Selling digital products on Shopify is a great way to make passive income with your personal brand or business. I’ve written before about selling digital products on Etsy, but many sellers choose to leave Etsy for Shopify due to the increasing fees.
Shopify is one of the leading platforms to create your own online store easily and quickly. It’s also able to scale up as your business grows.
Many of my favorite creators have left Etsy in order to sell on their own site with Shopify because it’s much more affordable if you sell large amounts. There are no additional fees that add up and you know what you’re getting.
If you are interested in selling digital products with a Shopify store this post will walk you through the basics:
How to open a Shopify store for digital products
Digital products to sell on Shopify
How to sell digital products on Shopify
Sounds easy right? Let’s dive in and look at each step in depth so you can sell digital products on Shopify.
How To Open A Shopify Digital Products Store
Opening a Shopify store to sell your digital products sounds complicated but the process is actually quite easy. You can create your shop and be ready to sell products in less than 30 minutes.
The ease of creating a store and immediately beginning to sell your products makes Shopify one of the best platforms for selling online today and this video shows how you can start selling digital products on Shopify. Since Shopify does a 14 day free trial, you can test all this out for free.
Enter a store name that will become your default URL storename.myshopify.com
Answer a few questions
That’s all you need to actually create your store!
The video goes into detail for a step-by-step tutorial but it’s quite easy to walk through on your own as well! The important part comes next with customizing your shop.
Customizing Your Shopify Store
In order to build and customize your store you will need several things to get started:
A business idea
Your business name
A domain name idea (do not leave myshopify as your domain!)
A logo
Products to sell in your store
Photos or mockups of your products
Descriptions of your products
How To Sell Digital Products On Shopify
Now let’s look at how to list and sell digital products on Shopify.
Step 1: Adding the Digital Downloads app
In order to sell digital products with Shopify you have to use an app from the Shopify App Store.
There are also several third-party apps for selling digital products available in the Shopify App store.
You can research different Shopify apps for selling digital products and select the best one for your needs. This tutorial only covers the free app but there are many options!
Step 2: Adding Digital Products
In your new Shopify store, go to Products > Add product to create your first product listing.
Under the Shipping heading, uncheck the box next to This is a physical product.
To make the product temporarily unavailable until the digital attachment is added: at the top of the product page next to Sales channels, click Manage, uncheck the boxes next to your sales channels, then click Done.
Click Save product
Under the product title, click More actions
Click “Add Digital Attachment” (this takes you to the Digital Downloads app page)
Click “Upload File”
Select the file you want to attach to this product.
Click “View in your Shopify admin”
Now that you have added the attachment, you need to make the product available:
Next to Sales channels, click Manage.
Check the boxes next to the sales channels where you want to make your product available.
Click Done.
Not sure what to sell in your new online store? Let’s look at some product ideas to inspire you.
Digital Product Ideas To Sell On Shopify
What digital products will you sell in your Shopify store?
The following list of digital product ideas will help you determine something you can share in your online store. Any digital product that sells well on Etsy could also be sold in a Shopify website.
Here are 25 digital product ideas you could create and sell on Shopify:
You are convinced selling digital products is a great idea. But what should you sell? How do you decide?
Creating Your First Product
When deciding what type of digital product to sell I would recommend picking an area where you have a passion for your first product. This passion makes it easier to think up designs for products.
For example, maybe you think you should make SVG files because they are popular, but you really love making spreadsheets to keep your life and business organized. I’d focus on that instead! There is an audience for every type of product.
You don’t have to have design skills or a background in digital marketing in order to create and sell digital downloads. You don’t need a formal education or design background to create digital products and earn money selling them – you just have to be curious and willing to learn!
Creating Similar Products
When you are creating more products you should choose additional products that will complement your existing items.
I’d think about what types of products would complement each other in a shop that helps my target audience. You can create listings that complement and link back to each other like related party invitations, party signs, party photo booth backdrops, photo booth props, and more.
Adding complementary products to your store will allow you to crosssell and upsell to create more value for your customers and more revenue for your business.
Creating Digital Products
There are a number of ways to create digital products online these days. It’s possible to make digital products to sell for free with a number of programs!
Canva – Canva is one of the best free editing programs where you can create a digital products. The paid version is even better with bonus features that help take your work to the next level.
Shopify – One of the most popular platforms to use for selling goods online. Shopify has emerged at the top of many seller’s lists for the ease of use, beautiful designs, set pricing, and powerful backend. It offers everything you need to sell digital or physical products and scale your business too.
Want to turn your creativity into passive income? Did you know learning how to create Canva templates to sell for passive
Many people online are currently utilizing the Canva templates function to make thousands of dollars each month by making and selling their unique Canva templates.
Canva is one of my favorite design tools because it is easy-to-use, web-based so you can access it anywhere, and has amazing tools built in. Millions of people use it to easily and quickly create beautiful design work.
