I woke up this morning to see a sale of 17 items in my Etsy Shop, Bitter Lemon Digital.
If my shop sold physical items, my schedule today would have included packing an order. But I sell all digital items, which are automatically mailed to customers right after they complete their purchase.
I literally made money while I slept!
This doesn’t happen every night, but my shop has grown tremendously in the last year. As a Pinterest junkie, I’ve seen those pins and articles that promise you can make X amount of dollars overnight if you just make a few clicks.
Those narratives don’t realistically portray what it’s like to have a successful online shop that actually makes money.
I’m going to tell you what I do, why, and even some mistakes I’ve made with my shop. Let’s get into it.
Why I started selling digital products on Etsy
When I moved to Austin in 2015, I had no money. I had a full-time job at a startup, but my salary was only $40,000, which was barely enough to cover my rent and bills. At the time, I was making jewelry for fun and decided to open an Etsy shop.
I sold a decent amount of items, but once I made a sale, it was difficult to make the item and ship it in the time customers expected — they want Amazon two-day shipping for free! Then, once I was able to ship the item, I often got messages from customers about why their package was in this state when they lived in that state or something of the like.
If a customer didn’t like the item once it was received, there wasn’t much to do other than offer a refund, which meant I was out money for the supplies and shipping. The shop was fun most of the time; it kept me busy and gave me a little money, but it wasn’t sustainable.
So, in 2019, I decided to open a new shop that would sell solely digital items. I’d heard a lot about making passive income—money acquired with little effort—and wanted to try it.
I opened my shop, Bitter Lemon Digital, in January 2019, and got a few listings up, including a Presidential Debate BINGO card set and Book Journal Pages.
In that entire year, I made one sale that was $1.99. The entire year!
When and how I started getting sales on Etsy
I’m not saying everyone’s first year will be like that, trust me. But it does take time and persistence. So, I’ll show you the growth:
- 2019 | 58 visits | 1 sale | $1.99 revenue
- 2020 | 715 visits | 10 orders | $58 revenue
- 2021 | 2,245 visits | 18 orders | $53.60 revenue
- 2022 | 8,817 visits | 149 orders | $589.50 revenue
- 2023 | 10,800 visits | 335 orders | $1,850.66 revenue
From 58 visits in 2019 to more than 10,000 visits last year!
As I mentioned, it does not have to take this long for you to grow an online shop. But it doesn’t happen overnight.
No matter where you host your shop (whether on Etsy or another platform), you’ll have to learn about and implement white hat SEO techniques and do them repeatedly.
The biggest change for me came when two things happened: I figured out what my customers wanted to buy and started making many versions of it.
Having 2-3 listings in your shop is likely not going to be enough. Customers want a lot of items to look at, and each listing improves your SEO if you’re writing all of the descriptions and tags, and adding all of the photos and video clips as you can.
When I initially opened my shop, I only had a few listings (and they were pretty random), I wasn’t adding tags, and I didn’t know how to make videos. Now I have more than 200 listings, and all of them have 10 photos each + a video, and 13 tags (the max on Etsy).
The other major tip I’ll offer is this: do not try and recreate something someone else is selling.
I’ve heard this tip a lot but never thought much about it until I started seeing other shops attempting to copy what I’m selling. It might make you a few sales, but customers can tell when you’re putting your passion into the items you’re creating.
I love my shop and believe in what I create; not only does this come across in my sales, but I have enough ideas in my brain to have 1,000+ listings in my shop one day. If people are copying me, they’re always going to be behind and without an original idea.
How making digital products fits into my life
I have a full-time job outside of my shop. My Etsy shop is connected to my savings account, so all of my revenue is directly deposited there, and it’s helping me reach some financial goals.
More importantly, the shop brings me so much joy. Not only do I have a lot of fun creating the products, but I also love messaging customers and hearing about how they’re using the products.
But it does take time! I come up with all of the ideas for the items I sell and the details, and then I design and format the items. Depending on what it is, it can take several hours.
Many of the articles I’ve read suggest that it only takes a few minutes or that you use a premade template, but there are a few things wrong with that.
One, it might not be legal — you can’t sell something designed by someone else unless you’ve purchased a commercial license or are paying the person (i.e. if you hired a designer).
Two, customers are smart. They won’t buy a template they know you ripped off from Canva.
I try and create and upload at least one new listing per week, and that keeps me BUSY. That may not be the same for every creator, of course, but I’m being honest about the time I have outside of my job and other hobbies.
Sometimes, I wonder how passive it actually is, but even though my shop requires a lot of upfront work, it’s so nice that I don’t have to deal with the post office (major props to the small shops that do!), tracking numbers, etc.
Things I could improve in my online shop
Over the weekend, I was doing some work in the shop and kept thinking, “Oh my gosh, there’s so much to do in here!”
For starters, I wish I could upload more than one new item a week. Etsy gives new items a little boost in search to see if customers will engage with it, which would be nice if it were 2-3x per week.
I am also in the process of updating some of the photos for my products. There are thousands of photos in my shop, and how I showcase my products has changed over the years. But it takes time to update ALL of those older listings.
I’m also toying with the idea of organizing my shop differently, maybe by season instead of by item. I’m still learning who my customers are and how they like to shop.
Generally speaking, I’m so proud of how far the shop has come! I’m really trying to grow it a lot this year because I have some big-money goals I’d like to reach. Maybe at the end of the year, I’ll report back on what worked and what didn’t.
If you’re considering opening a shop, go for it! My main advice is to just know that it takes creativity, time, and patience to make it work.
If you already have a shop, feel free to leave a comment with a link to it so I can check it out. I wish you the best!
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