have you ever wanted to start your own
top ranking etsy store but you only got
500 to spend well you're in luck because
i make 60 000 a month on etsy selling
dog collars and in this video i'm going
to show you a step by step on how to
start a successful etsy shop with just
five hundred dollars
first calendar year year we did three
quarters of a million how did you scale
from a bedroom all the way to this
business currently we are the number one
pet product in terms of daily sales i
don't like to print big rolls i try to
stay as lean as possible how much does
it cost to manufacture it i don't have
to have the inventory so i print if it
sells this is a boss laser it engraves
all of our buckles all of our tags and
that's the trick about why i decided to
print my own fabric because that reduces
how much money you spend on
advertisement this is a basically a two
needle sewing machine so it sews the
strap with uh two needles at once so
you're telling me that you started off
from a hundred dollar sewing machine at
walmart exactly and i don't even have a
dog so that feels that like anybody can
start and if you can reduce your price
you can improve your conversion rate
thus increasing your sales come here boy
vlad is going to share with us his
business strategies his marketing tools
so that you can start your own etsy
store
big thanks to simplisafe for sponsoring
this video
vlad tell me more about yourself how'd
you start how did you get to this point
oh man i was actually i did physical
therapy as my nine to five and i was
kind of a sole provider but that wasn't
enough money to to really sustain a you
know family at this time because i was
married i had a kid a one-year-old kid
and on the side i started doing graphic
design and a company reached out good
friends of mine that actually ran a
really successful etsy shop and they
said hey why don't you design our
product and with my design skill i kind
of i went into that you know into that
world of etsy because i didn't know etsy
existed until they showed me and those
guys are brilliant and so they showed
they told you they pretty much taught me
everything i know about etsy and
understanding what knowledge i have with
graphic design and how to apply that
within to the market i realized like hey
why not start an etsy shop myself and
sure enough when i did start an etsy
shop everything else was history so how
many years ago did this start oh this is
probably two and a half to three years
ago but i haven't started my own etsy
shop until about a little over two years
ago
let's talk about the product what are
you doing and what's the top seller for
you uh so we sell dog collars
essentially our main thing is dog
collars and leashes so this is our
biggest seller peach floral it's uh
people go crazy for that so this is
beautiful and then we also do fully
covered leashes too so and people like
the fact that they can match the collar
with the leash so okay um that's awesome
we also do harnesses uh bandanas and
tags so but like i said our biggest
sellers are collars more specifically
that design so this design how much does
it cost to manufacture it yeah so the
buckle in the metal components cost
about three dollars the straps are
pretty much free i mean i buy straps by
large rolls and so
per collar it's almost insignificant now
the fabric and the ink is really the um
where where that starts to get a little
bit more pricey apart from the buckle
and it costs about two dollars for the
fabric and the ink to make this the
strap and that's i'm actually trying to
reduce that cost as much as i can wow
but but i can't do anything about the
price of the buckle and so if i'm
selling a caller for about say
20
it'll cost me about 10 to 11 to make the
caller including labor and shipping
let me uh let me show you around okay
yeah so over here we have our
sublimation printer i just finished
printing the designs i don't like to
print big rolls i try to stay as lean as
possible so we don't have the inventory
and so whatever we're out of my print
and then i come over here and i press
with this uh heat press this is my
beauty i love this machine
fabric it's a roll to roll heat press um
it does it can do a lot of fabric
transferring that ink onto fabric and
then with that fabric we saw the dark
colors this is so cool i'm so excited i
can't wait for you to share how
everything all started yeah no this is
uh i love this my passion so that's
awesome
[Music]
where are you getting your supplies and
where are the best deals yeah so that's
a good question all my packaging and
labels i get from a uline the nice thing
about uline is they do overnight
shipping which i love that because
packaging um
it's not that much per box but the boxes
are large so i can't really buy up uh in
enough inventory to last me for a year
because it'll take up the whole shop so
i want to buy small amounts uh for
things like buckles that i use for every
uh collar or fabric i have to buy it
from china which i i buy enough
inventory to use a forklift for that so
so that's kind of how i sometimes i go
on amazon to buy threads and
things like that wow that's amazing
makes sense well take me through the
process okay so i need to actually order
some um shipping labels uh and envelopes
right now so i would go on uline i would
open up my account and so let's go on
new line on the order history i already
bought a lot of the stuff and then i'm
gonna buy a couple boxes of our larger
envelopes which is
um i believe it's six by ten so okay we
need two boxes of that and i'll add it
to cart and one after i add to cart i
check out and um delivered to this
address and then the process is pretty
much done wow so and i delivered to my
shop i don't need to go anywhere
i've taken care of my inventory
[Music]
what has been the single most important
factor growing your business there's a
lot but i would say production if you
can get your production right you're
going to get your price right you're
going to get scalability right and i
started obsessing over that from very
early on you don't have to have large
equipment to do that you just need to
have a direction saying i'm going to
work on production i'm going to work on
reducing the cost i'm going to reduce
