We recently connected with Samaria McKnight and have shared our conversation below.
Samaria, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
I always loved to draw and at the time I only drew in my sketchbook. But I thought more about how I could bring my characters and drawings to life! I had an iPad and I got recommended to download Procreate to draw. I followed some YouTube tutorials and got to learning the aspects of the app. Then, I started to make digital versions of my drawings. Seeing them in that element and the colors popping off the screen, was such a cool process. Next thing I knew, I bought the sticker materials and a Cricut, then I got to work! I knew a lot of people who liked stickers and who had supported me at the time so this was a business venture I could get behind.
Samaria, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is Samaria McKnight. I work full time but some of my hobbies include owning my small business, drawing, reading, shopping, and making social media content. I am currently 24 and I started my business when I turned 21. It was the summer and I was thinking to myself how I wished I could have a hobby to focus on outside of just working all the time. I learned from YouTube how to make bath bombs and fizzies. These were my first type of product on my shop. I felt so proud of myself for starting my shop and having a working product! I did that for a few months and then decided to revamp/change direction. The bath bombs and fizzies had too much trial and error. I decided on making stickers for my business and recently added keychain items too!
All my keychain and stickers are designs I drew on my IPad using procreate. Yes, I do offer stickers and keychains in my original designs. But I’ve done a few custom order stickers for friends which was fun to do! I originally created my business because I had something in mind of a one stop shop to get cutesy/kawaii products that you can display on your water bottle, laptop, or anywhere else that you want to!
I wanted to share my drawings with the world and this was a cool way to do it. My designs set me apart from other people because of their uniqueness and how fun they are! I’m proud of myself for showcasing my drawing skill in this format. I am very critical of myself and tend to overthink so I did have to gain confidence to make this a reality for my shop. I want people to come to my shop/social media and feel welcomed and to experience positive vibes!!
We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.
So I do have a website that I built through Shopify. But I also sell my items on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok shop, and Etsy. The pros of selling on multiple sales channels is that I can reach different audiences because not everyone uses TikTok for example so having my shop on other social medias can help me reach other people. The only platform that I really have a con for would be Etsy. Although I love Etsy as a app/website, the fees for business owners are a little bit high. Whereas, I can use my Shopify site and I just pay a monthly membership for that, but I don’t get charged any fees for having my items on the other sales channels. Shopify has this really neat feature where you can have all of your stuff on your website, but you can also add additional social media sale channels and so that’s what I did which allows me to reach the different audiences.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
I mainly use email marketing and my social media to keep in touch with those who purchase from my shop. I am so thankful that social media does exist for this main reason because I can always keep in touch with those who have bought for me and a lot of people will tag me in pictures of the products they got for me which is super cool to see!! I include coupons in all of my orders so that they can return to my site and save some money to the next time they buy for me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://samsselections.myshopify.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_samsselections_?igsh=MW90NHRraXJhZW1nNw==
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/samsselections20
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@SamsSelections?si=KybSfbtcdQhVBDMG
- Other: TikTok- https://www.tiktok.com/@sammselections?_t=8m6dWjgCEzG&_r=1 Etsy- https://www.etsy.com/shop/sammselections