Hi everyone, I’m putting aside the exciting book launch for today because I wanted to present this small collection of beautiful online shops featuring artists who use different materials, and whose platforms are on both Etsy and Shopify. It’s a little long – and I had fully intended to edit out chunks of text – but I found I couldn’t remove parts of people’s stories because I found them interesting.
I’m receiving compensation to write about Shopify, and since I don’t have an online shop, the only way I could make it authentic and fun for you, my readers, is to let the people speak who do! And also feature their gorgeous work and give some back story as to how they got started.
There’s not a real bias to this post because I truly don’t have an opinion on which platform is better. But I have Janice and Tracey giving some additional information about Etsy. And Angela will share her experience with Shopify.
But, before we talk shop (ya see that pun there?), let me introduce some gorgeous creations!
Paper Goods & Graphics
Name: Julia Groves
Shop: The Quiet Grove Designs
Start Date: May 2015
Platform: Etsy
Tell me a little about how you found the name for your shop, and some of the story behind it:
My family lifestyle blog and my Etsy Shop are both The Quiet Grove. It’s sort of a play on my name and a statement about who I am. I am the Quiet Grove. My mission for my shop is to help others celebrate life’s precious moments, big and small.
I have always been drawn to the field of graphic design work. Thankfully, when my husband (who happens to be a talented graphic designer and illustrator) found this out, he encouraged me to just go for it. He set me up with Lynda.com and Youtube tutorials to learn Illustrator and Photoshop. And whenever I needed additional help he has always been there for me.
When I became proficient in graphic design my husband encouraged me to open my own Etsy Shop to sell my printables. I never knew I would find such enjoyment creating the products in my store (and custom products for clients). While I love graphic design, and I am becoming quite proficient, I am still no illustrator. Thankfully, whenever I need some custom illustrations for my printables my husband is always willing to take the time to draw them up for me. It is fun working as a team.
Check out Julia’s work and writing here:
Link to shop: Etsy Shop
Link to blog: The Quiet Grove (She also offers a bunch of free printables for my readers at my blog).
Letters and Paintings
Name: Janice MacLeod
Shop: Paris Letters & Art (or JaniceArtShip)
Start Date: 2010
Platform: Etsy
Tell me a little about how you found the name for your shop, and some of the story behind it:
My Etsy name is JaniceArtShip. It really came about because I like my name, art and ships. Looking back, I probably would have been better off choosing something more obvious like Janice MacLeod but now that’s taken, so JaniceArtShip remains.
I had saved up enough money to buy me two years away from my job in advertising. While on the road, I started mailing out letters to friends. I was surrounded by art and inspired by all the art I was seeing in the museums of Europe. When in the United Kingdom, I came across an artist named Percy Kelly who created amazing painted letters to send to his pen pal back in the 1980s. I was smitten. So I bought a watercolour set and dusted off a rusty hobby. I began painting watercolours in my travels, and started writing letters on the watercolours. I’d then mail the art out to a friend.
When I met the lovely Christophe in Paris, I decided to stay and continue creating these painted letters. At some point I had to take another look at my bank account and beef it up. I decided to create a subscription service whereby I copy the letters, personalize each copy and mail it out to those who like fun mail.
People love receiving fun mail. I especially like when someone subscribes a family member or friend to the service. There are a lot of people that get my letters in retirement homes and have an update to share with their friends. They pass the letter around at meals so they can all do a little armchair traveling.The Paris Letters turned into a book, which turned into a New York Times best seller. I still marvel at how these Paris Letters have taken on a life of their own.
My Etsy shop had a false start back in 2010. I had tried to sell a few of my paintings to no avail. I thought just by listing, I would be able to sell, but I learned that Etsy is first and foremost a high-tech cash register. It would do the transaction for me but I had to do a lot of marketing on my own and build my audience. Eventually, I did this through blogging about my travels.
Sewing
Name: Renee Stawicki
Shop: Songbird Sewing
Start date: May 2015
Platform: Shopify and we love it! Also in brick & mortar stores.
Tell me a little about how you found the name for your shop, and some of the story behind it:
Oh this is an interesting story…. we wanted to use my maiden name, Renee Russell, because we thought it sounded smoother than Renee Stawicki, we toyed around with many options, gave it a lot of thought, and just couldn’t come up with the right name. The website was finished (my husband built it himself) and we needed a name ASAP! That morning my husband and I were talking and we both heard a bird right outside the window. He looks at me jokingly and says “how about songbird?” YES! Songbird Sewing! My friend drew the logo on a paper scrap, sent it as a cell phone screen shot and my husband turned it into a jpeg. We use that original drawing as our logo.
