We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sandi & Terrence Horan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sandi & Terrence, appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

It started with a Halloween card…and our joint obsession with all things spooky. For years, we’ve wanted to combine our artistic forces and work on something of our own. About ten years ago, Terrence created a Halloween card which soon became an annual tradition with our friends and family. That kind of seeded the idea of doing spooky stationery but we didn’t officially start working on Spooky Cat Press until 2019. We started with all the fun stuff – the same kind of creative work we’ve been doing professionally for 15 years. Only this time, we were in full control without any artistic limitation. We first worked out the design direction, art & illustrative styles, themes, and branding direction. Learning to collaborate with each other was not without its challenges either since we have different methods, art styles, and processes. It took a few months and lots of concepting to land our initial capsule. The next step was applying for trademarks and copyrights, which was not as arduous of a process as people make it out to be. Our friends were already a year into launching their own e-commerce business and they gave us inside advice on what platforms to use for website hosting (Shopify), email marketing (Klaviyo), and where to find coding help (Fiverr). We figured out immediately that the visual content would make or break the website. When you start a Shopify website, it is a blank canvas with the bones of functionality built in. Visually, you are starting at zero. We already owned a DSLR camera and just dug in on learning how to use it. There isn’t much you can’t find a tutorial for these days. We’re grateful to all the amazing creators putting that content on the web for everyone to learn from!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Terrence and I (Sandi) are the creators and owners of Spooky Cat Press – an artist-owned Gothic and Horror e-shop. We have many different products, but primarily greeting cards, stationery, and wrapping paper for gifting. There’s a subculture of people who live the spooky life all year, much like ourselves. What has brought us great joy is the opportunity to work on art and designs we are truly passionate about.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

We are super conscious of details that show our appreciation to customers in a genuine way. We say it all the time and mean it because our customers are everything! Without their repeated support, there would be no business, no spooky cards and gift wrap to design anymore. We only sell products that we would buy ourselves and are sticklers about quality. We also really sweat the details in packaging because we never want someone to feel disappointed when they receive their order. It’s not always perfect, and we do our best to make it right, without hesitation, even if it means bigger losses. In the long run, having a person buy from you multiple times, is the highest compliment. Our return customer rate is almost 70%, that’s really high for e-commerce. It also adds an important layer of community – something we all find fulfilling.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

We use Shopify and it’s amazing. We had originally tried to startup on Etsy unsuccessfully as it felt impossible to be found unless you were already established. With a Shopify site, we were able to drive traffic to our website by running ads on Facebook & Instagram. You’re also investing in long-term SEO-based organic traffic that comes from web searches. I don’t believe growth is a possibility without the ability to control the overall shopping experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.spookycatpress.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spookycatpress/
• Facebook: //facebook.com/spookycatpress
• Twitter: //twitter.com/spookycatpress
• Other: //pinterest.com/Spookycatpress/_shop

Image Credits
©Spooky Cat Press