We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kim Travis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kim, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.

I believe one of the key factors missing in many large businesses today is customer service. Mistakes happen, but most people are understanding if you take the time to explain what happened (no excuses) and make it right for them. I think that is what I love about selling on Etsy. There are a lot of Etsy shop sellers that have great customer service skills. One issue I had recently is that a customer ordered an item and I shipped the wrong one. it was a close match but not what she ordered. I caught it the next day after I had shipped the item. I immediately emailed her and processed the original order and shipped it out quickly. I also told her to keep the item that I gave her by mistake. She was so grateful that I told her about it and that I had the replacement quickly. You may lose money when you make a mistake, but many times you get more business from the customer because they see you handle customer service issues well.

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 am a former HR/Operations Manager. I have a degree in Business with a concentration in HR. As I became older, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I wanted to own my own business but not sure where to go. I started freelancing as a content writer for business articles and some HR jobs. I still write content but found I love to craft and design the most. Earlier this year, I opened up my own Etsy shop and I absolutely love it. I create digital items, gifts, stickers, and some crafts. My digital items are planners and other printables that help people with goal setting, daily planning, and other type of needs like cleaning or workout planners. I have started learning to make digital planners for apps like Goodnotes. I also plan to make digital invitations next year. My physical items are newer and most of the time I design the product and use a print shop to make my creations come to life. However, I do create some items myself.

I am probably the most proud of my ability to continuously learn. I didn’t know much about design before and my earlier creations reflect that. Sometimes I will make something, post it, and instantly delete it because it doesn’t look as good as I like. I do believe that you can’t be too old to learn new things. I constantly take classes to improve my skills. They are all online and given by many Etsy sellers that have been around for years. My business experience has helped me with my new business venture as well.

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

Right now I only sell on Etsy and I have started selling planners and journals on Amazon through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). This is my latest venture. If I continue to grow like I have, I will also start a website but I am in no hurry. However, it is one of my goals for next year.

Etsy has been great to get started on but there is a big learning curve if you want to get noticed without relying on your friends and family to buy your products. You have to take classes and understand Etsy’s SEO because there are many sellers out there. Also, I spend hours researching low-competition but high-sales products. For example, you can’t just list any sweatshirt. You have to learn what sweatshirts are trending and how much competition there is for a product like yours. Furthermore, you have to be careful about trademarked items. You may not even know something is trademarked so it is important to research well before you even start designing. Etsy is also a visual store so you want to make sure your listings stand out. I have changed mine many times if I see it isn’t performing well. The only issue I have had with Etsy is that they have bots that scan stores and shut them down without warning. It happened to me one time and they said it was a mistake. It was shut down for over a week so they could investigate and that hurt my sales and I hear it happens to other sellers too. However, Etsy drives traffic to their site and has really great advertising. It is also very easy to use.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

I have gotten many clients from social media (Instagram and Facebook). I am starting to do more on Pinterest which is a great avenue since they have their own search engine. However, I get referrals and custom orders too which has been wonderful. I have had a couple of small businesses reach out for company shirts, logo stickers, QR code stickers, and tumblers for their employees as well. I think by offering great customer service, my referrals will continue to grow. I love talking to my repeat customers and have formed some really great relationships with them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kaylilysdesigns.etsy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kaylilysdesigns
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/kaylilysdesigns