I like to make things, and I see my work as art. I don’t like to make the same thing twice, and I rarely use patterns or measurements. I LOVE textiles and color. This business is a wonderful artistic outlet and allows me the freedom to incorporate the business with our family dynamic/homeschooling, and travel. The business has grown and changed so much in this first year, we are so thankful to all of our customers and followers for their support. We currently sell the bags on our site songbirdsewingco.com, in 4 stores from North Carolina to Northern New York, and at various shows we attend with the family thought the year.
We chose Shopify over Etsy and other ecommerce solutions because of how well it worked for both point of purchase sales and web sales. Some of the other benefits were how well it integrates with other online tools such as Instagram, which I use regularly to share my creations.
Link to Shop: Songbird Sewing Company
Jewelry
Name: Tracey Lopez
Shop Name: Saffron Soul Studio, LLC
Start Date: April 2016
Platform: Etsy & Craft Shows
Tell me a little about how you found the name for your shop, and some of the story behind it:
I opened my account with Etsy in November 2015 but launched the store in April 2016. I’ve been playing with beads since I was a child. I became more serious about selling my jewelry and art as a hobby in my mid 30’s. In November 2015 I took the leap and formed the LLC. to make my studio a formal business.
My-oh-my that was a 2 year process. I have a journal of brainstorming with pages and pages of words, expressions, concepts, definitions you name it. I came to the end of my rope, completely exhausting every word possibility relating to my business concept that I could think of. I sat at my dining table frustrated and disappointed because all of the names I could think of were already taken and over saturated. Then the thought came, you need to think out of the box. Food popped into my head next. Food? Okaaaay. Then like a gentle whisper, I heard saffron. I wrestled with that at first.
Saffron? Why saffron? I reflected on it… it’s a spice, expensive, exotic, flavorful, elegant, beautiful, golden yellow and orange. Wow. Of course saffron! It made sense because those are the things that my art work embodies to me. Burnt orange and red are my favorite colors. Originally I wanted to use the word SOL which is sun in Spanish but I changed it to SOUL because it has a deeper meaning that reflects both my faith in God and the undercurrent of inspiration I want my business to have.
Saffron Soul Studio’s mission is to provide products to our customers that enhance personal style and increase awareness of multicultural design. The long term goal is to create a lifestyle company that connects art, culture and inspiration on an individual basis using products and art workshops.
Shop Link: Etsy
Blog Link: Saffron Soul Studio and HERE for more personal writing
Sculpture, etc.
Name: Mary Catherine Jackowski
Shop Name: MOHLOM, which is an acronym for More of Him, less of me
Start Date: 2008
Platform: Etsy
Tell me a little about how you found the name for your shop, and some of the story behind it:
My husband and I were trying to come up with a name for our business and I finally said, “I think I am going to call it MOHLOM.” He wondered why and I told him it was an acronym for “More of HIM, less of me”. I would always sign my letters like this and he thought it was a great idea.
MOHLOM is not just a shop, but my hearts cry. The items that I make are made from recycled glass. My aunt is a glass blower and she gives me the scrap off her blow pipe, which I take and clean up. It comes broken and dirty, much like us. But I clean it up, break it, fuse it together in a kiln and it comes out bright, shiny and beautiful. Much like God does with us.
I would often see jewelry that I loved but could not afford to buy, that’s why I have priced my items so that everyone can enjoy them. Each item comes with a gift tag that reads: MOHLOM More of HIM, Less of me, Handcrafted from 100% recycled glass, from broken to beautiful.
Every time my aunt blows a piece there is residual glass left on the blow pipe. She thermal shocks it off and it is broken and dirty. She never wanted to send it to a landfill and so she kept it, not knowing what she would do with it.
One day she told me I should make stuff out of it, and I told her I didn’t know how. She said – you have a kiln….which I did, someone gave me a used kiln years ago free. But I had never plugged it in. So I went to the library and checked out a book on Kiln Formed Glass. I read it and read it over and over again.
