I had always been on the hunt for a side hustle that would eventually grow and fulfill my dream of working from home again. I have had a fair amount of ‘no' moments and a few ‘ok this might work’ moments but no ‘OMG I love doing this and I am earning’ moments… until now.
I have used Etsy on and off for several years. The ‘on' bit would be when I had a new idea and excitedly turned to Etsy to sell it. The off would be a few weeks later when I gave up after no sales. Those ‘fails’ were good because they were slowly teaching me about Etsy without me realizing it at the time.
I am still relatively new to my latest Etsy shop but I am earning, it's exciting and I wanted to share what I am finding to be working for my new side hustle shop selling digital items.
Etsy is a fabulous place for selling crafts you have made or vintage items. What sets Etsy apart from having your website is that searchers on Etsy are already searching with buying in mind. That is like gold dust for sellers. With a website, you first have to get traffic to your site and then the task of converting it into a buyer. That’s all hard work and takes up your valuable time.
Etsy is also great for selling digital items because you upload the files to Etsy and they send the buyer the items. You can see when they have been downloaded too. So there is no inventory to keep an eye on, no postal service to let you down and you can sell your item over and over, in your pyjamas!
So I am taking you on my journey as I sell on Etsy. So what am I selling? Invitations. But not invitations which I print and send out. I want something that doesn't mean I am at the mercy of the postal service to lose or damage. So I am selling printable invitations. It is a fairly saturated market but I am selling daily, so this is a good sign as there is a demand.
I will go into this a lot more in upcoming posts on how I use it etc but I am using something called Corjl. Corjl is an amazing platform that allows customers to edit their invite on their browser and then print it. How cool is that? This cuts out a lot of back-fourth emails on editing and means it's as instant as the customer wants. Anyway more on that later.
So let’s start at the beginning, you have something in mind you want to sell. Are you thinking of selling on Etsy? That’s fantastic. If you are jumping in right now here are 40 free Etsy listings that you can use before you open your shop ( sadly it only works before you open a shop, not afterward) Back to what you want to sell. I bet it’s something fabulous that you have poured your heart and soul into. But learning from my experiences I might be about to pop the first bubble. You may think your product is the best thing ever, it makes you smile, BUT is it something a stranger would buy? Does it solve a problem? Is there a demand for it? The first two you can research with friends and family, but the third is a bit like looking into the future. You can get an idea if there is a demand by looking on places like Etsy, eBay, and Google to see if there is something similar out there. Don’t get too disheartened if you see lots of competition as that means there is a market for it.
So let me leave that there for you to think on for a bit. I hope to see you in the next post about my side hustle as that means your idea has ticked the boxes.
Action List
◊ So what is your Etsy shop going to sell?
◊ Does it solve a problem?
◊ Is there a demand for it?
◊ Are you getting excited about having a little business that can grow?
If you want more support and inspiration, why not join the Passive Income Society? It’s packed with resources and a community that’s all about helping you succeed on your Etsy journey. Or, if you’re curious to learn more, check out our review of this amazing opportunity. If you are just starting on your Etsy journey you might be able to make use of these 40 Free Listings with Etsy
