Michelle Jernberg is a Swedish-born hobby artist and plush maker. She has always been a creative person, even since childhood. Michelle began creating plush animals as a hobby. She posted her pictures on various online platforms and began to receive commission requests. It soon became a way to make a little extra money. Michelle runs two online stores with freewebstore, Demi’s Plush Corner, and Demi’s Owl Shop.
1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and how it all started.
My name is Michelle Jernberg, I’m a Swedish-born hobby artist and plush maker. I was born in 1982 and am currently living in Denmark.
I’ve always been a creative person. As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been creating things or trying out various forms of graphical art. Thinking back to those early childhood days, I also remember my mother and older sister spending a lot of their evenings together, sewing clothes for themselves to wear. Back then I thought that sewing must be the most boring thing in the world. Textile craft at school was my least favorite subject, so I was certain that I would never develop an interest in sewing.
One day a couple of years later my mother brought home a small piece of fabric she thought I might like. It was just a leftover scrap of cream-colored velour, but it was fuzzy and it sparked my interest. I wanted to use it to recreate a much-beloved toy from an old picture book I grew up with. It was a floppy toy kitten, with a wonderfully plump body. I had always adored the illustrations of that kitten, and now I was going to make one just like it. Fabric in hand, I set out to conjure up a pattern and sew my very first stuffed animal. I failed spectacularly and I felt really bad about ruining the fabric. I didn’t know much about fabrics, but I was convinced that this must have been a very precious type, so I wanted to make amendments.
I salvaged the scraps from my failed attempt and turned them into tiny makeshift animals, that I would then sell to my teachers at school for a couple of coins. I really had my own little business running there for a while. I put up a hand-drawn poster inside the teacher’s lounge, with colorful illustrations of the animals I was offering, and a simple form below, where the teachers could jot down their orders. My best-selling design was a tiny moose head mounted on a wooden plaque. My father made the plaques for me. They had a beautifully curved outline and were very professionally made, smooth to the touch and with beveled edges. I imagine that my crudely made moose heads must have looked pretty terrible and flea-bitten next to them. It didn’t matter to my father though, he would still go the extra mile to make sure that my ragtag moose heads only got the best. It’s a precious memory. Both my parents had enjoyed making art when they were younger, and they were very supportive of the creativity I and my sister were expressing.
Those tiny animals I was selling were very poorly made, however, and before long I felt a desire to improve my skills. I wished to learn sewing more properly, so I began taking voluntary sewing classes at school. This must have been in the late 90’s, during my last year or so in elementary school. As soon as I had finished those classes, I put sewing on the shelf and devoted myself to my drawings and papercrafts. Years would pass before I picked up a sewing needle again, but this is where the foundation for my future as a plush maker was laid.
Some ten years later I was still devoted to the graphical arts, but there had been some major changes. My pen and paper had long been replaced with digital equivalents and I was posting my art online. I was no longer drawing simply to please myself, I was also doing it to please the online community I’d become part of. This shift from personal art to fan art and crowd-pleasing would eventually prove fatal for my lifelong addiction to drawing. I didn’t know it at the time of course. I was still enjoying what I was doing, but I had begun to suffer from crippling art blocks. I couldn’t shake them, so I tried to work through them. In doing so I eventually lost my spark. I could still create art if prompted, but that natural drive, that had always made me pick up a pen and start doodling was gone.
In late 2009 I left my job at the pet store I had been working at for many years. I uprooted my life and moved from Sweden to Denmark, to come to live with my future husband Jacob. Here I was given the rare opportunity to fully devote myself to my creativity and explore all avenues of it. I started my very first web store in 2010, just to give eCommerce a try and see if I could sell some of my creations. It was a tiny free webshop hosted by Big Cartel, a platform similar to freewebstore. It was capped at five listings, but that was all I needed at the time. I wasn’t sure in what direction my creativity was heading, and if online selling would even be a part of it. I tried to rekindle my passion for the graphical arts, by making use of art prompts, focusing on personal art, and working with a whole range of mediums. I also did a handful of clay crafts and plushies based on cartoony animals, that were appearing in some of the art I was doing. Some of my best pieces came about during this period, but I never was able to rekindle that passion of old. My skin didn’t agree with wet paints and clay either, so rather begrudgingly I turned my attention away from the graphical arts and towards plush making.
