When I was unemployed back in 2019-2020, I would think 50x before purchasing expensive craft supplies. I would always find the cheapest alternative that I can find to create crochet products. I hunted every shipping free deal opportunity as much as I can to cut my creative cost.
I still remember how hurtful my creative soul with that situation.
Now, I’m grateful that I am employed and have money to buy craft supplies that I like to try out without thinking twice. But then, deep in my heart I know, my current situation will not be forever. I admit that I’m too comfortable now.
I have no marital duties, have no kids, drive a humble car, and have almost no commitment. That’s the point of my life where I don’t have to worry about sustaining my creative life.
While I cherish my current creative life while juggling with a day job, I knew that one day, some portion of my time and money will be channeled to other’s. That portion of time for others, will become bigger over time. How do I know? I learned from observation and project my future responsibilities. Perhaps my younger siblings’ education. Or perhaps I will have my own family. Or perhaps my corporate career will demand more time & attention from me as I will be more experience over time.
Before that situation come, I need to make changes now.
That’s when I realized that money is one of the key blocker that always made me feel less creative abundance. This year, I made an effort to figure out how to unblock that one creative block for the sake of my future.
And one day, I bumped into idea of passive income.
What is passive income and why?
Passive income is an income is not directly traded with amount of time, which is contrast to the meaning of active income. The common 9 to 5 job is one of the classic examples of active income; when a worker stops working, the income stops coming.
Meanwhile, passive income is income that obtained with minimum effort. Passive income doesn’t mean we require 0% effort. Usually, setting up the passive income system require a lot of work and income is not significant at the first few period of time. The hardwork will be paid off when the system has mature enough to be automized on its own with minimum maintenance and supervision.
For example; Youtube ads is one of the great passive income. During the first few months (depending on traction, numbers of views & subscribers), there are no monetization in Youtube. However, with consistent uploading new content with high quality videos + significant numbers of subscribers and views, the passive income will be started to build up over time.
When streams of passive income source snowballs over time, I will be no longer worrying about money and I will have a lot of time to spend on other things.
As my realization about scarcity of money and time leads to my potential creative block in future, I am so interested with the concept of passive incomes, hoping that I would be able to live creatively free without worrying about money. Plus point, I will never bring my emotions from day job to my creative desk! (that part SUCKS!)
Creating passive income with Etsy.
There are so many ways to create passive income; you can ask ChatGPT, Google and Youtube for ideas. (Maybe I should make a post on my favourite passive income). One of the idea of passive income stream that I learned is selling digital products in Etsy.
Now, what the heck is digital products and how it works on Etsy?
Whenever you purchase a book on Amazon, you will receive a specified book at your home which you can touch and hold; that’s known as a physical product. While a book in form of digital, which is known as e-book, is a digital product. You don’t have that physical book, instead you read the same book via phone or tablet. Other digital product examples are Excel spreadsheet, digital notes, music, e-books, e-journal, pattern instruction and planners template.
Digital product is awesome because the owner only have to create it once, but it can be purchased unlimited times as long as the product available on the listing. To add more the awesome-ness, you don’t have to ship anything! I love the concept of selling digital product as I don’t have to keep physical inventory (which always eat up space in my room) and I don’t have to deal with the hassle of creating, packaging and shipping order. Selling digital products in Etsy also can be downloaded almost instantly after a customer make a purchase. These features allow me to focus on digital product listing and customer service while not have to worry on inventory and shipping.
Customers also have their own advantages purchasing digital products:
- They get instant download. They don’t have to wait 2-3 days for the products to arrive at their house
- The purchase is far way more cheaper compared to physical product
- Skip the shipping cost. They can print the digital products on their own instantly
Why selling digital products on Etsy?
This is because Etsy has their pre-built traffic with over 90 million visitors. Etsy also known for various digital products and customer can get the digital products immediately after payment has been made. There are already A LOT OF ready buyers visiting on Etsy every day.
I was hesitant about Etsy at the first place. I was worrying so much about saturated market, and I always thinking it is too late to join Etsy. Plus, I’m from a country who does not frequently buying Etsy products. However, I still wanted to give a shot. I think, I have nothing to lose if everything is not going well. There are still the upfront cost but I would say the cost to starting up is very minimal and suitable for small business owner who are just starting.
