Journal logo

How I’ve Made Over $1600 Selling Digital Products

My results from 1 year of selling on Etsy

By FlorinPublished 2 years ago 3 min read
Like

It’s been over a year since I started my Etsy shop and I remember it like it was yesterday.

I was sitting in my dorm room panicking over my dwindling bank account balance. I had just paid $150 to campus parking enforcement to get my car back after it had been towed. That’s a lot of money for a broke college student.

I didn’t have any source of income and I was starting to sweat. It was either get a job, or find some other way to make some money for gas and food. I had been blogging for forever with no results. I needed something quicker.

That’s when the lightbulb moment happened.

I’m not even joking. I literally started my Etsy shop because I was pissed at being forced to pay a hefty (for a broke college student, anyway) fine for illegal parking.

While it’s not made me rich yet, my shop has grown more than I ever expected originally. I’ve now made over $1600 in revenue from it, and most of that is passive income.

The first thing I want to mention is that I sell digital products, so I have no material or shipping costs.

The only expense I have to operate my shop is my monthly Canva Pro subscription.

Some of my products require me to customize them for the customer, but the majority of them are completely passive. As soon as someone places an order, they receive a download link to their files. No interaction with me is needed unless there’s a problem with the order — which isn’t often.

I create all of my products in Canva and have my process nailed down so that it takes me between 10 and 30 minutes to make and list a new item. My products range in price anywhere from $3 to $15.

I’ve gotten over 300 orders and made $1600 in revenue since I started. Taking into account Etsy’s fees — they charge $0.20 for new listings and a small percentage for each sale — I’d say I’ve actually profited about $1300.

I’ve taken a pretty hands-off approach, but I’ve still managed to consistently make $100 almost every single month. Are those groundbreaking results? Definitely not, but earning an extra $100 each month with minimal work is always nice.

I know there are people who are overnight successes on Etsy, but those stories are few and far between. I think my results are a realistic view of what you can achieve starting an Etsy shop from scratch.

And while it’s definitely not enough to pay the bills, I’ve been pretty happy with my progress.

These are the things that I think helped me grow my shop the most.

I used keywords and optimized my listings. It’s important to use long, descriptive titles and descriptions on Etsy. You also get 13 tags per listing, and I always make sure to take advantage of all of them.

I created products that were popular. When I was brainstorming digital products I could make, I noticed that there were a lot of sellers creating Instagram story highlight covers. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I put my own spin on the idea and just went with it. These have been a huge hit for me and are so easy to make.

I utilized Pinterest. Because I was creating products that were popular, I decided to give Pinterest a try. I’ve gotten amazing results from it, and now I’d estimate that I get anywhere from 70 to 80 percent of my shop traffic from it.

I started my Etsy shop on a whim, but it’s gotten better results than I thought it would.

I create all of my products in Canva Pro and don’t have to deal with any of the material or shipping costs that physical product sellers do.

My profits have been steady month to month, and they’ve been mostly passive. I achieved this by optimizing my listings with keywords, creating popular products, and using Pinterest.

Maybe you’ve been considering Etsy as your next side hustle, and I hope this article motivated you to go for it. Because if I can generate $1600 in revenue without difficulty, just imagine what you could do.

workflow
Like

About the Creator

Florin

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

Florin is not accepting comments at the moment

Want to show your support? Send them a one-off tip.

Find us on social media

Miscellaneous links

  • Explore
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Support

© 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.