients deserve it.
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What would you say are the key elements for starting and running a successful online business?
Learn, try, test, don’t give up, and try this cycle again and again.
What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs who are starting out?
Do something you love, validate your idea before the start, and focus in exceed the expectations of your customers, always!
How do you personally define business success? Is it money? Freedom? Influence? Creative expression and innovation? Something else?
Be proud of what you do and how you do it.
Describe your day-to-day operation. How do you manage your time?
As mention, before I wake up at 4, am, in two hours, I meditate, I do one hour of ballet online, have breakfast, take my dogs for a short walk and take a shower. After that, I am ready to get my cup of tea and start my day of work.
How do you plan on growing your business? What is the biggest impact on your profitability?
I want to create new products, improve the ones I have to serve my clients even better. With more products, you can get a more diverse range of clients and consequently sell more. A little bit of profitability in every product ends up in a more profitable business
What are some things you did to set your shop for success on Etsy? What is one lesson you learned the hard way?
I started with good images, an optimized listing with a lot of keywords and I invested a lot in ads, losing a lot of money, in the beginning, to collect the loss later. The best experience was someone that shared the beautiful result of her embroidery work (that inspired me for the new book) and the worst was a client that told me that I should stop being cheap and pay more in shipping so her product could arrive faster…lol and I told her that I use the fastest way available to ship my products but also inspired me to talk with other carriers to see if I could find an even faster way to ship my products.
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