I happen to know Lindsay Ashworth (A Touch of LA) during the pursuit of searching of passive income ideas. I enrolled her one-time course and a month after that, I was invited to Go Digital on Etsy Summit for free. During that time, I was still feeling unconfident about passive income in Etsy (even though I have gone through Lindsay’s course and took some action on it) but I decided to follow my heart to attend summit. After all, again, I have nothing to lose. The summit was free, I got A LOT OF digital goodies and able to network with like-minded Etsy coaches.
My thoughts before and after attending summit
1. Etsy is saturated. And the listing fee is inappropriate to charge
I thought Etsy is saturated; there is no opportunity for new seller to shine. It’s scary, right? I used to overthink; what if I have ZERO sales on Etsy, and wasting my 20 cents dollars of Etsy listing?
To give you a context, I am from Malaysia. To spend money in dollars are very expensive. It’s like 4 times expensive compared to MYR currency. 20 cents dollar feels too much for me!
But well, it is not true that the listing fee is expensive. Etsy has its number one strength that people can’t deny: Etsy has in-built audience! There are 94 million active buyers and 7.3 million sellers in Etsy. Yes there are lots of sellers in Etsy, but there are way too many buyers compared to sellers. There’s definitely gaps and opportunity. Ready buyers are already there to find products that they love. All new sellers have to do is to figure out what buyers are actually searching and make the products ready in front of them.
Who can give you such massive traffic with just 20 cent dollar per listing? It’s way worth it.
2. Digital products are competitive!
I kinda startled when I key in ‘digital product’ at Etsy search bar; it populates A LOT OF established best-selling digital products. It demotivates me, I swear. I feel like digital products are too easy to produce hence there are digital products are competitive.
But my mind changed about it after attending the summit. When digital products are competitive and looks saturated, it gives a huge sign that there are ready buyers finding digital products in Etsy. The worries about competition can be beat by niching down, focusing that one group of people that you want to help and using competition checker tools (i.e erank, everbee, marmalead).
I prefer to think about my kind of audience that I want to help. From there, I figure out what product should I produce. I may browse digital products that are available in Etsy and made a twist; either in terms of formatting, colors or style.
I put competition checker tools as my least factor in deciding to design a digital product. To be honest I hate using competition checker tools. They always gave me that nerve of, ‘hey this product won’t sell’. It blocks my creativity flow.
I made lavendar crochet pattern as my very first digital product. I listed it. That’s the only one listing that I have. I acknowledged that there are many crocheters uploaded lavendar crochet pattern as well. I felt hesitant and not confident about my listing. After two months, I got 3 sales! I felt disbelieved. I just need to have proof to keep going.
2. There’s no way to own our audience in Etsy
This is true. When a buyer shops in Etsy, Etsy own them, not the Etsy seller. There’s probably many times buyer told her friends, ‘I bought this jewelery in Etsy!’. Not from you.
This was a part that I really feel discouraged to set up a store in Etsy.
Not to mention, Etsy has authority to change terms & conditions, and algorithm changes! It is tiring to keep up Etsy’s changes from time to time.
In Etsy summit, many coaches taught the importance of having our own email marketing to own our customers. And this is to ensure high return customers shop in our store while building relationship with customers outside Etsy. I found this approach is interesting! I never thought about email marketing to retain customers.
3. Selling digital products are 100% passive income
I wasn’t expecting it is 100% passive income but I was looking to learn what’s the not-so-passive side of this business.
And my hypothesis was correct; it’s not 100% passive income. It’s not easy money. We still need to pour effort especially at the first stage of building Etsy shop.
Below are typical process of product making until product is shipped (cradle to grave). I classify which parts are active and which parts are passive.
- Product development – active. You need to think on this. Of course there’s a lot of resources can be leveraged such as artifical intelligence, pinterest, canva, etc.
- Taking order – passive. Etsy has automated system
- Making order – passive. We don’t have to make order. That’s the beauty of digital products. You only develop once and can be sold many many times without putting effort making it every time.
- Shipping order – passive. The downloads are ready in their inbox once buyer purchased the digital product. It’s automated by Etsy. No more hassle of packing and drive to post office. And no more thinking the shipping fee too!
- Customer service – Active. For me, this is such a hardwork in the beginning to build trust and guidance how to use printables. Along the way, this can be automated via email marketing and providing clarity on the products to minimize potential questions from customers.
Well, at least half of it is passive. Good news, right?