work on reducing the time it takes to
produce this product and if you're going
to take on that full on you're going to
have much see much better results and
it's going to take a lot of work but
that's that i would say it's probably
the most important thing
all right so and i just got a shipment
and so we can go ahead and pick that up
it's outside okay sounds great so when
you first started your etsy shop what
were your greatest challenges and what
did you do to overcome them oh my
greatest challenge was
the fact that when a product goes say
viral or it starts to sell really well
and then joanne runs out of fabric
it runs out of fabric and that's why i
made the decision to print my fabric so
i can put unlimited amount i remember
there was a time where it ran i ran out
of some of my one of my hottest product
and so
i literally had to go to every joanne's
throughout washington to buy that fabric
i would go from seattle to coma and so
on and so on every single uh uh joanne's
that have that fabric i'll just buy it
out
and i'd go online on joanne online and
i'd buy out anything that's available
there and so my greatest challenge was
scalability after i wanted to transition
away from joann's
okay
you said you started with 500 how can
somebody be watching today like i want
to start this with 500 yeah for example
if you want to start off with 500 bucks
you get yourself a cricket cutter
they're 200 bucks you pick up some
heated uh the vinyl from joann's they
have them you can apply that to
champagne glasses and start selling
personalized champagne glasses for
bridesmaids or like i said you can get a
heat apply for fabric that's a it's a
it's a type of vinyl and that you also
cut and you can apply that with an iron
i mean it's as simple as using your iron
um and so you can do 500 bucks you can
do a thousand bucks by getting say a
sublimation printer and getting yourself
for sublimation printers go for about
500 bucks you can get yourself a heat
press which is about 200 bucks and start
um sublimating designs on t-shirts and
um also aprons pillows and things like
that so you can go as low as 1 500 to 1
000 bucks i mean you could spend ten
thousand dollars on an embroidery
machine and start embroidering uh you
know so much more product as well or you
can get a forged uh glow forge which is
a laser cutter machine and you can start
engraving wood products and cutting out
woods summer's coming up so uh crafts
are a big thing for camps and families
that are doing little animal crafts and
so you can be cutting those out with a
laser cut out machine so so you can go
anywhere from you know five hundred a
thousand to five thousand dollars for
like a laser cutter you guys be sure to
check out our podcast where we interview
successful business owners just like
vlad
and it's simple as go to www.upflip.com
forward slash podcast
[Music]
yeah and over here we have our laser
machine this is a boss laser it engraves
all of our buckles all of our tags we
personalize all our products so when
people buy it on etsy it's personalized
to each customer so we made to order we
don't do anything by bulk so when our
order comes in we engrave their buckle
we then strap after so it starts from
here and then it starts to move its way
throughout the shop and then let me show
you my strap strap machines up there uh
we sew all of our straps upstairs and we
don't want too much of uh straps that
are not being sold and only have what is
being sold uh in our inventory so okay
yeah so this is my my fancy budget
friendly office this is where i
do my business but anyways so
we have our sewing machines over here
and uh these are our strap machines that
they basically are two needle sewing
machines so it sews the strap with uh
two needles at once so it's very makes
the process very very fast so it used to
take us to uh about
two to five minutes to make a strap for
the dog collar now we make a big roll
within like minutes so it's it's like it
definitely increased our process and
then here's our shelf of all of our
designs that we have this is where we
basically cut and get it ready to be
sold for the final process awesome this
is incredible
[Music]
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so what are the most productive uh
marketing strategies that you use for
renzi yeah that's a good question uh i
think the the most important thing is uh
and i say this all the time is satisfy
the keywords right essentially a
customer is coming to etsy they're
trying to buy something specific right
let's say they're buying a t-shirt and
they're saying i want a t-shirt that
says um you know graduation is coming up
and they're saying graduation mom 2022
right very specific and she types in
like maybe at the end saying floral
design so if you design a t-shirt that
literally says that graduation mom 2022
with floral designs on it then she's
like perfect that's exactly what i
wanted so really satisfying the keywords
as close as possible is going to be your
best bet because that means you're going
to rank better on those keywords because
you've satisfied that keyword better
than anybody else so the best marketing
strategy is to find a way where you can
be in charge of the design of your
product okay which means manufacturing
or production is essential that's why i
decided to make my own doc collars
instead of buying them from china
because i can research the keyword
where's their big traffic and then come
as close as possible to that keyword as
i can and how much do you typically
spend a month on advertisements and what
is your roi it's about 10 to 15 of my
overall sales i spend on advertisements
sometimes more sometimes actually less
and so it's about seven to nine thousand
per month is how much i spend on
advertising now if you're you're
obviously you can be fraction of that
it's all about percentage also if you
have better photos that improves your
conversion oh that's good thank you so
much for sharing that
[Music]
how do you build brand awareness when
you first started your tag pub company
and if you could just share some
strategies when you first started how to
get those first customers in yeah so in
terms of brand awareness in the