Later, my aunt asked me if I had made anything, and I told her I had read a lot on it but was afraid to turn on my kiln. She looked at me and said, “Mary, it’s like a great big toaster…just plug it in. Log your temps and times and you will figure it out.”
So I did! I’m constantly coming up with new ideas and designs, and I am having so much fun! I am designing my ear wires for my earrings and they are so unique and different, I am having a lot of fun with them! My nightlights have evolved over the years and now I say they are nightlights with attitude!
I have a heart for the unborn and so 10% of all my sales go to my local area Right to Life. And 50% of the profits of my cards, which are printed from my original drawings goes to them as well. I have done speaking at Christian woman conferences, Right to Life Events, Churches and StoneCroft Ministries on the Sanctity of Life. I bring my glass and after I speak then we have our glass for sale! I love sharing about what God has done in my life.
Link to Shop: Etsy
Link to Blog: MOHLOM
INFORMATION ABOUT ETSY
From Janice:
Having a shop is free and there is no monthly membership. Listing an item is $0.20. When an item sells, Etsy collects 3.5% of the selling price.
From Tracey: I am new to the Etsy platform as a seller but not as a consumer. I have found Etsy to be a reliable source for unique crafts. The sellers I have worked with have always been helpful and have gone the extra mile to make the experience a pleasant one. As a marketplace, their rates are competitive for posting products and the sales commission is fair. There is a wide abundance of tutorials and help available to assist with store success. Their website infrastructure is also easy to use for the most part. I look forward to a successful relationship.
INFORMATION ABOUT SHOPIFY
The first thing I want to mention is Shopify’s business encyclopedia. Here’s what they say on their website, and I think this will be useful for anyone new to online shops, but who wants to understand the correct terms:
Use the topic list below to navigate Shopify’s business encyclopedia. From retail and enterprise to branding and entrepreneurship, you’ll find everything you need to know about building a successful business. If you can’t find the topic you’re looking for, use the search bar above for a list of relevant articles.
For the rest of the information concerning Shopify, I want to give a huge thank you to Angela Reinbacher for volunteering this information about Shopify, which she uses for her company and not for a personal shop.
- Pricing: See packages here
- Typical credit card transaction fee, plus $0.30 for each sale
- Get billed every month
- Additional billing is if you choose to print your shipping labels right from Shopify, then that bill of what shipping costs will be sent
- Nice feature is that you get paid 7 days a week, rather than only weekly payouts like other platforms. In the dashboard of Shopify, it shows what you get paid today, tomorrow, and upcoming payout balance. When you get paid, you always get an email updating the payout as well with details of how many orders this payout includes, and if there were refunds or adjustments within this.
- A wonderful feature is discount codes. Having discount codes really springs more sales for your business because people feel they are getting a deal. With discount codes you can get very specific with how they are designed: choose the name, choose the length of time the code is available, choose the number of people who can use the code, what product you want discounted (or any product), and even have specific codes for specific customers.
- Customers can choose to create an account when they check out in Shopify. This is a nice feature because then the customers can select “allow marketing” or “not allow marketing.” Then you can go through and see what customers allow marketing and send emails to the customer with updated info about new products and sales.
Currently I work for Vaped3D and we use Shopify as a platform. We chose the Basic-Version at first, but then made the switch to the Pro-Version. The upgrade to the Pro-Version has been great for a couple of reasons. Having this version allows a better rate for shipping label discounts. This is very important to our business because we are online-only so we ship every product we sell. Even having the feature of being able to print shipping labels from home through Shopify is a convenient feature because it is more professional than writing the labels out by hand and then going to the Post and having the Post create a tracking number.
When using the Pro-Version, it is also an advantage to have the ‘abandon cart recovery.’ Some customers don’t end up buying the product, but put it in their online cart because they thought about buying it. When this happens, the customer gets an email saying “Still shopping? You have items in your cart,” along with what products were in their cart and how much they cost. Having this feature has allowed us to secure sales because a number of customers see this email, and then reply to the email with their questions that originally prevented them from completing the order. Therefore, by the customers feeling that the company is ready to assist them in their shopping experience, they are more likely to ask their questions and then complete their order.
Conclusion
And that’s it. If there was more about Shopify than Etsy in the comparison of the two, it’s not by design, but rather based on the information I received. I hope you will have enough to decide for yourself, based on what people said, which platform is best for you.
Happy creating, artist friends! 🙂
