Josh Cutler
Why Should You Sell Digital Products on Etsy?
The possibility for passive revenue is one of the main reasons why vendors are interested in digital products. “Make once and sell forever.” Once you’ve developed the product, it may possibly sell indefinitely without you needing to manufacture it again.
Behind Amazon and eBay, Etsy is one of the largest internet shops. Every day, a big number of customers search Etsy for digital items, either for their personal projects or for companies. With the built-in traffic, there is a lot of opportunity for success on Etsy if you know how to choose the proper goods to sell.
It is quite inexpensive to begin selling digital files on Etsy. The listing charge is $0.2 per listing, and the transaction fee is 5% when you sell. Many of the design softwares available are also very cheaply priced. We’ll go through some of the alternatives later.
One of the reasons why digital downloads are popular is that they save clients time and money. A DIY digital product is considerably more easy and hassle-free for the consumer than hiring a designer to create a bespoke design.
Can You Make a Living Selling Digital Products on Etsy?
Etsy is a terrific location to sell digital things and perhaps earn passive money. One of the primary reasons is that digital items may be delivered automatically.
In your product listings, Etsy enables you to upload up to 5 digital files (each with a size restriction of 20mb). The file may be a downloadable planner, a digital birthday card, or a children’s learning workbook, for example. More examples will be provided later in this tutorial.
Once your buyers have bought the product listing, Etsy will assist you in delivering your file to them. Customers get the files instantly after purchasing them. They will also be able to go to their purchases and download the file without engaging you. This significantly reduces the amount of effort required on your side.
Some design platforms, such as Corjl and Templett, may assist you in providing customizable templates to your consumers. Customers may alter the designs (such as the wording and colors) before downloading the files. Editable business cards and editable wedding invites are two examples.
It implies that after you’ve created your digital designs, you may sell them again and again without having to ship anything to your buyers.
Finding things that truly sell is the key to success with a passive income digital product business – follow the demand!
I wrote the Etsy Passive Cash Playbook, in which you will learn all of the stages to creating a profitable business that generates income even while you sleep.
For now, here are some of the most popular digital product categories on Etsy to get you started:
Some Popular Digital Product Creation Tools
- Canva (overall great option for selling digital designs)
- Corjl (for hosting editable templates)
- Templett (alternative to Corjl)
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Lightroom (for editing photos & making Lightroom presets)
- Affinity Photo & Designer (alternatives to Photoshop and Lightroom without a monthly subscription)
- Gimp (free online alternative to Photoshop)
- Inkscape (free alternative to Illustrator)
- Picmonkey (alternative to Canva)
- Procreate (illustration tool for iPad)
- Apple Keynote (for creating digital planners for Goodnotes)
- Creative Market (for getting high quality graphics & fonts to speed up the process)
- Envato Elements (similarly high quality graphics & fonts. Unlimited downloads on a subscription)
Etsy’s 30 Most Popular Digital Products
Labels for Cosmetics
Small company entrepreneurs who wish to establish a handmade business hunt for product labels. Jar labels, dropper bottle labels, soap labels, and a plethora of other options are available. This is also the segment in which we chose to simplify the procedure for small handcrafted enterprises.
Thank You Notes
Etsy merchants include a thank you letter with their orders to highlight the handcrafted nature of their items. For them, downloading a design and printing it at home is a fast option.
Printable Calendars
A planner is an excellent tool for helping salespeople keep organized and focused on their objectives. It’s a little seasonal commodity, with a higher demand in the start of the year. Buyers download and print the planner at home to use right now.
Digital Calendars
The iPad digital planner is also highly popular. Notability and Goodnotes are two of the most popular applications on which they are used.
Logos
A professional logo is required for any business. It provides clients a professional first impression. On Etsy, logo design is a large sector with fierce competition but also high demand.
Cards for Business
A business card is essential for promoting your brand and its information. Business card design is a thriving and competitive industry.
Assets for an Etsy Shop
What better item to offer on Etsy than one designed just for Etsy sellers? Banners, Shop Icons, and other items are required for practically all Etsy merchants, and some have a lot of success selling them.
Templates for Social Media
The majority of companies have social media profiles, such as Instagram and Facebook. Selling post templates may save business owners a significant amount of time when it comes to creating professional-looking social profiles.
Cards that are printable (Birthday, Invitations)
Have you ever held a party and needed to purchase a large number of invitation cards? Me too! You may offer card designs like that and have clients print them at home to save them time.
Printables for Personal Development
Buyers’ well-being is the goal of printables such as exercise planners and diet planners.
Earn Passive Income From Your Own Online Store
After selling 5,000 digital downloads on Etsy in a year, I recorded what I know in the Etsy Passive Income Playbook course to assist entrepreneurs like you.
The goal is to provide you with a clear route to success. As a result, you won’t have to squander time or energy on your travel.
You’ll learn how to select your ideal niche, build great items, and produce high-converting listings. So you may start generating that enticing passive income.
Check out Etsy Passive Income Playbook
Printable Wedding Invitations
Wedding printables are a popular Etsy category. Etsy has everything linked to a wedding that you can think of. Invitations, menus, baby shower activities, and so much more!
Printable Event
These make organizing a whole lot simpler. You may create printables such as a birthday banner, décor, invitations, and a selfie frame to assist customers save time and money.
Printable Cafe/Restaurant
Opening a restaurant or a café takes a significant amount of time and work. Why not contribute to their identity by designing menus, cafe art, loyalty cards, and signage?
