In our past two articles we’ve covered how to earn passive income through Etsy and how to find your perfect niche to sell from. Today we’ll be looking at the process you’ll be taking to actually set up your store and get started with Etsy.
What You’ll be Selling
First of all you’ll need to understand what it is exactly you’ll be selling on Etsy. To generate passive income you want to look at selling digital products that do not require manufacturing for each sale. While selling homemade gifts might be excellent money for the artsy type it also requires an awful lot of time and effort and will not generate passive income. Digital products, however, only need to be created once and can then be sold on as many times as you wish. Examples of some digital products include:
- eBooks
- Patterns for arts & crafts (embroidery, sewing etc.)
- Photoshop brushes & textures
- Invitation templates
A digital product is simply any item that can be delivered electronically. These products thus do not require shipping, do not need to be handmade and provide an excellent opportunity for the online entrepreneur to establish a stable and effective passive income stream.
How to Make a Listing on Etsy
In the previous article, How To Earn Passive Income With A Digital Etsy Listing’ we discussed how to setup your online Etsy store. As mentioned before, Etsy has a great step-by-step guide which will educate you on how exactly to get your shop going. Once you’ve got an account setup you’re ready to make your first Etsy listing. As we said in our first Etsy article, you want to create an attractive profile that’s eye-catching and informative if you hope to generate any traffic. Follow these steps to make a killer listing:
- Make sure you select your product type as ‘digital’. Set your quantity to a high number (100 or so) to avoid having to relist your item each time it sells. Choose an eye-catching image for your photo – it may be best to use a Photoshopped image specific to your product as these can be easy to create and are highly informative. It’s important that your image is relevant to your photo and representative of your product. Try to add creativity to your stores presentation and layout – use a concise and informative title that stands out and evokes originality. Be different.
- Make it absolutely clear that your product is digital and not physical. Even if it seems a little excessive, it’s best to cover this before to avoid having to deal with complaints later. It’s a good idea to include information on exactly how you’ll be delivering the product too (file type, size, resolution etc.) – you want to try to cover all grounds possible when making your listing so make sure to explain your refunds policy and what customers can/cannot do with your product.
- Finally, you’ll need to put in your search terms – words that, when searched for, will direct customers to your site. Include as much detail about your product as you can here and make sure to put in words such as digital, download, printable, PDF etc.
Your First Sale
So your shop’s all up and running, you’ve posted a few listings and have an attractive and informative profile that stands out from the rest – but what do you do when somebody actually buys a product?
Well, nothing. Etsy’s fantastically automated system will redirect your customer to a ‘Download My Files’ window after they’ve made a purchase. From here, the buyer can simply download their purchases directly to their computer and will receive an email to confirm their purchase & deliver a back-up download link.
The Beauty of Selling Digitally on Etsy
The greatest thing about selling products digitally through Etsy is that you don’t need to invest any money at all into starting up your business. All you need to do is invest your time into creating a product to put out there – the rest is done for you!
Say you spent two weeks writing an eBook focused on how to manage your time effectively. Once written, the book would require no further investments of your time and will simply generate money totally passively. Even if your product makes absolutely no sales you will not have lost anything other than your time and will have gained great experiences in selling online.
So what are you waiting for? Head over to Etsy now and have a browse at the best-selling categories.
- Once you’ve chosen your niche (more on how to do this in our ‘How to Pick a Niche on Etsy’ article in this series), setup your account and an online store.
- Make your first few listing using our previous guide and let the sales roll in! You can make as many listings as you wish and sell as many different products as you have the time to make so don’t be shy about trying a few different items to see which works best.
- If your first couple don’t make many sells don’t give up.
- This isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme and it may take a few attempts to get things flowing smoothly.
Good luck!