beginning you really want to focus on
algorithm you want to grow an algorithm
nobody really knows who you are and
that's totally fine right so because
they're going to start recognizing you
as they are typing into a search engine
and then they're finding a product not a
shop a product that they like and they
buy the product and then after they
bought the product they got a chance to
interact with the product the two things
will happen right well three things if
they don't like it then
it's not gonna be good for you yeah but
if they do like it two things will
happen one is they'll come back and buy
another product from you so a return
customer is a cheap customer which means
you don't pay money for them they they
buy more product than you didn't spend
on advertisement and the second thing
that will happen is they'll tell their
friends about it so if they have other
dogs and they're like oh where'd you get
that adorable dog collar
oh it's a store on etsy called tag pop
you should check them out right so
they've referenced to your product now
if you're selling a generic product that
doesn't have any emotional response they
might just say well i bought an etsy but
you want to really elevate that
emotional response to making an amazing
product the one it looks good two it's
good quality if you can have that spark
that emotions when they got that product
that's when you can have that brand
recognition and that return customer
coming back
[Music]
vlad do you use etsy ad campaigns and if
you do what are some tips that you can
share with us in terms of budgeting yeah
i think etsy ads are are largely
undervalued by sellers on etsy but if
you do your product research correctly
if you figure out a product that
actually works on the market when you
run etsy ads that will be the reason why
your store is going to skyrocket and i
teach this all the time on my youtube
channel about how to run etsy ads and if
you can get the fc ads down
it's going to separate you from the rest
of the shops and that's how you can
become a top one percent store is if you
keep pushing your uh your items to the
top as much as you can because what etsy
ads do is they split your listing or
they duplicate your listing so now you
have let's say you had 10 products well
if you advertise all of them now you
have 20. okay and do you advertise on a
weekly basis and a monthly i i i let
them run all the time i put the max as
like as much as i can what is the max uh
well
they actually only let you do 1 000 okay
dollars a day to spend and they never
spend that because they only spend
whatever people are willing to click oh
okay um during christmas time there's a
larger uh
volume of uh visitors yeah and so
uh there's there's that you spend more
but when you during the weekdays because
the there's not enough uh traffic fc
tries to be a lot more fair to other
shops so it doesn't just let your be
spend all the time but i would recommend
if you did your product research
correctly to run ads as much as you can
awesome
so what are some of the must-have
equipment that you use that you would
recommend for people starting off as
they're watching this video yeah well so
the thing about etsy is that you don't
need to have crazy equipment like i
started off from a plastic sewing
machine i actually went to walmart and i
picked up their last sewing machine and
this was like right before coven hit so
everybody bought out a bunch of um a
bunch of sewing machine i got the last
one for 100 bucks and i pretty much had
to learn how to sew all from scratch
from youtube you know and so
you don't need that much for uh for
equipment and then went to joann's to
got some fabric learn how to sew dog
bandanas and then everything else after
that followed oh man that's incredible
so you're telling me that you started
off from a hundred dollar sewing machine
exactly walmart exactly and not knowing
how to sew at all you just went to
youtube and started all this and i don't
even have a dog so that tells you that
like anybody can start oh man you know
and so somebody can go to joanne's and
pick up a a circuit cutter or cricket
cutter and um start you know
applying personalization to like
champagne glasses and the cricket cutter
costs like 200 bucks i mean the the
sky's the limit to where you can start
and any normal person or any basic you
know stat stay-at-home mom stay-at-home
dad can start the nancy business without
much upfront cost
so you said you started from your
bedroom yeah so let's say someone does
not have the space to store all their
supplies how would you recommend suggest
where they go to purchase stuff yeah so
i i still bought the buckles initially
from china already they they allow you
to there's sometimes manufacturers their
minimum requirement is still small and
you pay a lot more per unit but you can
still buy a smaller quantity uh but you
can also go like i said amazon and start
buying uh buckles and components that or
whatever you need for your stuff as far
as far as fabric i did it from joann's
that's where i got from the fabric i
would literally go to joann's down the
aisle and start looking for whatever
looks good to use for my dog bandanas
and collars and things like that that's
awesome can you give us some samples can
we go there today yeah let's do it all
right let's go let me show you around
all right guys let's go inside and i'll
show you exactly what you what i did
when i would need to buy fabric and i'll
show you some ideas that you can do uh
if you do want to start an etsy shop and
you only have 500 bucks some of the
stuff you can get from joann's uh you'd
be surprised so let's come on in come on
inside all right so when i come in here
what i would look for is let's say i
want to do like a dog
themed dog collar or a bandana i would
uh kind of see the keywords okay i could
see dog collars pet paws or something
like that
buffalo plaid and paw you know so i kind
of would find something that i think
looks good and it would do well on the
market and usually the things when if
you are doing fabric or you are selling
a fabric based product you want to make
sure that the the keyword that you're
targeting that the design is very
visibly and uh vibrantly displayed on