My shift from fan art to more personal art and crafts was well received by the online art community I was posting at. Occasionally I would receive commission requests, but I was very hesitant about accepting any kind of commission. My first art block had been triggered by a commissioned art piece that I hadn’t really felt inclined to make. The request had come from a dear friend though, and I didn’t want to turn them down. Eventually, I was able to fulfill their request, but by then the damage had already been done. I lost the drawn arts as my creative outlet, and I was afraid that the same thing could happen to me with my plushing, if I took on any projects that I didn’t really feel motivated to make. Most of the requests I received involved the creation of single-use patterns and materials I couldn’t source locally, so I turned them down. On occasion, I would make an exception though. Mostly with friends, who were asking for some fairly simple designs, like the round owl plushie, that would eventually start me on my journey towards becoming a full-time plush maker. There were also some much more complex and memorable plushie creations that came about from outside requests, like the Chibi pangolin and the pufferfish. Many of these commissions have shaped my plush-making career by pointing me in new directions. Accepting them and working on them has allowed me to push my own limits and mature as a plush maker, but even more importantly, they’ve allowed me to work on my emotional response to working on projects that aren’t entirely of my own choosing. I’m still careful in terms of what kind of custom work I accept, but I’m no longer terrified of doing commissioned work.
Back when my friend commissioned me that first owl, I didn’t have any furry fabrics in my stock, except for a piece of teal luxury fur, that had been sitting unused in my closet for two years. I had ordered it from an American web store in 2010, expecting it to look exactly the same as it did in the photo, which showed a dark gray, almost black, fur with strands of white and a beautiful blue luster. I was in love with that picture. When the fur arrived it turned out to be a completely different color, than what I had believed it to be. I felt absolutely devastated. I had paid handsomely for the shipping, and I was slammed with additional import and handling fees a few days later, adding insult to injury. Once everything was paid for, the fabric only accounted for 27% of the total cost. I was furious about it.
The web store I bought the fabric from wasn’t entirely to blame though. Yes, the reference pictures could have been better, but the title did say “teal”, so the fault was mine. I had made a rookie mistake. I didn’t know how hard it is to photograph fabrics and capture their actual colors (I’ve learned that the hard way myself), and I was only familiar with general color names. I didn’t know what to make of “teal”, so I chose to trust the pictures over the title. It was a costly lesson I would never forget. I swore off ordering fabrics over the internet. In the years that followed, I would only buy fabrics if I could see them in person.
Having to rely on locally sourced plush fabrics wasn’t easy though. Back then Jacob and I lived in Aarhus, the second-largest city in Denmark. The location provided good access to a number of local fabric stores, that were dotted across the city. Whenever we came across one, I would jump at the chance (I still do) and have a quick look around for any fabrics suitable for plushing. If I spotted anything I thought I could use, Jacob was always happy to buy me some. I quickly learned that most of the stores didn’t carry any furry fabrics at all, never mind actual faux furs. I had better luck finding upholstery type faux suede, which could be found to some extent in most of the stores we visited. I loved how it didn’t really look like fabric. It was smooth to the touch and it was available in many natural shades of browns and grays. It worked wonderfully for “hairless” plush animals, such as pangolins and elephants. Faux suede quickly became a favorite of mine and I was always eager to add new shades to my stock of plush-making fabrics.
All my initial fabrics and other sewing supplies had come from Stof&Stil, the largest fabric store in the city. They had a little bit of everything, even a section with mixed fabrics suitable for plushing. They were slim pickings though. I could only source part of the fabrics I needed for the owl I had been commissioned. The design called for a brown body with a light brown belly and a bright face. The colors that I could get at the store were white, dark brown, black, dusty rose, and sage green. I got some of the white and brown fur, then we set out in search of the missing belly fabric. It would be a futile search. Eventually, I had to go buy a large factory-made plushie, just so I could slaughter it for its hide. The “hide” yielded very few usable pieces, and the fabric was very low quality, but it would have to do.
