Make Money Digital Product

Many people ask me what business I have that provides me with consistent passive income and daily sales; if you haven’t guessed by now, it’s an Etsy shop! In this blog post, I will talk about my experience of how I made my first sale selling digital products on Etsy as a beginner.

It is no longer a secret, and I am grateful that Etsy has become another source of passive income for me. Sales change frequently, and sometimes it can bring in double of my full-time job income while I only work 1-2 hours per week on Etsy.

Before I begin talking about my experience on How I Made My First Sale on Etsy Selling Digital Products on Etsy, I want to delve into why choose Etsy to sell digital products?.

Why use Etsy.com?

I remember when I first started to open my Etsy shops in 2019, I was a postgraduate student waiting for my first job. As an organisation freak, I was madly in love with a this fantastic digital business planner on Etsy. As a result, I started as a buyer, purchasing a lot of digital items from Etsy such as digital planners, digital stickers, blog themes, clip arts and brushes for my Procreate (drawing apps).

Etsy is more than just a marketplace for handcrafted item

Etsy is more than just a marketplace for handcrafted and vintage items; it is also a large marketplace for digital products and printables. Etsy also is a well-known and established platform across the globe. This means that there is already a built-in audience of potential customers.

Etsy allows digital file uploads

Etsy has features to upload of digital file during creating a listing. This also means that if a person purchases a digital product on Etsy, the digital files will be downloaded automatically.

I saw those Etsy sellers who sell digital products (such as Canva templates , Printables and Lightroom preset) made hundreds thousands of sales on Etsy. That really impressed me, and I knew if other people could do it, I could too.

Thereby, I saw a golden opportunity to start selling digital products for passive income on Etsy.

In 2019, Etsy was completely new to me,I am a beginner as it is to most regular people, and I had no idea how to open a shop or set up a new shop; thus, I did my research on how to open an Etsy shop, how to sell digital products on Etsy etc

Sadly, there’s not much resources that teaches us how to sell digital products on Etsy. Therefore, I need to do my own experiment. I purchased a lot of digital products to get the sense of how people deliver the digital items to customer , how they protect the digital product privacy etc.

Unlike today, you can find so many resources over the internet on how to make money selling digital products or printables on Etsy. I also teaches thousand of people on how to start your Etsy shop the right way and sell digital downloads on Etsy.

How to Start Selling on Etsy

Credit card vs Debit Card

You must provide your credit card information to become an Etsy seller. And, unfortunately, I didn’t have any credit cards because I hadn’t been working and had just finished my studies. I attempted to use my debit card information but was unsuccessful. I tried so many times, but it never worked. So I had no choice but to open an Etsy shop with a credit card.

The bad news was that I wasn’t working at the time, so I couldn’t get a credit card. However, because I have a bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery, which is a very secure degree for getting the job, the bank agent said that all I needed to do was show my offer letter to get a credit card.

So I was ecstatic to learn that, even though he informed me that the credit card has an annual fee, which I am fine with. I was desperate to get a credit card so that I could start my Etsy shop. I have no intention of using a credit card to make any purchases. It was solely for the purpose of opening a new shop, and the process took about a week to run background checks and finally get approved.

Is a credit card required to open an Etsy shop?

I remember how desperate I was, and while I waited for that approval, I opened an Etsy shop with my second debit card. I didn’t use that debit card earlier because the bank card was old and I hadn’t used it in a long time. I had heard that I needed to switch to a new card and activate it.

Can you guess what happened? It surprised me how well it worked. Guys, the debit card actually worked! So, if you don’t have a credit card, you can use a debit card instead. If the debit card does not work, simply use a different debit card.

I was ecstatic to finally have an Etsy shop. I was so happy that I decided to post it on Instagram. And people DM with questions like, “What is Etsy?” What type of store is that? “Can you tell me what you do for a living?” Etsy clearly does not have a large following in my country.

What are my initial products?

I can’t wait to launch my first product. Because my first two Etsy purchases were a blog theme and a digital planner, I created and uploaded my first digital planner! I also attempted to make stickers after falling in love with others’, but I’m not a good designer. I’m not particularly talented at colouring or designing. But I was still giving it my all. I look for ideas and try to model them, but the stickers turn out terrible.

Digital planners, a notebook, and sticky notes are my first products. They are still available in my shop. My expectations were high; I expected to make 1–10 sales in my first week or month, but I was not making any. So I was devastated and ready to give up.

It’s time to change course.

When something isn’t working, it’s sometimes necessary to pivot and try selling something else. As a buyer myself, I enjoy searching and browsing on Etsy, so I did a lot of window shopping (which was super fun).

On Etsy, I came across a few intriguing ideas while browsing. I saw people selling thank-you cards, social media templates, and ebook templates. My interest was piqued most by the online course templates. 

I saw other people creating multiple templates for online courses, and the owner made thousands of sales at a higher price point. So I thought, “Oh, this is a great idea,” and I saw an opportunity for me to step in, and perhaps people will also buy my templates.

So I made my first online course template and made my first sale. Hooray! 

I then began researching tips for making sales on Etsy and implemented some of the advice I received from YouTube.

My Quick Tips on How I Made My First Sale on Etsy Selling Digital Products

Etsy Tips 1 : Make a stunning cover.

So the first thing I did was design lovely covers. It is difficult to create colours that are both engaging and beautiful. My first Etsy cover looked like a regular photograph. The cover was not at all appealing. So the idea is that you want to create beautiful covers in order to drive sales to your Etsy shop. For inspiration, look at other people’s work. Look at what they put on the front of their product! What are they attempting to highlight?

because that is also something you should emphasize. I sell course templates, for example. Perhaps I should emphasise who my template is intended for, which is an online course instructor. Perhaps I should emphasise who my template is intended for, which is an online course instructor. I also want to emphasise what they get from my templates, which contain more than 30 pages. As a result, I made that feature stand out on my Etsy cover.

Etsy Tips 2 : Keywords | SEO Optimized Title

My second piece of advice is to optimise the keywords. You can conduct research beginning with the title. It is acceptable to create your own title and keywords. Make sure to use long-tail keywords, and if you can do research, that’s even better. You want to know what keywords your competitor is using, and you can certainly use the same ones by gathering them first and selecting the best. Simply combine them to form your title and keywords.

Etsy Tips 3 : Keywords |SEO Optimized Descriptions 

The third piece of advice is to include a few more keywords in the descriptions. because it indicates to Etsy that you are emphasising this. So you can put a lot of the same thing in the descriptions, like when I started [inaudible 07:30]. This is similar to digital products. Online course instructors can use Canva templates.

These lovely Canva templates are essential for online course instructors. Make sure to repeat the keywords in whatever you want to see in the description. And two or three keywords are sufficient. However, you want it to include the keywords.

After that, you’ll want to the buyer’s cart. So all you have to do is tell them about a product and how it will benefit them. and how they will gain access to your products if you buy them. Simply describe their journey prior to, during, and after their purchases.

Etsy Tips 4 : Add several products.

That’s exactly what I did earlier today. And I was constantly adding new products. It will probably take two to three weeks or a month. So I’ve got four Canva templates and then some products on [inaudible 08:42]. That was the end of it. I couldn’t commit because I was too preoccupied with my horsemanship training, where it says I’m studying to be a real doctor. So, in essence, I was not managing Etsy full-time. But then I made my first sale using Etsy’s algorithm and actual traffic. The process is then repeated for a total of ten sales. I eventually had 100 sales.

However, in order to achieve 100 sales, I implemented additional strategies, which I will discuss in the following post. So make sure you read it.

Thank you for your contributions!

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