Overview
Since March 2019, I’ve been selling digital products (downloadables and printables) on Etsy as my side business idea. The goal is to create a semi-passive to passive-income source over time that will allow me more financial freedom.
The shop: www.notyandco.com
I did most of the work during January and February and then uploaded all the products at once. I then did some keyword research and on-page SEO as well as tried out Etsy’s own ads system (in their own search engine).
During these past months, I’ve been seeling a few products every week. On average around one or two product sales every other day, consistently. I’m pretty content with the results since I haven’t out in any more work into it since late March. I’m at around 100 sales at this moment.
I’m mostly glad that my plan for it to be a semi-passive income is working.
My goal until 2021
I aim to earn around 500 dollars each month. I want it to be as passive as possible (except for creating new products when I feel like it and occasionally working on improving SEO when the search engine algorithms have been updated).
Problem…
I haven’t gotten much profit despite my consistent sales since my products are too cheap and because I spent too much on advertisements at the beginning. In the future, I need to create products that I can charge at least 15 dollars to make more profit.
Improvements I need to make
- 1. I need to sell more expensive products. However, I’m not sure if my sales will be as consistent if I sell more expensive products on Etsy… One alternative is to start selling products through my own website. I already own the domain name and I know how to build an e-commerce website by myself. The challenge would be to drive customers to my own website without spending too much on advertisements.
- 2. I need to spend less on advertisements on Etsy and do more manual work on social media if I want to decrease the costs and improve profits. However, that would take away from my idea of having a semi-passive income so the solution must be to…
- 3. Change business idea to something that’s easier to sell more expensive (15-20 USD per product) and make more profit from each sale
Summary
I’m happy that I’ve shown myself that I am capable of coming up with a functioning product idea for semi-passive income and that I’ve gone through with it. The next step is to try to improve the profit rates.