I wasn’t exactly proud of the finished owl plushie. It was meant to be based on a plushie briefly seen in the movie “Lost in translation”. But a lack of suitable materials and colors meant that I had had to compromise and cut corners. The outcome was a far cry from the original source of inspiration, and way below the kind of quality that I had wanted to deliver. My friend didn’t seem to share my misgivings though. They were thrilled and wanted to come to collect the owl in person. I made two additional owls while I was waiting for the owner to come to collect it. Both were smaller sizes and sported a different color. I snapped a quick picture of the three owls sitting together on the couch and posted it to my gallery on Deviantart I wasn’t expecting much to come of that photo, but it was awarded a “Daily Deviation”, which was a 24 hours feature on Deviantart’s front page. I received questions if the owls were for sale and the two bonus owls quickly sold.
After that unexpected success, I added the remaining three colors from Stof&Stil to my inventory, effectively doubling my number of fur fabrics, and began working on my first batch of owls. They were a colorful bunch consisting of 13 widely different owls. Most of them featured belly markings made from tiny tufts of fur, that I had bundled together and inserted into the belly fabric. The short length of the plush fur worked better with smaller owls, so I added an even smaller size looking for the sweet spot.
I created my second store in the summer of 2013, following the completion of my first batch of plush owls. This time it was hosted by Etsy, which I had known about for some years. They were offering a marketplace solely for handmade crafts and vintage items. This made them very popular among crafters – and a natural choice for me, as I was hoping to sell my hand-sewn plushies and make a name for myself. Back then Etsy was a really good starting point for aspiring artisans. I was off to a good start and made nine sales before the end of the year.
From here on I got more serious about making plushies with the goal of selling them. I dropped the elaborate belly markings, as they were far too time-consuming and work-intense to be viable. My following two batches of owls introduced two new fur colors, along with the Tiny and REALLY Tiny sizes. I had a lot of leftover scraps from the making of previous owls, and these adorable miniature owls allowed me to salvage the larger pieces and put them to good use. They were also the perfect excuse for me to try out the new color combinations I could make with my eight plush furs.
The plush furs from Stof&Stil were of a decent enough quality, but they weren’t high-quality furs like that first teal fur I had gotten from overseas. I might not have agreed with its color, but in every other aspect, it was a most wonderful, high-quality fur. The two plush fabrics I had just added to my inventory, were extremely poor quality. They looked and felt alright, but the backing was nothing more than a loosely knit mesh, that was unable to stabilize the fabric, and quick to unravel along any tear or raw edge. We had just recently moved to the countryside, and the local fabric store was running a discontinuation sale. Desperate for new colors, I jumped on the two plush furs as soon as I spotted them. I bought them despite their shortcomings, and against my better judgment. I’ve regretted it ever since.
By now I was yearning for new and better furs to unlock the real potential of my owl pattern. I knew that I would not find them in any local stores. I had already gotten anything worth getting, including a piece of super expensive faux fur from Stof&Stil, that I had been eyeballing for years. I had reached an end pass, and there was only one way leading forward – I would have to make use of online dealers if I wanted to get access to better furs. In 2015 I found a German-based web store, that was carrying a lot of beautiful faux furs. Their fur fabrics had minimum order quantities of three meters though, which was way out of my league. But I got lucky. I found two end-of-roll pieces that were sold at a discount and bought them. My mind was blown away by how beautiful and soft to the touch these new furs were.
Soon I was able to add a new batch of owls to my store. This time they were luxury fur owls and I was feeling certain, that they would be off to new homes in no time. To my surprise, they weren’t selling as well on Etsy as I had hoped, but I didn’t worry too much about it. I was having fun making them, and I was finally embracing plush making as my new passion. Soon plush making would become more important to me than ever before, but for an entirely different reason.
