TIPS & TRICKS

Etsy Myths debunked

I don't know what to sell in my Etsy shop!

How do you choose what to sell? That is the first question of every beginner shop owner.

When I first started my DigiShoppe, I listed everything from digital papers to gift tags to weightloss planners. Most of them were a great big FLOP! Somehow I got on a bunch of people's email lists and bought a lot of products that I really shouldn't have. BUT, I learned a lot and hopefully I can save you some flops.

There are sooooo many different types of digital products that you can sell it can be overwhelming! Here are just a few of the most popular categories:

Planners & Journals
Wall Art
Business Templates
Stationery & Organizational Printables
Educational Worksheets
Party Printables
Games & Activities
Digital Stickers
Fonts & Graphic Elements
Social Media Content
Website & Branding Assets

So, how do you decide what to sell? Some questions to ask yourself ...

What am I good at?
What am I NOT good at?
What am I passionate about?
Do I like big projects or short, quick ones?
How much time do I have to work on products?

Do you already have skills that could be useful? For instance, are you very organized and enjoy working with spreadsheets or checklists? Household planners and organizational products might be for you. Are you good at party planning? How about birthday party invitations, planners and banners? You get the idea.

Another thing to keep in mind is that some categories are extremely competitive! For instance, the wedding invitation and clip art niches are going to be more difficult to break into than small business forms, for instance.

Does that mean you shouldn't try to sell Wedding Invites? Not at all! To quote a friend "The riches are in the niches". In other words, the more you niche-down your products, the easier it will be to make sales. For instance, maybe instead of selling general wedding invitations, niche down to something like faith based wedding invites.

Ideally, you want to create products that have a high search volume and low competition.

The screenshots above are from eRank (an Etsy keyword tool). As you can see, the competition for regular wedding invitations is 603,825! But, if you niche down to Christian wedding invitations, it's only 1,512 so you stand a much better chance of ranking.

It does say that the search volume is less than 20 but the search volume doesn't always seem correct which is why I also check Google's search volume which is 12,100.

If you want to check out eRank, they do have a free version which gives you 5 free searches a day (I think 🤔) , I currently have the $6.99/mo plan.

HOMEWORK: Set up your Etsy shop!

Don't fret too much about the name... you can change it up to 5 times after it goes live.
Fill out ALL screens as completely as possible i.e. Privacy Policy, your bio, etc. Etsy seems to look at incomplete shops as unprofessional and not serious.
For your shop banner, take a look at Canva. Even the free account has some templates that you can modify.

Feel free to reach out with any questions!

Annette :)

Digital vs. Physical Products

Before my digital products business, I had a creative blog/website which was my full time income for many years. When Google introduced AI answers in their search, they completely tanked my traffic and with it, my income. Not just mine, but all bloggers and content creators.

Not long after, two of my blogging 'mentors' started talking about opening Etsy shops. I've had an Etsy shop along with my blog for years, selling yarn and other physical products but it never occurred to me to sell DIGITAL products.

THE ADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL PRODUCTS VS. PHYSICAL PRODUCTS

You create it once and sells it forever
No packing or shipping
Your customer receives their product immediately
Easy to duplicate for other occasions

WHAT DO I SELL?

Handprint/footprint crafts
Handprint/footprint + photo crafts
Kids crafts and activities
Printable Games
Bible activities and games

IS IT EXPENSIVE? NO!

ETSY

Opening a shop used to be free but they now charge a nominal fee. (I think it's $40 currently). This is because scammers were flooding the platform and opening thousands of shops with Temu style junk.

The also charge 20 cents per listing + 30% for each sale. It sounds like a lot but you have to remember that they provide millions of buyers.

(Note: the 20 cents listing fee keeps your listing active for 4 months)

WHAT TOOLS DO I USE?

CANVA

This is my primary tool for creating products and you can do a lot with the free version. Pro starts at $12.99/month

eRANK

This is the keyword research tool that I use but you can also start with basic Google and Etsy research which I will show you. The basic paid version is only $6.99/month.

I do pay for a few other things but you can start with just an Etsy shop and use the free tools until you start making some money.

I don't want to overwhelm you ...

That is a lot of information so I'm going to leave it there for today. I'll tell you honestly, I am not an expert but I have learned a lot along the way and I will share with you what I have learned. I will also introduce you to my mentors who ARE experts and making thousands a month consistently.

Why would I do that? Doesn't that create more competition?

Yes, of course it does, but there are so many different products and niches and personalities that I think we have enough ideas to go around.

I am so thankful you are here!

Annette :)

How to do Digital Product Research for FREE

Let me show you some of my best tips for doing free product research:

See what auto populates
Pay attention to the bubbles
Find best sellers

1. SEE WHAT AUTO POPULATES

This one's probably a no-brainer but it's very important information. See what populates in the search bar when you enter your keywords. TYPE SLOWLY! Sometimes it takes a second for the entire keyword list to populate.

Pro Tip: This also works with Google and Pinterest

2. PAY ATTENTION TO THE BUBBLES

Bubbles? Yes, bubbles haha. Search a keyword in Etsy and then look below the search bar. See all those words in bubbles?

Those are search terms that actual people have used in conjunction with the keyword you entered. This is a great way to niche down on main keywords.

Pro Tip: Pinterest sometimes shows these as well

3. FIND BEST SELLERS

Go to Etsy and search a keyword. Then click SHOW FILTERS, ETSY'S BEST and select STAR SELLER.

Now, go up to the URL bar and find the word STAR . Highlight this and change it to BEST. That will show you any listing with that keyword that has earned the BEST SELLER badge.