We were lucky to catch up with Jasmin Pettie recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jasmin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear how you think where to draw the line in terms of asking friends and family to support your business – what’s okay and what’s over the line?
I think it’s very important to ask friends and family for help and to support your business and creatives endeavours especially when you’re first starting out. It can be nerve wracking for sure, but it’s really important when you’re first trying to get establish in an industry to have that support. It doesn’t have to be anything major. It can be as simple as asking your friends and family to follow the social media accounts for your new business. I would say asking people to follow you, engage with your content, provide feedback, and spread the word is appropriate. But asking people to buy your products or pressuring them or guilting them into helping you is not. You should be up front about what you’re doing and not try to trick people. You’ll lose friends that way and it won’t help your business in the long run. I’ve had a lot of really great online support from my close friends that has really helped my business grow and in turn I’ve done the same for them when they’ve started new things.
Jasmin, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
For sure! I’m a small business owner and through my Etsy shop Bytown Bijou I sell reclaimed vintage and handmade jewellery, clothing, and accessories pieces to a global clientele. I take great care when choosing vintage pieces to refurbish and resell to my customers. I scour flea markets, garage sales, and even my own wardrobe looking for pieces I can reclaim, refurbish, upcycle, and rework to create something new and beautiful. I do the same when I’m looking for items and materials to create new jewellery pieces with. Bytown Bijou is known for its vintage pieces from the sixties and seventies and its quirky accessories. I think what sets my business apart is the exception and personalized customer service I always strive to provide. I’m most proud of how far my business has come from where it started in 2010’s. I want people to know how much hard work goes into making something great as a small business owner. A lot of people are so used to buying from large scale businesses that they miss how much work small and medium sized sellers put into making something great. My business got started when I moved to Ottawa in 2015 to pursue a Master’s Degree and I started Bytown Bijou halfway through my degree almost by accident. I was doing some spring cleaning and came across some items that I didn’t wear anymore. I thought about donating them but realized they would most likely wind up sitting in a display case unloved and unused. So, I decided to repurpose them and create something new and just like that Bytown Bijou was born! I now ship my products all over the world!
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I would say a lesson I learned and then unlearned is that there’s a lot of bad advice out there that can lead to financial ruin. A lot of people, including so called experts, will tell you that you need to go out and buy fancy packaging and stockpile it to meet the future demand of your business. I did that a lot when I was first starting out and all I ended up with was a bunch of packaging I couldn’t use that I would up having to give away. My advice to those who are just starting out is buy or make enough packaging for say 10 orders and make it simple. You’ll figure out your brand colours and what you want your packaging to look like as you go along and get more comfortable. You need to give yourself space to do that and not over buy things you don’t need.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
I think for me it’s really about service. A lot of people who buy from me aren’t regular Etsy shoppers. They are guest users who have never used the platform before and don’t really understand it. So what’s really helped me is keeping that in mind and providing exceptional customer service. I make sure to ship orders out promptly and include information in the customer message about when they can expect the package so they don’t worry and they know what to expect. I also make a note each time I ship out an order to follow up in however many business days to make sure the package arrived on time. If the customer is happy I ask them if they wouldn’t mind leaving a review to help my business. At first I didn’t do that with customers who didn’t have Etsy accounts because I didn’t think they would. But then someone did and I realized that I was missing out on an opportunity so I started asking and its resulted in some fantastic reviews that have really helped my business! I also do what I can to post on social media regularly and last year I participated in my first Etsy virtual market!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.bytownbijou.etsy.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bytownbijou/
- Other: https://linktr.ee/jasminpettie
Image Credits
Jasmin Pettie