In early 2016 I lost my beloved sister Alexandra to a car crash. The sudden loss of her shook me at my core. I had always known, that I would start to lose the people most dear to me at some point or other – we all do – but I had expected it to be from causes like old age or illness, and I had thought that she would be among the last to go. Now she had been whisked away at the top of her life. My world came crashing down that day. We were all left devastated by her sudden death. In the weeks and months that followed, I was trying to come to terms with my grief, and the outlook on life without my sister. I doubled down on my plush making, as I found solace while crafting. The act of hand sewing calmed and soothed me. Working on my plushies gave me something to focus on while leaving my thoughts free to wander. The first two plushies I made that year were a pair of wholly mammoths. I made them for my two young nephews, who had lost their mother. I was hoping that the mammoths would bring them some level of comfort in their time of grief. After my return from Sweden, I began designing new plushies. I hadn’t really been adding any new designs for the past four years, but the death of my sister, was a stark reminder, that no one lives forever and that life can be cut short. If I had ideas for new designs that I hadn’t made yet, I’d better start making them. I made nine beautiful little puppies that summer, during my most acute phase of mourning. They had posable legs, and tiny toe beans and were all sporting different dog breeds.
The following year I discovered mohairbearmakingsupplies, a wonderful UK-based web store filled with all kinds of affordable faux furs and crafting supplies. They quickly became my main supplier and I was able to add a lot of high-quality furs to my stock. My old owl pattern was the perfect candidate to try out all the new furs, and the combinations seemed near endless. Shortly after an avalanche of new owls followed. As the end of 2017 was drawing near, a friend of mine showed me a photo of a baby highland calf. It looked absolutely adorable, with its sticky tongue poking out and its front feet visible in the picture. That photo would mark a turning point and a new beginning in my plushing career. I immediately felt compelled to make a calf plushie like that. I spent the better part of that winter designing the pattern for it. I had modeled the legs separately from the body (a recipe for disaster) and they had ended up being of a different scale. I made several prototypes, while I was trying to get everything to fit together, and make improvements to the shape of the head.
My first two calves, made with the finalized pattern, saw the light in early 2018. They were of two different sizes. The smaller version was really pushing my limits, as it had many pieces that were so tiny, that I could hardly assemble them without destroying them in the process. I chose to discontinue that size and decided to focus on the slightly larger one instead. In the weeks and months that followed I would make more calves. The first handful of calves I made were all fluffy highland calves sporting different body colors. My first spotted calf was made from care bear fur, a plush fur very similar to the short plush I had used for my early owls. It turned out to be ideal for short-haired cow breeds with its more rugged look. It was readily available in the UK and came in many colors. My next calf would be a Hereford’s calf, and after making some alterations to the pattern, I was able to add lambs to my growing family of lifelike plushies.
By now I had been developing patterns and working on highly detailed plushies for two years straight. I felt that I could use a break from the overly complex designs, and work on some simpler ones instead. I had plenty of owls that were waiting to be sold, so I figured that I might as well design something new. Earlier that year I had been commissioned to make a round bunny. I decided to use the round body pattern as a base for a new line of simplified animal plushies. I named them Round critters.
That same summer I got involved with our local cat shelter and began supporting their work with my crafts. The shelter was in desperate need of funds, and I had a surplus of unsold owls that were just sitting around in boxes and a pile of new plushies that was growing fast. I joined their community of supporters and began to use my owls and Round critters in various fundraising events, such as auctions and lotteries. Later that year I would create my first Christmas kitties as another means to raise funds. They were appliqued ornaments in the shape of a cat in a stocking. The design was highly customizable and became hugely popular with the members of the community, who would often commission Christmas kitties based on photos of their own cats. I’ve added additional designs since, but my Christmas kitties remain the most popular, and making them has become an annual event for me in the weeks leading up to Christmas. In early 2020 I began to use Chester the pig, one of my early Round critters, in a series of monthly lotteries. Each lottery would come with pictures and a short story prompt, revolving around Chester and the various critters he befriended, on his quest to become the greatest piggy bank of all time. At the conclusion of each adventure, the critters would be raffled away among the participants, who had “put money into the piggy bank”, by making donations to the cat shelter. I kept posting these stories for a little over a year, and they gave rise to some pretty epic adventures. Writing about Chester was a lot of fun and greatly improved my Danish writing skills. I would love to compile his adventures into a children’s book someday.