what you're gonna do so let's say if
we're gonna do bumblebee you do want
make sure you see a bumblebee not like
you know you sew it and you can see a
half of a bumblebee and the little guy
is on the main page but make sure that
when you take a photo that you know that
bigger bumblebee is showing or you say
uh cat unicorn you know and these are
the things i would look for uh before
coming joins and see if i can match a
fabric to that and what i would do also
when i would buy something from joanns i
would look at their website because if
you run if they run out of inventory
here and sometimes they might not have
enough you want to check on their
website and see if they have some more
inventory on their website so that way
when you when you run out you go ahead
and replenish that inventory and you
have a way to do that
on the etsy shop i mean how does your
business the tag pub stand out from the
other shops out there so so yeah that's
actually a good question and that's the
the trick about why i decided to print
my own fabric because when other shops
they either buy large bulk of
a dog collar but they have a fewer
different selections of dog collars
because they buy it from china and then
they personalize it which means they
don't have a large selection because
they they have to buy it by large bulks
or there's shops that buy their fabric
from joanne's and they have a large
selection but they'll sell out of a
particular design because joanne's will
no longer carry that fabric
whereas for me i can have a large
selection and endless amount of supply
so that allows for people to keep coming
back to our shop knowing we will have
always new designs so if christmas comes
around we're selling santa dog collars
we're selling you know reef dog collars
st patrick's day you name it so we're
we're able to be so much more flexible
than any other shop which gives us the
edge in the ranking because we can
satisfy the keywords that are hot at
that time oh awesome so roughly how many
products do you have i mean well we have
uh we have close to uh 100 different
designs of dog collars wow that is
incredible and the nice thing is i don't
have to have the inventory so i print if
it sells wow
all right so what are great key
components for listing your product on
etsy i mean your photos and your
listings your wordings because on etsy
in large you're selling a want based
product you're not selling screwdrivers
you're not selling you know nail guns
you're selling something that they don't
have to have it's something they want to
have and so when you're selling
something they want to have emotional
connection has to be the the priority
right so photos are the number one
things that do that so when you're
buying a spoon you don't just buy a
regular spoon you buy a rose gold spoon
because you have spoons but you want it
to add a little something to it so
photos are essential it is the number
one thing that we as uh want based
product sellers need to focus on is
create the atmosphere right like a
tablecloth you don't just put a cloth on
a table and take a photo but you got to
make them feel like this uh cloth is the
finest linens of germany with like you
know you want to tell a story and so
that that sparks an emotion like i want
to be there and so you want to drag him
in with photos so i think photos are
largely undervalued and the second thing
that is most important is the tags and
titles those i kind of use those in
parallel because when you're selling a
particular product like for example if
we're selling the pink hearts right the
pink hearts we're selling that collar i
need to make sure that when people type
in pink hearts that my listing pops up
how does it pop up well does the word
pink hearts dog collar found in my
listing right so when i am doing keyword
research those are the words i want to
look for and if i find that there's a
lot of traffic going to the pink hearts
dog collar well that's exactly what i'm
going to design and create the listing
for and i'm going to include that
keyword in the tags and the title so
that that way i rank on the proper or
appropriate keywords with an appropriate
product you essentially want to satisfy
the keywords that people are searching
into the search engine
so what is your greatest expense
uh well that that would actually be
leasing the equipment even though we own
half of our equipment because i saved up
and bought it but we leased the other
half and so it's a two year lease which
means in two years we've owned our
equipment but we started at least a two
year lease period about a year ago a
year and a half ago so we're coming up
to paying it all off completely so it's
going to be really nice and we don't
have to pay that but our second largest
one is the buckles because we buy them
from china and the biggest expense of
that is actually shipping yeah so
because they're so heavy and so that
would that would be our biggest expense
so once your lease is paid for are you
guys going to celebrate uh well yeah
we'll do something that'll be fun
[Music]
so what are the key components to an
excellent storefront yeah i would say
visuals are going to be the top priority
so do you present yourself as the one
that knows this niche or are an expert
in this area so if you are selling
leather wallets or leather anything they
looking at your your storefront they say
wow this guy must be spending years
studying sewing leather right so you
have to present yourself visually as the
authority in the space so and and the
second thing is create your store in a
niche mindset for example it says say
you go to target and you want to buy
yourself uh oh you want to buy some gift
wrapping paper yeah well in that gift
wrapping paper there's going to be tape
there's going to be little bow ties
there's going to be gift wrapping so
it's it creates an experience where i'm
going to get everything i need in this
aisle so with a storefront you want to
think the same way you want to think in
terms of aisle or create an aisle
experience so if i'm selling dog collars
well they also can buy a
bandana they can buy a tag or if i'm
selling whatever you want to make sure
that you create to where it's a stop
it's all in one shop now you don't want