4. Customer service on post sales is not important
I really have no idea about customer servicing before and post sales. I thought after a sale is made, that’s it. That’s the end. And I don’t have ideas that Etsy buyers crave so much about uniqueness and personalization until we have to converse with them a personalized message (ie addressing their name instead of generalized them). Follow ups after sales are important too to make sure that customers are able to utilize our digital products.
As of before sales, it is important that we have provide enough clarity about our products; such as instructions, resources to refer and what’s inside of the printables.
5 things that I learned from Go Digital on Etsy Summit 2023
As a person who just know Etsy (I never shop in Etsy and don’t really know what is the nature of Etsy marketplace) who has just one humble crochet pattern listing and had 3 sales within two months, the summit is incredibly helpful and overwhelming at the same time! And it did gave me hope that I needed so much, opening a big opportunity for my future self. As I’m aware the feeling of overwhelm creeping me, I decided to take few things to take immediate actions and the rest info is to be kept as ideas; maybe it will be useful for future Etsy journey.
With that, here are 5 things that I learned from the summit
1. Know your priority.
To manage the overwhelming feeling, the first presentation by Sarah Waggoner has setting up priority list for different type of Etsy sellers and I decided to prioritize:
- Product pipeline
- Listing quality (listing images, description, SEO)
- Post sales activity such as customer service
Things that I want to keep as future ideas is setting up marketing funnel. I love the ideas of setting our own marketing channel such as email listing and media social to build customer loyalty and to beat Etsy changing algorithm (they do sometimes). However, I decided to keep that as least priority and focus on product listing first.
Different Etsy seller have different priority. Probably, a person who have been longer in Etsy should setup marketing strategy. For Etsy newbie like me, I should focus on who should I help and what kind of digital products should I create to help them.
2. Create one thoughtful, high quality listing, one at a time. Quality over quantity
I thought the Etsy game is like; the more listings I have, the higher sales will I get. I could do mindless product to grow the number of listings in my shop but it wasn’t work that way.
As Etsy is a place where people find handmade, vintage and one-of-a-kind product, it is highly expected that the products are personalized, making them feel special an important as a customer. Hence, improving customer experience such as provide good photo pictures, provide enough information in listing pictures and description and following up after sales is very important to convince buyer to buy our product without so much question. I learned from Upstrider this important lesson; an Etsy shop doesn’t need a big listing to success, but it require quality listing over quantity. She even taught us to put up ‘sales page like experience’ in the product photos during the summit.
Other than photos, make sure to optimize SEO in the listing title to help buyer to find you. This require practice to learn SEO. In short, think what customer will be typing in the search bar to find your product.
3. Customer service
Before I joined Etsy, I really don’t have any idea how to provide best customer service for customers. The idea is to ensure understand what product that customer will be getting and to make sure minimum questions left in customer’s mind while they browsing your listing. On top of that, best customer service will lead to recurring order from the same customer as they are comfortable to shop at your Etsy store.
For example, if I selling a crochet pattern, I should give a snapshot and sneak peak how my pattern pdf looks like, so that customer will get a clarity what they will get. Some digital products might require guidelines & tutorials how to use the products. This will ensure customer has minimum question in their head after browsing your digital product and convinced to buy.
After you make a sale, follow up them via convo and to address them by their name; personalization, remember? even in the convo. Convey a message that we are thankful to them shopping at our store and offer assistance to them if required.
4. Put effort to rank up the product listing
As a new seller, my shop looks not established yet as I don’t have reviews and star seller badge. To obtain legit and honest review, one effort can be done is by offering customer a coupon code for next order with exchange of feedback from them. This way, my shop can ranked up quickly and future customer will be more convinced to buy our product.
5. The legal part of Etsy
This part is very technical, boring and not influence directly to our shop rank and sales. BUT it do protect seller from possible issues related by legal. Better be safe than sorry.
Post summit: my immediate action and plan
1. I want to improvise my first listing in terms of:
- Pictures listing. Provide funnel via picture as taught by Anne from Upstrider. Provide sneak peak of printable as taught by Lindsay. To think again as a customer; if I want to buy this pattern, does all the information provided in the pictures listing is helpful?
- Product name, to re-think again about SEO as taught by Dylan Jahraus
2. I want to plan for product pipeline as taught by Sarah Waggoner. To determine occasions and celebrations and to brainstorm on digital product
3. To focus on that one group of people with this issue; a crocheter who struggles to be creative and inspired