Indeed, looking back on my own journey leading up to where I am today, it’s been pretty epic as well. If it weren’t for both my own and my extended family’s unwavering support, I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this. Thanks to their generosity I’ve been allowed to pursue my dreams, and I’ve been allowed to fail and try again. My plush-making adventure still has a way to go, before I can hope to make a living from it, but it is pulling its own weight and my business is growing. Slowly I am building up momentum. I’ve found a niche for myself and I am able to help others through my creations. I’m leaving my lasting mark as my plushies are spreading joy across the world. Heck, I’ve even tried my hand at writing stories about my plushies and might become an author someday.
2. There’s a black and white cat, that can often be seen in photos together with your plushies. Tell us a little about it. What’s its name? How does it relate to your business?
That’s my trusty sidekick and partner in crime, Skrållan. She’s a vital part of my sewing business and fulfills many important key functions, such as quality control, fabric holder, general sewing assistant, morale officer, photo model, size reference, photo assistant, and guardian of more or less finished plushies. I pay her with snuggles and cat food…
I found her by sheer coincidence, while I was housesitting my parent’s house back in November 2015. Skrållan was wandering the streets and happened to pass right by my childhood home, as I was standing on the stair landing, taking pictures of the beautiful evening sky. The house is built near the top of a hill, with a sloping street leading past it. The part of the garden that faces the street is slightly elevated by a low wall, and there is a scrawny hedge running along its border. About halfway in, there’s a small opening in the hedge, where my parent’s cats would often lie and sleep in the warm summer months.
This was in the middle of winter though, and it was really chilly outside. I hadn’t brought a jacket, as I was just going to snap those pictures, and head straight back inside again. I was incredibly lucky to spot a tiny black dot moving into my camera screen. When I looked up it had already passed out of sight behind the wall. I assumed that it must have been a cat, so I called out, asking what a little kitty like her was doing outside all alone on such a cold evening. She answered straight away and made a beeline for our driveway. She was making little meowing sounds, as she scurried along the wall. When she came by the hole in the hedge, her head popped up momentarily, making sure that I was still there and waiting for her, before she resumed her scurry towards the driveway. She was so happy to see me when she finally reached the stair. She couldn’t contain herself and was running around me, rubbing herself against my legs, and rearing up on her rear legs to headbutt my hand, as I was stroking her. I let her inside and offered her some food. She was absolutely famished. In the following days, I was able to confirm that she was a homeless stray, so I decided to keep her. In the weeks that followed she spent most of her time splayed out on the floor, sleeping and regaining her strength, but she would always make sure not to lose me out of her sight, as I worked around the house. We quickly became inseparable.
When it was time for me to return to Denmark I couldn’t bring her with me right away. She needed to have all her shots and traveling papers in place before she could enter the country. Until then she would stay with my parents. I had been longing for a cat to call my own for many years and couldn’t wait to come to pick her up. When I returned a few weeks later my world had been forever changed. I was no longer coming just to collect her. I had come to attend my sister’s funeral and to mourn together with my family. Being able to bring Skrållan with me afterward was a blessing and she’s the best cat I could ever have wished for.
Fun facts: It took me a good while to come up with a name for her. Initially, I named her Skorpan, which is Swedish for Zwieback. I later renamed her Skrållan, after neither I nor my parents could get used to Skorpan and kept calling her Skrållan instead. Both names were inspired by characters appearing in Astrid Lindgren’s books. Skrållan doesn’t really mean anything particular, but the name always reminds me of a baby’s rattle. Skrållan is roughly pronounced “scroll” with a quick “-an” at the end.
I also have a second cat, who goes by the less than perfect name “Den Gule”, simply meaning “the yellow one” in Danish. He’s a former feral I’ve been feeding for years. These days he loves to come inside and snuggle for hours on end. He has a tendency to position himself right in my face or to drape himself across my arms while I’m trying to sew, so he’s become my ‘Stop-sewing’ assistant.
3. What is your most popular product?
My most popular line of handmade plushies is my lifelike calves, which I offer in an ever-growing range of colors and fur types. My best-selling calf to date has been the cream-colored Scottish Highland, which I’ve made at least seven times, and have just recently retired from my store. It was made from beautifully textured fur, that looked incredibly realistic and was the perfect length for my calves. Sadly faux furs like that are hard to come by, and that particular fur was discontinued years ago. I’m happy to say, that the last two remakes of this calf, were both very memorable to me. They were ordered from different buyers, only one day apart. I worked on both simultaneously, referring to them as “the twins”. One was fitted with a growler for sound (my second ever calf with sound), and the other one was my first ever calf to be made floppy, thus allowing it to alter between basic poses. The last remnants of the fabric went into three more floppy calves – one for myself to keep, and a calf duo with custom markings, making them extremely memorable as well.
4. What do you see as the most important marketing tool for your business?
Social media for sure. For years I didn’t post pictures of my plushies outside of my main gallery on Deviantart, even as I was trying to sell them. I had spent many years building up a decent following there, so I wasn’t making a serious effort to market myself elsewhere. The majority of my followers weren’t of the plushie buying type though, they were mainly consumers of free art, and there was a limit to how many sales I could get from there. Etsy was in charge of driving traffic past the store I was having on their platform, but any sales would be months or even years apart. I knew that artists were increasingly relying on social media to connect with buyers and increase their sales, but I was extremely skeptical of social media and very slow to embrace it. A dear friend and crafting buddy of mine literally had to drag me on to Twitter and make me post my creations there. She taught me how to promote myself there, and helped me get a footing, by sharing my posts. She would also give me the occasional kick in the butt to keep me at it. Joining Twitter and posting pictures and videos of my work there has really been a game-changer for me. In the two years, I’ve been on Twitter, I’ve gained almost twice the amount of followers, that I had gained over the course of 15+ years of posting my mixed art on Deviantart. My sales have gone up drastically, and I owe it all to posting my work on social media. Without Lasciva, peluchière’s intervention, I would still be dead in the water, making little to no sales.
5. If you could have ANYONE come and work for you, who would it be and why?
Hmm… If I could have anyone come work for me… Then I would like it to be a caretaker for my garden. It’s huge and I’ve been neglecting it for years in favor of plushing. So for someone to come and take care of it in my place, so that I can just keep plushing to my heart’s content, would be really nice. It wouldn’t have to be anything fancy, just someone to keep the grass in check, and the stingy plants that are spreading like wildfire, and the multiplying ant hills that are making it all lumpy and impossible to mow. Maybe I should just ask a goat to come work for me…
6. Do you have any advice for new store owners?
Don’t waste your time making all the mistakes I did. Dip into freewebstore‘s knowledge base and make good use of all the tools they provide for free. They’re doing their best to pave the road towards success for you, but you still have to walk that road yourself – and keep walking it.
Pay to get your own domain name – freewebstore provides you with a small selection of free domain names to choose from, but they are rather generic and not very professional looking. You can opt to pay a small annual amount to get a domain name entirely of your own choosing. Having the ability to pick a URL that fits your store perfectly can’t be overstated.
Get your own business card – Gather all the important information in one place. Your business card should include your logo and the name of your store, where to find it (web links, social media platforms, etc.), and how to get in touch with you. Sites like Vista print make it easy to design your own business card, and often offer discounts. You should get a whole stack of these cards to include with your orders, and to give out to potential customers you meet. Make absolutely sure, that you have made all the important decisions regarding your store before you design your business card, and double and triple-check it before you place your order. It sucks having to toss out a whole stack of freshly printed cards, because you had a change of heart regarding the name of your company, decided to get a new URL, or simply made a typing mistake.
Create “Thank you” notes to include with your orders – Use the note as a gentle means to encourage your customers to return to your store to leave their feedback, and invite them to promote your store on their social media. You can also use the “Thank you” note to encourage future sales, by including a coupon code to be used at your store.
Drive the traffic – The price of running a free web store (and keeping it free), is that you’ll have to drive all the traffic to it by yourself. You’ll be at the very epicenter of promoting your store, so take full advantage of social media and any other methods available to you, in order to make your store and the goods you are selling as visible as possible.
Promote yourself (and others) on social media – Make sure to include a link to your shop in your profile and start promoting yourself, your store, and its products as soon as possible. It takes years to build up a proper following and to extend your reach, to where it’s able to provide you with a steady stream of customers. If you are starting from scratch your reach will be dismal. Ask any friends and family on the same platform to help promote your posts. Social media happens in real-time, and unless your post is able to gain some traction, by being picked up and shared by others, it will just be a tiny blip that will soon be forgotten. Post often to increase your amount of ”blips” and chances of being seen and add hash tags. Make good use of vibrant photos or videos to help your posts stand out and showcase your products. Keep your feed interesting and promote others by following them and sharing their posts. They might return the favor, exposing your posts to their own followers and giving you a much-needed boost.
Make sure to pay yourself properly if you are a maker of things – At the bare minimum, you need to cover your own expenses, but you shouldn’t stop there. You should also pay yourself for your time and expertise. This is especially true if you plan on making a living from what you do. Never dump your prices to the same price level as factory-made equivalents. I know that this is a tough one. Competition is fierce and the global market is overflowing with factory-made goods. As a result, buyers have come to expect prices to be low and might complain about your prices. But you are not a factory and you can’t possibly compete on factory terms. You do not have access to the massive discounts on materials and shipping costs that they have, and you do not have an army of cheap laborers at your disposal, making it possible to mass-produce items at such a low cost, that even when sold for cheap they’re still profitable. Compete by setting yourself apart from factory-made goods. Offer quality over quantity and highlight the uniqueness of your handmade crafts. If you feel the need to lower your prices for lack of sales, don’t lower their base prices. Put them on offer instead. It can be hard to bring prices back up again, once you’ve lowered them. Also, before making any changes to your prices, try increasing your marketing efforts on social media. There are customers out there, who are more than willing to pay premium prices for handmade goods, but you need to be seen in order for them to find you.
Post both work-in-progress and finished items on social media – Not only will this help you keep your feed active and varied (vital for attracting new followers and keeping old ones), it will also allow your peers to gain a better understanding and appreciation for the amount of time, skill and effort, that go into the creation of your items. This in turn will make it easier for you to sell your handmade crafts at a premium price.
Increase your chances to make sales by offering payment plans – Having an option to pay in smaller installments makes it a lot easier to sell your products, especially the more expensive ones. I’ve had great success offering payment plans for my creations.
Return the favor – Spread the word about freewebstore and upgrade to a paid plan, once your store has grown and become successful enough to generate a steady income. You’ll gain access to more features while supporting freewebstore, so that they can keep doing what they do.
7. How did you first hear about freewebstore? What did you know about it at the time?
Etsy changed a lot in the years after I first set up shop there. They went public in 2015, got a new CEO, added new fees and raised their prices. The core rule, that items needed to be handmade to be sold on Etsy, was watered down to the point, where items could now be factory-made. These changes pressed prices and made it increasingly difficult for small shop owners and lone crafters to succeed on their platform.
Even though I had been off to a good start on Etsy, I couldn’t seem to get a proper foothold. In 2015 I saw my sales cut in half, and from this point onward making any sales on Etsy would become a struggle. The lack of sales quickly eroded my confidence in my pricing, as I was struggling to find a price point, that would allow me to pay myself for my work and my expenses while keeping the prices of my plushies at a sellable level. High shipping costs, mounting fees and an influx of factory-made items to compete with weren’t helping. After five years of selling on Etsy, I was only averaging six sales a year, and I had been forced to dump my prices. My store had long become a money drain. Each listing required renewal to be paid every three months to remain active, and my store was overflowing with handmade plushies that weren’t selling. I felt deeply conflicted about my prices, disillusioned, and increasingly angry about how Etsy was stacking the cards against their smallest sellers. I couldn’t see how I would ever be able to amount to anything on Etsy.
In early 2018 I had an epiphany. I had just begun making my first calf plushies and was showing their pictures to my plush-making community on Facebook. They sold almost immediately and without the involvement of Etsy. I realized, that I had created a plushie design, that people were willing to pay properly for, without the need for me to constantly underpay myself. I knew that Etsy wouldn’t be doing me any favors if I listed my calves there. I’d either be forced to bloat their price beyond selling or sell them at a loss. I would need to find a better alternative for them, and my other lifelike plushies, who were already collecting dust in my Etsy store.
