My Etsy Retailer Made $1.9 Million in Lifetime Jewellery Gross sales

• Ashley Bostwick began her Etsy store, Wander and Lust Jewellery, in 2014 as a facet hustle.
• Since then, she’s made $1.9 million in gross sales on Etsy and teaches a course to mentor Etsy sellers.
• This is how she scaled her jewellery enterprise. 

This as-told-to essay relies on a dialog with Ashley Bostwick, a 34-year-old Etsy vendor. Since beginning her Etsy store, Wander and Lust Jewellery, in 2014, she’s made $1.9 million in gross sales, which Insider verified with documentation. The next has been edited for size and readability.

My HR job was simply paying the payments, so I needed begin a pastime or a facet hustle

I used to be on Etsy at some point on the lookout for bridesmaid items for my upcoming marriage ceremony and realized it could be an incredible pastime or facet enterprise to promote one thing on Etsy. If these individuals could make jewellery like this, I believed that possibly I might strive, too. 

I did not have some huge cash, so my fiancé gave me $300 to purchase the supplies. I did some analysis, purchased supplies and instruments, and began creating a jewellery assortment.

Ashley Bostwick

It’s important to be resourceful and need to lean in your family and friends at first if you do not have the cash up-front to pay an expert. One in all my pals had a pleasant digital camera that I used, and I requested her to mannequin for my first photograph shoot. 

It’s important to have a mindset that you will do no matter it takes to achieve success. My purpose was to in the end stop my day job and make this a full-time factor.

The primary yr, I made round $20,000, virtually half of what I made at my day job per yr. I knew I had one thing going, however I waited yet another yr to stop my job as a result of I wanted to be on my husband’s medical health insurance.

Figuring out a gap out there helped me discover my area of interest

In 2014, a whole lot of the jewellery developments needed to do with massive, chunky items. I by no means actually beloved that look. I all the time favored the dainty jewellery. So, I began creating dainty jewellery as a result of I seen that a whole lot of locations did not have it. I developed one thing I knew individuals needed that, possibly, they could not get. Now, in every single place you go, you may see delicate jewellery, however at the moment, it was laborious to search out.

From 2014 to 2017, I used to be making fairly good gross sales, however they weren’t life-changing. Then in 2018, I hit my first six figures, and I attribute this to actually following the developments in my market and discovering holes in that class. I made merchandise that the market wasn’t utterly saturated with that individuals actually needed.

Wander and Lust Jewellery

For instance, I got here out with a moonstone ring, which continues to be an enormous vendor. It is a pear-shaped moonstone ring with a vine setting. I developed it as a result of there weren’t many rings on Etsy, apart from engagement rings, with real stones in them. It made rapid gross sales. 

Then I used that info to make and take a look at new merchandise, duplicating what labored with one thing comparable — however a bit otherwise.

In 2019, I greater than doubled my enterprise from 2018 once I obtained into personalizing and customizing my merchandise

Plenty of Etsy prospects are on the lookout for items, so making your merchandise simply giftable and providing totally different choices to personalize them is absolutely what will get individuals to purchase.

I developed playing cards that went with the jewellery. I did not even develop any new merchandise; I simply took my current best-selling merchandise and rebranded them to focus on particular niches. 

Wander and Lust Jewellery

For instance, I had a moonstone necklace, and I obtained playing cards printed that mentioned, “new mama,” with a blurb about how moonstones are the fertility stone and the way this may profit a brand new mother. 

I focused key phrases for brand spanking new mothers, and that opened the door for a brand new market of individuals on the lookout for items for brand spanking new mothers. However I did not need to develop a completely new product — it was simply the best way I merchandised it and branded it to the shopper.

Etsy is all about what’s sizzling now — the corporate needs to advertise people who find themselves following developments

Take a look at what influencers are selling, what’s sizzling on Pinterest, in magazines, in on-line publications, and on TikTok. 

Tendencies on Etsy do final a reasonably very long time, relying on what class you promote in. The pearl pattern has been occurring for a number of years now, and it would not appear to be that is going away. 5 years in the past, everybody was sporting silver, and now gold is the factor. However when you promote T-shirts, that are actually massive on Etsy, these are going to come back and go rapidly due to the quotes or designs.

Wander and Lust Jewellery

I like to recommend having stylish objects, but in addition evergreen objects which are all the time going to promote. The evergreen stuff is comprised of easy issues that you may combine and match, and issues that individuals might simply choose up as a present. 

For instance, my easy cubic-zirconia necklace is all the time going to promote, regardless of the time of yr. I additionally promote a whole lot of bridal jewellery, so that’s extra common from spring to fall, and never as common throughout the winter.