to gener you don't want to have a
general store where it's just everything
right you're selling mugs you're selling
t-shirts you're selling uh crochet
needles and so on and so on you want to
make sure that you sell something niched
but creating that aisle experience where
there's more than just one product so i
think that would be a very big one
because that reduces how much money you
spend on advertisement because they can
buy more than one product
[Music]
all right so this is the fan blitz we
get to ask you let's do this number of
questions and you just pound through
them as fast as you can let's do it all
right matt w is asking how do you do
product research how do you find good
niches in areas that seem to be
competitive yeah so i use e-rank was one
of them the other one is etsy you want
to find other sellers that are doing
really well with that product you got to
figure out why and pretty much replicate
it bam awesome yellow boat is asking
what were some of the challenges you had
in the very beginning of your daily
operation of your business and how and
who helped you work through them i think
the first one is learning the machine
and my mom my grandma and my aunt jason
is asking how did you get notice on etsy
when starting out and did most of your
business come from etsy ads or organic
researches so most of my sales begin
with etsy ads because you've pretty much
not noticed that etsy ads help you push
to the top and over time my organics
start to grow and now i'm getting more
sales for more organic than from my
advertisement excellent
forte is asking is it worth paying on
the etsy's fees are you getting most of
your customers because of etsy oh yeah i
think etsy is a great marketplace etsy
spends a lot of money finding people
that want to buy want-based products and
those are some of the most expensive
traffic to get and so that's why etsy
does track uh charge for the fee because
it takes it takes a lot to find somebody
that get that has the money to spend on
a one-based product especially during
this economy so they're a good help for
you yeah what was your favorite business
book
i think the number one book and i always
say this is e-myth e-myth is like an
amazing book it's a a guy that
understands the complicated business
concepts and is explaining it to a pie
maker a lady who likes to make pies how
to run a business and so i think i would
recommend that hands down to anybody
that's awesome how many times did you
read that book i listened to it okay
a few times yeah guys by the way we are
giving away that book so a lucky winner
will get that book all you gotta do is
just comment below
what so what kind of software do you use
to track your sales or is that something
built in through your etsy store yeah
it's actually is built through your etsy
store you can use uh you know
third-party applications but etsy has a
really great dashboard where it shows
your conversion rate how are you
increasing in sales are you improving
your conversion rate and i really i love
using that because when i especially
when i launch a product i want to keep
an eye is it growing organically the
more money i'm spending on advertisement
or am i just going to keep spending a
lot of advertisement and it's just not
growing organically i want to know that
ahead of time in order to understand
should i keep investing into
advertisement or not so etsy has a great
great platform to to
see what your what your products are
doing on the market essentially okay so
you're saying growing organically is
there a way something can grow not
organically yeah so if the profit
margins are great with advertisement i
continue to invest i continue to spend
money on advertisement which means that
the advertisement listing will continue
to grow in uh on the algorithm as well
as the organic one so sometimes the
organic one is above the paid
advertisement sometimes it's the other
way around depending on your profit
margins if you're happy with them you
keep advertisement if you're not you
know you might want to pause the
advertisement
what is the greatest struggle that
you're going through right now and how
that affects your business and what are
you doing about it yeah that's a good
question so right now i'm dealing with
cash flow that's a big one and i'm not
good at organizing and math problems and
you know budgeting and all that stuff so
cash flow has been something i've been
really learning as much as i can buying
the inventory on time so that we don't
run out of things and but having the
money to do that is really um that's the
struggle so you might have a lot of
money coming in but if you don't manage
it appropriately you're going to run out
of it and then you're like oh wait i
need money to buy more inventory of this
i forgot that we needed more transfer
paper or more thread we're running out
of thread because you have employees you
have to have everything in stock you
have to when they come into work they
got to know that they got work to do but
if you don't have inventory you know you
can't do that so keeping that consistent
has been really difficult and that has
been impacting us in in the way that i
can't scale as fast as i would like to
in the beginning we start scaling really
fast first calendar year year we did
three quarters of a million and we're
like this is great but after that we
started plateau because now that's
always still growing a little bit but
it's because of that cash flow because
of that inventory that kind of slowed us
down and so i'm trying to get past that
once i get past that we're hoping to see
more growth
[Music]
now tell me about the standard
procedures how you operate your business
what do you do how do you do it how do
you manage all this yeah so i'm a big
believer i really love how mcdonald's
does her there's her whole uh process
they they have stations and they they
simplify each station as much as they
possibly can and taking that model we i
try to apply here so we start off from
engraving the buckles right the buckles
are engraved the guy comes in in the
morning he engraves the buckles that are
going to be part of the orders for that
day and i'm finishing the prints then
we're gonna then then i press