I liked Big Cartel. I was using their free listings for my chibi pangolins and other charity items I was making, that had 40% of their selling price earmarked for donation. Big Cartel wasn’t an option though. I had long outgrown the five listings they were offering on their free plan, and I couldn’t afford to be on a payment plan, without making regular sales. I began looking for similar platforms that would allow me to list more items, and be free for me to use, for as long as I needed them to be free.
I had never heard of freewebstore before. But I was using terms like “free web store”, “stores similar to big cartel” and ”alternatives to Etsy” while I was googling, so freewebstore showed up early among my search results. I visited the front page and had a quick look around. I liked what I was seeing. There was a very handy chart, outlining what each plan had to offer and it seemed like an incredibly solid package to me – much more than I would ever have expected to be included in a free plan. It certainly ticked all of my boxes and then some! I could absolutely see freewebstore as my future host, but I didn’t want to make a decision without having researched other alternatives as well. I found some very useful web pages that listed more or less free web stores, based on their popularity. There I could read brief introductions about the listed platforms and see how they compared with each other. freewebstore didn’t seem to be terribly well known, and I had to visit several “most popular” lists before I found one that actually included it. Feeling satisfied, that I had done my research and still feeling strongly for freewebstore, I decided to give it a try.
I created demisplushcorner in the summer of 2018 and moved my lifelike plushies there. I left my remaining plushies at my old Etsy store for the time being, while I made sure, that freewebstore really was the right fit for me. Back then listings were also capped at 30, so I knew that I wouldn’t be able to fit all my plushies in one single store unless I combined their listings. I felt very happy with my new store and in late 2019 I opened my second store, named demisowlshop, and moved my owls and Round critters there.
Like Etsy, freewebstore has undergone many changes since I first got here. But unlike Etsy, the majority of changes have been improvements across the board. I’m no longer feeling like I’m being neglected just because I’m a tiny seller. I’m feeling snug as a bug here, and my only regret is that I didn’t come here sooner.
8. Is there a specific reason you chose freewebstore as your eCommerce platform?
The free plan being such a solid package and ticking all my boxes for starters. Another reason for me to go with freewebstore, was that there were a lot of different store designs to choose from, and they all included mobile- and tablet-friendly versions, which is very important in this day and age. There was also a treasure trove of both written and recorded guidance to help with the setup and running of the store. freewebstore‘s customer service has also always been great. Quick to respond and eager to help me with any questions or problems I’ve had.
9. Why is eCommerce important for your business?
I don’t have a physical store and rely entirely on the internet to promote and sell my crafts. ECommerce is important every single step of the way, from acquiring the materials I use to selling my finished creations across the world. It is safe to say, that I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today if it weren’t for eCommerce and all the possibilities that come with it.
I’m also a rather timid person, who tends to shrink back into a corner, whenever I’m around people I’m not familiar with, so I’m not very good at promoting myself and selling my work face to face. A lot of the items I offer are made upon order. On occasion, I also do custom work, so being able to communicate and interact with my clients is vital. Online ways of communication allow me to interact freely with my clients one on one and with much more ease and confidence. I’m also able to provide my clients with frequent updates through the same channels. So that’s another great aspect of eCommerce.
10. And finally, where do you see your company in 5 years’ time?
That’s a really hard question to answer, given the economic turmoil and general unrest the world is currently in. My store has been growing during the pandemic, but I don’t expect to see the same kind of growth in the coming years. My handmade plushies are pure luxury items and we’re facing lean times, so I’m expecting sales to slow down for some time before they tick up again.
It’s not an altogether bad thing though. I make all the plushies by myself, so a temporary downtick in orders means that I have more time to work on plushies to restock my store with, and time to tend to my other responsibilities (like mowing the garden…) More time between orders also allows me to catch my breath and work on personal projects, ensuring that I preserve that precious spark of mine. I have lots of calves that I would like to do as “floppies” and new breeds I want to try and add. I also bought lots of furs in the year following Brexit, so I have lots of faux furs in my stock that I haven’t tried yet. Whatever the next five years may bring, I’m certain that my two stores will still be here and brimming with new plushies.
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