We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jeanette Thompson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jeanette below.

Hi Jeanette, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Somewhere, there’s a little girl who is being told her voice is too loud. There’s a young woman who is being talked over, being shown that her voice doesn’t matter. To make herself smaller. To speak softer. To be a ‘lady’. ‘Boys don’t like opinionated girls’. I want them to know it’s okay to be themselves, to demand to be heard, to not let anyone talk over them.

There are too many people who feel as if the mere existence of someone who is not cis gendered and heterosexual is a political act, rather than simply who they are. Life IS political, these days, but the mere existence of these people is not. They don’t want special rights, they want equal rights.

I realized someone has to raise their voice. Someone has to make a statement. Why not me? While my designs are not exclusively focused on LGBTQ or feminist causes, they make up a big part of what I do. I want to foster an inclusive environment with fun and quirky designs.

This is why I do what I do.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’ve had a lifelong love for design and color, so much color. It took many years and many false starts before I started my own business but I want people to know it’s never too late.

My shop features t-shirts, leggings, hoodies, sweatshirts, coffee mugs and more. I’m proud of the designs I’ve created and the niche I’m focusing on. While I do have designs that will appeal to a broad range of people, my focus is on feminist and LGBTQ issues. I also strive to make my business as eco friendly as possible. It’s a lot harder to do that, than it is to create the designs. To that end, the printing partner I use has a focus on eco friendliness and a plan moving forward for reducing their eco footprint even more. That, along with the quality of their products, was the reason I chose them.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

I use a print on demand partner for my products. When I first started designing t-shirts and coffee mugs, I initially took my designs to sites like Red Bubble and Zazzle. Competition on those sites is fierce and it’s hard to stand out. I figured if I had to market myself anyway, why not take full control of everything and start my own e-commerce store?

I did a lot of research, comparing products, prices and quality. I read countless reviews of the various ‘big name’ print on demand companies and finally settled on one I was confident in. Their prices are slightly higher but the quality and their company values are excellent.

I didn’t want to just settle. I spent quite a bit of money ordering samples to test quality. Samples are important, you want to see what your customers will see when they receive a product. But you have to learn how to budget for that, it can be quite expensive even getting the items at the base cost.

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

I have my own e-commerce site on Ecwid by Lightspeed. I like the ease of building my store, and the various integrations they offer. There are a few features missing that larger platforms like Shopify have, which is the main drawback, but overall I’ve been very happy with their service and at a price I can afford. I was able to seamlessly connect their quick site with my main URL. Through them I have been able to offer my products on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, so people can shop directly from those sites.

The main advantage of using a platform like Ecwid or Shopify is having nearly complete control over your site and your shop.

For me, the main disadvantage is there is no built in audience and no organic traffic like there would be on sites like Amazon and Etsy. With sites like those you still need to market yourself but people can still find you via searches. Not having the advantage of organic traffic can be a struggle and I’m having to learn how to effectively market myself without having the benefit of a team to do it for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://moxiegraphix.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moxie_graphix_art/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Moxiegraphix