Learning Resources for Children
Many retailers provide learning materials and toys for newborns and young children. Alphabet and number cards, shape toys, and so forth. Remember to make them cute for the younger audience.
Ebooks and manuals
Do you have any experience that you can share with others? It could be a good idea to create a guide and sell it on Etsy.
Workbooks
Workbooks, like calendars and other printables, are often aimed towards self-care and self-improvement purchasers. They buy, download, and print the content to use immediately.
Presets for Lightroom
Presets are a fast method for individuals to modify photographs in Lightroom, which is a popular photo editing tool.
Phone Backgrounds
Selling wallpaper arts is a terrific method for consumers to customize their phone displays if you are a digital artist.
Icon Pack for iOS
iPhone users have been able to alter the icons of their applications on the phone since iOS 14. When iOS 14 was introduced in 2020, it quickly became a popular niche.
Wall Decor
Create a digital version of your artwork by scanning it or developing it digitally using applications such as Photoshop or Procreate. People hunt for wall art that they can print themselves to save money and time.
Templates for Resumes
Many individuals use Etsy to get professional-looking resume templates for their job-searching endeavors. They are often designed to work with Microsoft Word and Google Doc.
Patterns for crochet, knitting, embroidery, and sewing
If you have the ability and desire to make these patterns, Etsy is a terrific location to sell them.
Recipe Books
Home cooks and chefs are always developing new recipes, and they wish to record any excellent ones. Recipe cards are a simple method for people to print off a blank card and put down a recipe for future inspiration.
Meal Planning Sheets
These cards are a great method for consumers who want to reduce weight and build muscle to keep on track.
Coloring Pages (Adults Or Kids)
Coloring books provide a creative outlet for children. However, adult coloring books have gained popularity in recent years as a method to be creative while also de-stressing.
Images for Clip Art
Digital art is created by artists and sold as clip art. Typically, these are little pieces that customers purchase in large quantities to utilize in their own projects or to print off to personalize their things.
Papers in Digital Format
Customers usually print out pattern paper patterns for scrapbooking and handicraft.
Background Zoom
Another newly popular item, zoom and other online meeting applications, took momentum during the epidemic. A personalized backdrop may express individuality or just conceal a cluttered bedroom.
Templates for Excel
Accounting and profit calculator are two common Microsoft Excel templates. They are intended for store owners who wish to better manage their income and costs.
Website Layouts
Website templates and themes are a simple method to get started for purchasers who want to design their own website. WordPress, Wix, and Shopify are some prominent website development systems.
Etsy Digital Download File Formats
JPG, PNG, and PDF are the most ubiquitous and commonly used file formats. The best one to utilize depends on your product.
If you want to offer a graphic with a transparent backdrop, for example, you’ll need a file format like PNG or SVG. If you’re selling an ebook, PDF is generally the best format to use.
Etsy now accepts the following file types:
- .bmp
- .doc
- .gif
- .jpeg
- .mobi
- .mov
- .mp3
- .mpeg
- .psp
- .rtf
- .stl
- .txt
- .zip
- .ePUB
- .iBook
Things to Think About When Choosing Which Digital Product to Sell
Discover Your Interests and Skills
While it is not always the ideal strategy, deciding what to sell based on your interests and talents might be a smart place to start. The secret to success is to match your passion and expertise to what others are seeking for online.
Conduct market research to determine the viability of your idea.
In an ideal world, you would sell a product that is in great demand and had little competitors. Here are a few things you can take to guarantee you make the best decision possible.
The Etsy search bar offers a feature that automatically shows the top keywords based on what you put in. If you enter “silver,” you can get phrases like “silver jewelry” and “silver clothes.”
These keywords are derived from Etsy customers and what they are searching for. Keywords that show as a recommendation in the search box are likely to be in demand.
This is also possible on other markets such as eBay and Amazon.
Looking at the quantity of items listed in a certain keyword for competition is a smart place to start. The more items there are, the more difficult it is to rank and appear in search results.
To learn more, consider the amount of key rivals in a certain area. These are vendors who have at least 5000 sales or 1000 reviews. The more of those rivals there are, the more difficult it is for a small vendor to enter into that market.
Check out the Etsy Passive Income Playbook to learn how to uncover high demand, low competition digital product ideas.
Consider the difference between seasonal and evergreen items.
An evergreen item is one that has consistent demand all year. Products such as business cards have about the same number of buyers regardless of the month.
Seasonal items, such as Christmas cards, have a rise in demand around a certain time of year.
To begin, try offering evergreen things to maintain regular earnings. Once your business is established, you may add seasonal products to capitalize on seasonal increases in demand.
Additional Frequently Asked Questions
What Is the Etsy Digital Download Process?
Etsy is an excellent site for selling digital downloads since they manage product delivery for you. When you make a product listing on Etsy, you may upload the product’s file. You may upload a variety of file types, including PDF, JPG, and zip, with a file size maximum of 20mb per file.
When a buyer puts an order for that product listing, Etsy will offer them a link to download the PDF right away. They may also go to the download page later by going to their ‘Purchases and Reviews’ page.
How Do You Handle Digital Product Returns?
There will always be unsatisfied consumers, no matter how good your product is. Because digital goods are often lesser priced things and developing one does not incur additional costs, I would advocate completely refunding consumers who are dissatisfied the majority of the time. It’s not always worth the effort to correct an issue for products that are merely a few bucks. It’s also a fantastic method to prevent getting bad feedback on your Etsy business.