We were lucky to catch up with Cecelia Ross recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Cecelia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you share a customer success story with us?

One of the products I make is a line of essential oil based pain oils that help with nerve, arthritis and muscle pain. I have a friend and biz bestie who is a faithful user of the Muscle Pain Oil , well she began purchasing it for her friends and family members. For almost a month straight, I was mailing pain oils all over the United States.
About 2-3 months later I get an order in my Etsy store and as I’m printing the label I realize the address looks familiar but when I looked in my previous sales list I couldn’t find it. Then I remembered that was an address from my friend, it was her cousin. She had ordered all 3 of the oils!
Fast forward a few months, I did an Instagram Live interview with her to let her share her experience with the pain oil and in that interview, she stated how the oil not only gives her pain relief but also helps her mom.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a Social Worker by profession and the Owner/Curator of Ms. Cece’s Creations, LLC, a business that makes natural handmade products for people looking to use less harmful chemicals in their homes. I have been making products for my home for more than 10 years. This started because of the reaction I was having to certain products like deodorant, soaps and lotions. I would take a shower and before I could finish applying the lotion I had to stop and scratch my skin for what felt like an eternity. Enough was enough and that prompted me to begin researching what I was really using on my skin. First, I just started changing brands thinking it was going to change but I might get a good weeks worth of use before the itching would start again and sometimes even have to take another shower, it was frustrating but I was determined.
I started putting all of my energy into finding a solution, I began reading the ingredients in all my products and started researching those ingredients and I found many “skin irritant” ingredients in most of my products. That started my journey for more natural products.
At that time, there were not as many options for natural product options like there are now and they were expensive so I learned how to make my own.
By nature I am a helper and cheerleader. Once I got educated on many of these ingredients, I told everybody I knew, I had to help save everyone’s skin! By this time, I was making my own air fresheners, body butter, toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant and cleaning products.
Ms. Cece’s Creations, LLC was birthed because one year I gave my handmade body butter as Christmas gifts to friends and family, the next year people were expecting it and the following year I started getting orders to make gift baskets, so I did. It wasn’t until I was buying more supplies than I needed for personal use that I realized this is turning into a business. In addition to the body butter, I began making sea salt scrub, pain oils and air fresheners available for purchase.
I love that my world of helping people through Social Work has collided with my love for making products to help people use less harmful products.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I now sell on my site and Etsy. I started selling in person and never thought about doing any business online, EVER! Someone suggested I check out Etsy, I did but didn’t put much effort into it. I think I had an account created almost a year before adding any products but then the pandemic happened and I found myself online, on Etsy. I had no idea what I was doing, I spent many late nights trying to “figure it out.”
I have been selling on Etsy longer than on my site and my preference is selling on my site but since I have more experience with Etsy, I will give my pros and cons.

Pros of Etsy:
– they have their own audience who are potentially looking for your products
– the platform is easy to navigate
– there is a community of sellers if you have questions

Cons of Etsy:
– the site fee’s
– the advertising structure and cost (it’s optional)
– some rules you might not know exist until you break them

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

I was at work when a lady came in saying she had just purchased a local pharmacy and would like to schedule a presentation about how her services could help my clients. During the presentation she mentioned how she has a delivery pharmacy as well as a store and was allowing local businesses to have their products on the shelf. I then told her about Ms. Cece’s Creations and she allowed me to set up a nice display in the pharmacy. I was so excited. It happened that easy, she gave me a chance and that chance is what prompted me to invest in labels and display presentation supplies.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mscecescreations.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mscecescreations
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/@mscecescreationsllc
• Other: https://www.mscecescreations.etsy.com www.pinterest.com/mscecescreations