The Hustle Truth – Etsy, making it rain!

I love old school scrapbooking and I love hosting parties and honouring the special occasions of my friends so when I came across this side hustle, I thought, now this is something that could turn into a real passion project for me.

THE HUSTLE

So if you haven’t seen one of the 9,693,723,131 clips on how to easy it is to make it rain by selling digital products on Etsy, let me give you the script.

“It is soooooo easy, let me show [this one Etsy store owner] who has sold [crazy number] of [digital product], making [tens of thousands of dollars] and it only takes 10 mins”. Cue audience “ooo” and “ahhh”.

THE PROCESS AND THE TRUTH

1. The set up – In November 2022, I set up an ETSY store to start selling digital products – see here https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/SprinkleLikeConfetti?ref=shop_onboarding&ele=shop_open.
   
   The set up itself took a few hours, coming up with a shop name, following all the prompts, etc. I am sure that this would be quicker for someone who has better computer skills and you can see from my store, it is still very much in its infancy. There is a much larger time commitment in making it “fancy”.
   
2. The product development – I decided to start with bridal shower invitations and a games. I have had the honour of organising a few bridal showers for my beautiful friends, so it was something that spoke to my heart. I downloaded Canva (make sure you get the free version) and then spent an hour or so teaching myself how to use the program. After that I spent HOURSSSSSSSSSSS developing my first product collection which I have used as the template for my future collections.
   
3. Listing – The listing process is pretty straight forward and once you have set up a template you can duplicate the listing which saves time. Each listing is USD0.20 and the listing remains active for 3 months and then you need to pay the listing fee again. Again, being self-taught, my listings are basic but evolving.
   
   TRICK 1 – Duplicate!!! Check out what other successful stores are using for SEOs and tage.
   
   TRICK 2 – You can share your posts directly to social media such as Pinterest to increase traffic – hasn’t worked for me yet but I am still refining.
   
   Keep an eye on this post because as I learn tips and tricks, I’ll add them in. I think this is going to become really important as this niche is saturated.
   
4. Research – In looking to improve my listings and traffic, there are a few key recommendations: (a) SEO (search engine optimisation); and (b) visual appeal. I’ve spent another 3 or 4 hours looking at comparable products and looking at ways to improve my product. Tips / Tricks so far:
   – people buy with their eyes, so present professional and pretty tiles
   – make the product directly’ downloadable’ and ‘editable’ by the customer (still working out how to do this)
   
5. Next steps for March 2023 – Continue to develop products, hopefully reaching 20 products and spend one of my ‘side hustle’ Sundays researching marketing strategies for success.

CURRENT STATUS – 28 FEBRUARY 2023
Since opening my store in November, I have added 7 products and made 0 income. On the visits, it is quite possible that at least 50% of those are me visiting my own page. Is it raining? Far from… we are in drought over here!

Products

Views and Revenue