Selling Through Your Website | Avesha DeWolfe | Episode 629

Avesha DeWolfe | Episode 629

As a die-hard ocean lover, clay provides a way to pay homage and respect to the source of Avesha DeWolfe’s inspiration and the place that refuels her. Through form and surface treatment, Avesha’s work reflects a life-long enchantment with the ocean and rocky beaches of Maine, where she grew up. In Scotland, where Avesha lives now, the enchantment continues. Avesha’s work is constructed out of soft slabs of red, mid-range clay. Building pots this way requires mindfulness and an active slowing down of the mind in order to examine every angle, curve, foot and rim. Nothing in the process of making a pot is taken for granted, every element of every piece is a considered choice. That consideration creates pottery which calls out to be held and offers space for mindful moments of self-care. Those moments add up to a life well-lived.

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I’m curious, why did you abandon Etsy and opt for your own website?

I wanted to be able to follow up with my customers and as a person who buys on Etsy, I often forget who I have bought from. So for me it felt more important because of the nature of the way I like to relate to customers and build relationships with them, it just didn’t really work. It didn’t work for me that way. I also found increasing fees and interesting postage practices and things, I just found it frustrating. The goal posts kept changing. So I wanted my own goal posts.

How about your domain name. Did it matter what your domain name is?

Do you mean my website?

Yes.

To use the word again, I wanted it to be congruent with my business name. It was Avesha Dewolfe .com but it just made things too complicated trying to help people understand how to spell my name and all of that. It felt important to me for the domain name to be the same as the business. Just again congrueny and keeping things sort of with in the family I guess if I am saying that right.

Do you think it is important to have all your social media platforms to have the same user name as your website name?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, I didn’t always know this, I have spent the last year and a half learning how to be a business woman because that was just not something that was covered in my art school, was the business side of things but when you think about the brand you are trying to create and portray to people, the more the names of my platforms were different, it just splits your brand and it is not cohesive. In my opinion and the people I have learned from it is absolutely important to have all your handles match.

How do you actually get the payment from your customer into your bank account?

Stripe.

Why did you choose Stripe over other forms of payment systems?

I do also use Paypal but that is more if someone DMs me. On the website I use strip because at the time I set up my business I didn’t have a business Paypal account and I couldn’t link the two so I got some advice from a graphic designer who told me Stripe works with WordPress really well.

How did you decide about shipping policies and how those get paid for?

I did some research about what was going to be the most effective and safe and least expensive for my customer because a lot of my customers come from the States and Canada and Australia actually, and shipping can be exorbitant. So I just let them know that this will be tracked to your door for this amount of money and if you want something extra then you will need to pay extra. I just tried to get to know my customers a little bit and and tried to put together a shipping profile that made sense to them and not be a barrier.

How do you promote your online store?

Just kind of the way most people do now. I pick a shop update, date and market the heck out of that and let people know, and then update the shop and see what happens. Then some people reach out in between shop updates for things.

How do you ensure security with your sales and online customers identities and email addresses and things like that?

Have you heard of GDPR?

Tell me about it.

Of course in this moment I am going to forget what that stands for, but a year ago GDPR came into play over here.

It’s the compliance! General Data Protection Regulation. I just looked it up.

Thank you.

Yes I absolutely have heard of that, yes.

Yes, so in order to comply with all of that you have to, well with my email list specifically my website doesn’t save anyone’s information once they have entered it. So anyone buying anything I get an invoice and that’s it, it’s not saved. But as far as my email list where there information is saved you have to show the trail that they’ve accepted they show the system that they have subscribed and that they agree to have their information safely and securely held and Mail Chimp does that for me.