Case study - Ringcrush

Meet Bailey, founder of the Etsy shop Ringcrush, which creates and sells gemstone jewelry. Bailey has a fascinating background, and you will hear how she went from developing luxury jewelry for a fine jewelry brand to becoming an entrepreneur on Etsy and managing a team of 13 people.

I discovered Etsy in high school, I was a very disengaged student in all subjects except for Art. I was absolutely obsessed with painting, and ended up pursuing my fine art degree in sculpture at Savannah College of Art and Design. I didn’t really know how to monetize my education at the time, and after a brief period of playing online poker professionally, I decided to hone in on a specific creative niche and returned to college to pursue my master's degree in jewelry design. During college I was hired by House of Benney, a fine jewelry brand in the UK, to develop luxury jewelry designs. The company reached the end of its budget before becoming profitable, and they abandoned the project. In 2016 I unexpectedly lost what I thought at the time was my “dream job”, and was left to quickly figure out my next step. For some reason, I had a prejudice about Etsy in college. I thought it wasn’t for “real” artists. I assumed to make a creative living you had to either work for an established company like Tiffany & Co. or David Yurman, or get “found” by a gallery in NYC, or to start a creative brand you had to find an investor. I didn’t really know much about Etsy at all, frankly, but a few friends of mine suggested I try it out.

Shortly after truly discovering Etsy and understanding how powerful it could be for creative entrepreneurs, I did a little bit of SEO research, found a niche in the Jewelry category that I felt I could easily create products for, and I got to work. I only had about $400 to invest at the time, so I bought a couple of tools, some materials, and got to work. Shortly after posting my first designs, I sold all most everything. I don’t remember my first sale but I do remember being overwhelmed with an immediate response. This drove me to keep pumping out and posting new ideas. At the time (late 2016) it was just me in my garage, now we have a team of 12 women (13 if you include me) and a large studio in Atlanta, Georgia.

My biggest advice is to learn SEO before anything else. Learn it before even making your first item. If you use SEO to guide what you create, you will have a much easier time selling. SEO is important to understand what people want to buy on the internet, and how to find categories that aren’t over-saturated. The biggest pitfall is getting too invested in a category with too much competition.

I do sell on Amazon Handmade and Shopify and will be looking into adding products to Faire this year. That being said, 95% of my business is done through Etsy. It’s the easiest, most profitable channel for me.

I love teaching and helping others. In college, I was briefly a teaching assistant and also taught summer seminars to high school students. I loved the experience and even considered pursuing it professionally. My path led me to entrepreneurship, however, but Youtube and Tiktok allow me to balance both. I’ve actually put both on hold, as I am focusing on writing a book. I think a book is the best way to help others, as I can walk other creatives through the Etsy process in a very clear and guided process. The book is called “The Million Dollar Etsy Shop” and should be out in a couple of months.

All of my designs are guided by SEO. We look for highly searched keywords with low competition and try to come up with creative designs that fit within a healthy price point (usually under $50 retail). When we have a product that sells really well, we then will design variations of that product. For example, our Raw Emerald Ring is one of our top sellers, so we are currently designing several variations on that design.

Fast shipping, amazing customer service, unparalleled quality, and kindness.

I would love to learn new avenues for marketing other than just relying on SEO. This is why I am in love with the idea of Craftkit. Email marketing and list building are always recommended by coaches and gurus in the e-commerce world, and before Craftkit there hasn’t been a white-hat (Approved by Etsy) method to do this.

Right now I am running Delivery Confirmation, Feedback request, Order Confirmation, and Shipment confirmation campaigns. The open rate varies from 20-30% which is insanely high for e-commerce emails. We have also begun building an email list through an opt-in link in those campaigns, and have had pleasant results.

I have a little Facebook group which is a great place to reach me. Feel free to join and ask questions.