and then the lady in the morning she
finishes up all the straps she sews the
strap using the machines that we have up
there and then we bring the buckles that
were engraved with the straps together
and then we use the cnc machine to put
it together and at the end of the day we
package so it's a very simple simple
process
all right so look at this 164 bucks you
can literally get this and start sewing
right away so it's not that expensive to
get in and singers they make
fairly good
solo mission you can go up up to 249
dollars so it really is not that
expensive to get started on the sewing
machine but i can show you other ideas
that you can do if you want to start for
messy so check this out
if you want to get a cricut cutter you
get this qriket cutter you get some
vinyl and you go and get some champagne
glasses and start personalizing them
it's really you can check it out on etsy
they sell really well and they buy more
than one because they have several
different bridesmaids and you can
literally start
selling on etsy for almost no money in a
way say 500 bucks i really mean 500
bucks you don't have to buy a lot you
can stop by either walmart or go on
amazon and buy the little inventory like
a blank you know apron blank t-shirt
blank you know mugs cups whatever so but
it's about doing the keyword research
see what sells and see how you can apply
this machine to that um so uh to that
product so if you're selling say
bridesmaids cups or mugs or t-shirts or
aprons bridesmaids aprons so really nice
you can also do that with this machine
as well alright so hopefully that was
helpful what you can get from joanns but
let's head down back to the shop
all right so you said you started in
your bedroom and so how did you scale
from a bedroom all the way to this
business so yeah when i started sewing
the dog collars or or bandanas dog band
data i also kept in mind how can i make
this trap faster how can i do it so that
i instead of taking five minutes i can
do one minute or two minutes
now we make straps that takes us for for
each collar the the amount of time it
takes us to sew the strap it takes like
five seconds because the process is so
automated so it's all about how can you
improve the process if you can improve
the process you can reduce your price
and if you can reduce your price you can
improve your conversion rate thus
increasing your sales it's that simple
so um well it's simple but it's not easy
so i'm trying to improve my process and
i use duct tape and i went to home depot
got the aluminum sheets and i bent them
to create attachments to my sewing
machine so i i created attachments to to
make the sewing much faster and smoother
and as i was improving the process i
started to learn about sewing and how
how china does it i was looking all over
the internet to see how does china sew
dog collars and there's not much content
out there for dog collars and so then i
came across a cnc machine it's pretty
much a machine that
sews the box stitch and i'm like perfect
that's going to cut down on my
production and it
it cost about ten thousand dollars to
get one so we saved up and bought it and
that improved my process and i was able
to start hiring people to say okay
you're going to work on the cnc machine
and because it's such an easy process
now it was just literally a one to a
foot click it gave me the ability to now
focus on other things and that allowed
me to start scaling with machinery and
process and thus giving me more profit
margins and reducing my cost for the
product and and beating out my
competition on etsy
what do you do to generate more positive
reviews and what are you doing with the
negative ones yeah um actually yeah so
reviews are are critical on etsy because
if you think about it the seller the
buyer is going on etsy the thing that
they're going to be relying on is the
reviews what other people said about
their product when they purchased it so
it is very important to make sure that
you have good reviews and the way we do
that is communicating well and improving
your process to produce a quality
product okay so communicating well how
often are you on the reviews and getting
back to the you know customers
i used to be a lot more than i am now
you know in fact one of the complaints
recently was that the fabric was um was
uh too thin and we're actually going to
be upgrading our fabric to something a
little bit more firm and a little bit
more
rigid um and so that's going to be how i
respond to that
complaint but with complaints it's
really important to listen to them it's
it's really important to not overthrow
them or like ignore them because critics
tell you how to improve your product and
you need to listen to that because
that's valuable for you and i have a
system for a customer service gal so we
have if it's their fault uh these are
the options that we can do and some of
that means like hey we can actually fix
it for a much cheaper price just send us
the product back just leave the buckle
on there and we'll re-strap if it's say
a wrong size and we'll just charge them
for the shipping and the strapping but
if it's if it's our fault then obviously
we'll just refund or or or remake the
caller depending on what they want if
the issue is just they're just picky
about the the shade of the color then we
would ask them to ship it back to us and
oftentimes customers say you know what
it's not that bad so we kind of have a
system on how we deal with complaints
and how the customer service gal has a
response to that we try to have a system
in that as well awesome
so how many employees do you have and
what are the starting wages how do you
find great employees or how do you train
them so that's a good question i have
about seven employees um one of them is
full-time the other one she used to be
full-time she went down to 30 hours and
the other five
they are part-time so but as far as
paying the employees i actually invest a
lot more into machines and letting the
machines do as much work as possible
that way it's one two buttons you know
that's all they have to press and that
means they don't have to have a skill
level that uh becomes really expensive
and
nowadays so you want to have machine
operators instead of skilled labor you
know does that mean so so i'm trying to
focus more on machine operators than
skilled laborers yeah absolutely so the
machines are doing the hard the tough
work and anybody looking for a part-time
job whether it's summer or winter they
can just come in stations set up all
they do is one two and three kind of
exactly that's awesome
what are the biggest reasons why etsy
shops fail and how can some of those
mistakes be avoided yeah so i think the
first thing is because etsy is a
platform for uh creatives or artisans
they're gonna bring their emotions to
the market so if they really love
crocheting if they really love pottery
and they bring their emotions to the
market they try to sell their craft and
they find that it's not selling
that could be a pretty devastating or
you might have an opinion about etsy
it's a it's a big joke i'm not going to
sell on it but you got to come to the
market understanding hey what how can i
apply myself so i'll look at the market
objectively and not emotionally and then
bring emotions or a passion into your
product so i don't even have a dog i
didn't know how to sew right i had
nothing i have no knowledge of sewing
fabric but i realize that that's what
the market demands and then i started to
apply my knowledge of graphic design uh
to the product after it became uh began
to start picking up traction so it's
it's uh hold off on your passions for
just a little bit
apply yourself to the market on what the
market demands and then start bringing
your passion into it and find ways to
integrate it within your product to
stand above the competition
[Music]
now let's talk about profit margins all
right what are they for you what does it
look like
um so there's a theoretical profit
margins and then there's the practical
one right okay theoretically we are 50
profit margins right but practically we
have leasing equipment where where
there's so many uh things that we're
developing and there's so many things
that we're paying off and credit card
you know and all that stuff we're paying
off so we're really close on budget
right but theoretically if everything is
uh paid for and we've taken care of all
our uh expenses that are that are like
loans and leases then it is 50 and once
we get to that we'll plan to reinvest
and keep growing yeah that's pretty cool
so when you first started in your own
bedroom um profit margins i'm assuming
they were closer to 70 80. until you
started accumulating more actually it
was even less than so it was less
because we're making more profit now
because of the machines that they're
doing a lot more work and faster
so so yeah when you start off your
profit margins are smaller unless you
charge an arm and a leg for your dog
collar which a lot of people do because
they don't have a process they don't
have a system it takes them 30 minutes
to make a dog caller and they will
charge 50 to sixty dollars so yeah and
vice versa it takes you five seconds
yeah well now five things but right now
it takes us about a minute and a half to
two minutes to make a caller from start
to finish you guys if you're enjoying
this video go ahead and just hit that
like button right now and we'll continue
on with the video
[Music]
and what other systems are you currently
using that are helping you grow your
business our fulfillment software that
we use is called ship station it's a
really nice software that allows you to
process orders large quantity of orders
when we would have 10 to 20 uh orders
per day we would use etsy and that
worked fine for us but once we're
starting to get it to the 100 orders 200
orders you know we we then need to use
something a little bit more beefy and
shipstation allows us to fulfill orders
by bulk so we can ship by bulk we can
you know scan bulk and so it gives a
barcode which it lets the the flow
a lot a lot more efficiently
[Music]
are there any underserved niches on etsy
so if somebody wants to start a shop are
there any good categories that you think
would be very successful for them you
could pretty much start selling anything
that has a large traffic so you don't
need necessarily need to focus on some
kind of a niche now there are some
niches that i would love to go into that
i don't have the time for
but i think children or kids like uh kid
aprons
onesies
pacifier clips that's what my wife
started to kind of dabble a little bit
and she's getting way too much orders
and she's trying to do as least amount
of work as possible because we have
kiddos and so she's trying not to but
yeah things like kids and
you can even uh pick up like a cricket
cutter like i was talking about earlier
and
personalize the uh the aprons that moms
like to personalize for their kids to uh
when they're baking when they're cooking
that's going to be selling really well
especially during the summer so there's
so much you can do in the kids space
that i would love to go in full
heartedly but
i just i'm way too busy with pet
products but with kids they grow fast so
which means
if they have more than one kid at the
time they they're always buying from
your store especially if you have
different age groups
sizes for each age group during
christmas time you can do matching pjs
so there's so much you can do and i
haven't even begun talking about the
wedding products so oh man vlad i love
this so much and i thank you for sharing
your thoughts as a business owner of
what someone can be doing right now you
just dropped a huge bomb for these
people so thank you so much for sharing
that problem
[Music]
what about social media i mean are you
using facebook instagram on anything and
if so what are the best platforms and
how do you uh how to utilize that yeah
actually uh so there's there's different
approaches for etsy and i'm actually
taking the approach where i don't use
any social media there's a lot of shops
out there that use pinterest and
instagram and they're really big on that
but i actually don't use any social
media i focus a lot more attention on
the algorithm than the social media
because when people come to etsy they
already have the intention to buy but
they're when they're watching on
instagram they could be sitting on their
toilet
searching through instagram so they
