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For many people with sensitive skin, finding high quality bath and body products like soap, shampoo, body lotion, bath salts and scrubs is a lifelong challenge.
Carma Wood, owner of the Etsy shop Kiyi Kiyi Cosmetics, can relate to this struggle on a personal level. Her challenges with finding soap and other bath products that wouldn’t irritate her skin is what set her on the path to learning how to make handcrafted bath and body products.
Carma lives in Minnesota with her family and fur-babies. She originally started on Etsy as a buyer before transitioning into a seller of handmade sewn items. Soon after, she discovered that she had a passion for making handcrafted soaps that were not only easy on her sensitive skin, but also made from mostly biodegradable ingredients.
Carma explains that she holds two things very close to her heart – a passion for helping others with sensitive skin and a passion for helping the environment. By combining these two passions, she has decided on the unique name for her Etsy shop – Kiyi Kiyi Cosmetics, named after an endangered fresh water fish from Lake Superior.
In this week’s episode, Carma shares how she learned to create her own soap and other bath and body products… Step aside Bath & Body Works… 😉
She also explains her process for taking and fulfilling custom orders in her shop, and how she “human tests” all of the products before releasing them for sale in her Etsy store.
Additionally, Carma shares a marketing secret that most Etsy sellers do not utilize – but should, as well as how she manages her time working on her shop while working full-time and creating. Carma has lots of valuable tips for sellers ready to scale their business by outsourcing tasks or hiring full-time or part-time employees.
[bctt tweet=”Catalogs help u get more eyes on ur products than most other advertising methods #EtsySellers” username=”ConvoMePodcast”]
Kiyi Kiyi Cosmetics – Topics Discussed
- Carma explains why she believes starting out as an Etsy shopper makes transitioning to being a seller easier
- How Carma learned how to craft high-quality handcrafted body products by reading books and studying recipes for 6-months before making her first batch of soap
- Carma’s process for creating a physical catalog highlighting specific products in her shop and what she believes her return on investment is for this marketing strategy
- How Carma ensures her “sensitive skin assurance” policy – ensuring customers know the ingredients before they buy
- She explains how she got started in wholesaling
- Valuable insight on how and when Etsy sellers should consider outsourcing.
Kiyi Kiyi Cosmetics – Resources Mentioned
- Podcasts: Maker to Manufacturer Podcast
- Catalog Making Tools: PicMonkey | Overnight Prints
- Etsy Networking Groups: Indie Business Network Facebook Group | Etsy Wholesale Facebook Group | Etsy Wholesale Team | It’s A Living Facebook Group | Minnesota Makers Facebook Group
- Website Building: Wix
- Email Marketing: Mailchimp
Carma’s Etsy Shop Shout Outs
- Ruby’s Daughter 1977 – for handcrafted sweaters, scarves, and other clothing and accessories.
- SenseNSensibiliTea – Historically inspired, hand blended tea.
- Forest Bags – Beautifully handcrafted leather and waxed canvas bags from Australia
Best Ways to Reach Carma Wood
- Etsy Shop Convo: Kiyi Kiyi Cosmetics
- Website: KiyiKiyi.com
- Email: KiyiKiyi [at] Outlook [dot] com
- Social media: Instagram
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For more help growing your Etsy-based business, check out these resources: