EBay : 7 Questions with Tracy Lewis of Santa’s Ornament Shoppe

When Tracy Lewis was looking for a job that would let her spend more time with her children and grandchildren, her husband encouraged her to turn her passion for Christmas ornaments into an eBay business.

In just a couple years, the business has taken over their living room-and brought their family closer together.

Shop from Tracy's eBay store, Santa's Ornament Shop, and build some memories of your own.

7 Questions with Tracy Lewis of Santa's Ornament Shoppe

1. What does a typical day look like for you?

The first thing I do is go down to the computer and look at the orders that came in through the night.

I go through orders and make sure buyers have sent all the personalization details they want on their orders, like the names or years.

Next I go through the messages and see if there's any questions that buyers asked that I need to answer immediately.

Then it's pulling all the orders, sitting down, and starting to personalize each one.

After they're all personalized, they're all double-checked by my husband.

After that, we're printing the labels and wrapping and packaging them, which takes quite a bit of time. Then we're taking them off to the post office, coming home, then starting on the orders that have come in since then. So we always need to stay on top of it so I don't get behind.

1. What's one thing you would tell yourself when you first started your business?

When you're tired, just get some rest.

Don't give up and quit because you're just so tired. Get some rest, move on and start fresh the next day.

Because it can be tiring, especially in the beginning when you're getting the business up and running. There's a lot of work that goes into getting started. It may seem overwhelming at first. I know it was for me.

I wanted to go all in, and I just had to learn to take a rest whenever I needed it and just start fresh the next day.

Tracy, working alongside her children and grandchildren

1. What eBay tool do you find most useful? Why?

I would say the new personalization tool.

We just first discovered it this summer. We were always making sure that we got all the personalization details from the buyer themselves. But now there's a new personalization tool that allows them to put in all their personalization details right into their order.

That has been a huge help for us.

We first noticed it on another seller's page-not for ornaments, but for something else. My husband was like, "Tracy, come look at this. There has to be a way to do this!" He played around with it and discovered a way to be able to do it. So that was a huge help to us.

1. What's your process for sourcing or producing merchandise?

We have a few vendors that we work with for our ornaments. We build through their catalogs. We look at their inventory online.

We work with the same ones over and over, so it's nice working with them on a one-on-one basis. They can tell us what they have in stock and when they see things coming back in stock.

Honestly, we're having a hard time getting a lot of inventory, because so much is stuck at the port. Right now, our vendors are helping us find different alternatives-something else that they have that's similar to an item that we're looking for.

1. What's your selling superpower?

I think it's my pricing. I want to stay competitive-making sure that my price point is in a place where it's still affordable for the buyer, but it's also profitable for me as well.

And I want to make sure every ornament that goes out is as perfect as can be. So when buyers see it, they're like, "Wow, I really love this!" and they're going to take a picture of it and leave five-star feedback for me.

Tracy has taken full advantage of eBay's new personalization feature-as well as the order discount.

1. What's your top productivity hack?

My hack is having a good partner. Really, it's my husband.

If you're doing this with someone, make sure it's someone that can push you and remind you of your goals and the bigger picture.

1. Where do you see your business in 1 year? 5 years? 10 years?

Next year I see it bigger than what it is this year.

I see us starting a new shop. We're in the beginning phases of that-making a bigger area to work out of. That's what I'm hoping for in a year.

In 5 or 10 years? I hope we will have been in our new home with our new shop, with all our family members that want to continue to do this with us, working together, making it a true family business.

My children all have their own careers and their own lives, but they're here to help me, and I hope that it continues to grow that way. I'm thinking about that-when we get older, wanting to retire that maybe it's something they want to continue to do and carry on.

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This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.