might not be ready to purchase but if i
can put all my attention onto the
algorithm on the marketplace john the
people that are ready to buy i will have
better results and sure enough that's
what resulted in me getting better sales
okay that's interesting but what about
the person sitting on my toilet what if
they're ready to buy if they're ready to
buy the last thing it could be a tip for
you in the future well and we've started
growing our instagram account and i i do
my tick tock and all that stuff but uh
when i did start to grow i focus all of
my attention on the algorithm that makes
sense on seo and things like that
awesome
so tag pup is
top one percent of all etsy shops
so how do you get those rankings and
what can one do to get those rankings
boosted yeah well so so i i don't think
it really benefits your store to be the
top one percent when you go on e-rank
e-rank is a uh
software that's a third-party
application that gives you uh data about
the market and it'll give you that one
percent thing which is kind of it's a
good feeling but it doesn't help you
with the market and so currently we are
the number one pet product in terms of
daily sales so which is a cool thing but
we're not the number one pet product
store because somebody sold a hundred
thousand orders where we've only done
eighty thousand but they've existed for
like five years whereas we only existed
for two years so they only look at like
how much you made overall and so but it
does it does feel great though to be the
top one percentage sure it is
congratulations yeah thank you so when
you think you will be top one or like
the one for for pet products or
everything yes well pet products i think
next year will probably be the number
one in terms of overall sales but so
yeah we'll see
is there anything you wish you knew
before you started your business either
about etsy or just in general of
business ownership what comes to mind is
i wish i hired photographers earlier on
and i think instead of spending time on
taking photos i should have spent time
on production and other things like seo
and so i wish i hired photographers
earlier on okay because they're not that
expensive especially if you're going to
have them do a photo of your product you
can literally mail that to them and they
can use their environment to take a
photo and edit all that because they
have all the tools and the process to do
that that's awesome because i was going
to ask you like do they come here or do
you so you mailed it to them yeah i mean
you can't mail it to them
or you can just uh meet up with them and
then if you can find a local
photographer is it pretty inexpensive
yeah well like recently i had a photo
shoot i spent i paid them 100 bucks 150
with tip and she took a photo of like
six different callers now that's that's
a that's a perfect case scenario but
it's within that range okay
[Music]
all right so what skills did you draw
prior to coming in into tag club i think
the first one is the the knowledge that
the guys that i worked for have you know
bestowed upon me right they they taught
me everything uh they know about etsy
and the manufacturing back end of it so
that really what helped me a lot when i
came into the market and the second one
is graphic design i'm a graphic designer
so i kind of know how to build a brand
and i would also say seo i built
websites before i i did some
advertisement for for companies uh
designing their advertisements so i
understood conversion rates or how to
make it say hey if it's selling better
when it's red or blue and an employ um
designing according to the conversion
rate so according to the data so for
example if i'm selling this uh
watermelon dog collar right and when i'm
selling the dot watermelon dog collar do
i understand how much traffic looks for
that if there's a good amount of traffic
looking for that i want to make sure i
title my products accordingly in order
to start showing up on top of those high
traffic keywords and making sure that
if i'm selling a black watermelon dog
collar well i'm like the closest product
to those keywords right and that's the
nice thing about printing your own
fabric is because you can really satisfy
keywords a lot better than anybody else
because you're literally designing to
that keyword which means you have a
higher success rate to rank on a given
keyword
[Music]
what is your approach for providing
excellent customer service skills on
growing your ecommerce the one thing i
kind of touched a little bit about that
is creating a process for the customer
service gal that does all our customer
service for example if like i said if
there's their fault this is what they do
if it's our fault this is what they do
and there's always like little grace
moments and throughout the whole process
that they're always going to expect the
same
answers no matter if they let's say the
same person got the caller wrong twice
they will get the same response so
there's kind of a process and it allows
the customer service gal not to lose her
mind over her job she knows exactly how
to process that so i think having a
consistency in the customer service is
important but uh customer experience
again you want to create a great product
you want to create a product that just
wow people comment on it so when you
create something that when they're
walking their dog and uh so many people
are commenting about on the dog collar
all of a sudden that creates a little
bit more into it puts a little bit more
into your brand and so that customer
experience there they come back and
they'll email us or they'll build on
instagram saying everybody's commenting
on the caller thank you so much you know
stella loves it you know so that's kind
of i would say have a good process on
customer service but ultimately have a
great product you guys be sure to watch
our previous video with the owner of
black sunflower she's a successful
business owner who is in the kennel
making business you guys thank you so
much for taking your time and watching
this episode i hope you sure enjoyed
this as vlad has took a step by step of
his etsy shop that you can start today
and before you go please hit that like
button have a great day