I use it for everything design related, from creating my digital products to designing my YouTube thumbnails and whipping up quick social media posts. It’s easy to use for design and can also be a great tool for creating digital products that will earn you passive income.
Canva works great for creating designs you can sell. The software is easy to use even for beginners and there are many Canva tutorials out there.
Canva has many benefits:
It is easy to use even as a beginner.
It’s free for the basic version with lots of features.
Canva has many advanced tools and functions included.
There are many pre-made templates, graphics, and font combos to inspire you.
The pro version is low cost – half the price compared to Adobe Creative.
It allows you to make products fast with easy duplications and resizing.
It is web based so you can access it anywhere.
There are many Canva tutorials making it easy to learn.
It has desktop and mobile applications and you can switch between use.
Why I Love Using Canva
I use Canva Pro to create all of my printables, YouTube thumbnails, and social media graphics as well. The monthly fee for the professional version of the platform is well worth it. It’s been the most used tool in growing my business.
It’s a fantastic all in one design tool for any business and the best investment someone can make in starting an Etsy printable business. I’m not a designer but it’s been my key to success!
If you are using Canva and want to create digital products to sell, then you need to know about their template function.
It makes creating and sharing design templates easy and these digital products are selling like hotcakes on Etsy and other e-commerce websites.
Who Buys Canva Templates?
Canva is incredibly easy to use even as a beginner. But if Canva is so easy to use, why would people pay to buy Canva templates? Wouldn’t they just make their own designs?
This is a common concern from people who want to sell digital products for passive income.
People Who Don’t Like Designing
But here is something you should know: not everyone wants to be a designer. Some people enjoy creating designs. For them it is meditative and fun to use their creative muscles. Others do not enjoy the creative design process. They don’t want to spend their time creating a design when they could skip all of that effort.
Many people would rather pay to skip the design portion. They spend a tiny bit of money and get a beautiful pre-designed template ready to be used.
People Who Don’t Have Time
Designing your template takes more time than customizing it each use. For people who are short on time it is more effective to pay for a template to save on that design time.
Buying a pre-made Canva template is like outsourcing your work to a graphic designer but at a fraction fo the price. You save a ton of time by hiring someone else to do the work designing a template.
For those that have little time but can afford to spend money, Canva templates are a huge benefit.
Why Do People Buy Canva Templates?
People purchase Canva templates for a variety of reasons.
You might wonder why they don’t just use the free templates that Canva offers. This is usually because those free templates are oversaturated – you will see thousands of people use the same free Instagram post template for example. Many don’t even customize it to fit their brand!
People Want To Stand Out
People buy Canva templates because they are often more unique than the free templates already on Canva. When you buy a template someone else designed you know it will stand out more than the free templates. You’ll also be able to more easily customize it because it was designed to be customized.
People Want A Bundle Deal
People also buy Canva templates because they get many different designs at once. Canva template sellers on Etsy or Creative Market sell packages or bundles of templates. Canva templates inside the platform are one-off pieces where you just get one Instagram post template for example. When you buy Canva templates from a seller you are often 20 or more templates to use. Buying this many templates will give you everything you need to keep things fresh and consistent even while using a template.
Who Sells Canva Templates?
A lot of people are selling Canva templates on sites like Etsy because there is a lot of demand for these templates. The demand means there is still room for more people to sell Canva templates!
Who could benefit from selling Canva templates:
Content creators looking to monetize better
Graphic designs looking for more passive income
Business owners wanting a new revenue stream
What do you need to sell Canva templates:
Canva Pro account
Love for using Canva
Design skills (which you can learn using YouTube!)
Most people selling Canva templates are not graphic designers. I’m certainly not! However, I love design and have an unique style that I’ve worked to develop by watching tutorials. Anyone can do this by putting in the work to learn how to design well.
How To Make Canva Templates To Sell
Creating Canva templates is incredibly easy. You can watch the video above or follow the step by step instruction below.
Now open up Canva and choose the design size. (In the video example I used Instagram posts, which is a popular digital product idea for Canva templates that sell.)
You can design templates at any size and in this example I chose 1080 x 1080 px for an Instagram post template
Create your design from scratch using elements, text, and photo frames people can fill in when using your Canva template
Change the name of your design to describe what it is for your customers and for your own organization
Sharing Your Canva Template Design
Click the three dots button in the top right corner
In the search bar type “Template”
Select the Template icon that pops up under the search bar
Click the dropdown to add a template to a folder
Select the folder you want to keep this template in
Or click the “+Create new” link at the bottom to create a new folder inside Canva to organize your templates for sale – I named mine “Etsy Templates For Sale” in the example
Then click “Add to new folder” purple button
Once the folder is selected then click the “Publish template” purple button
This will publish your design as a template! Now you can either view your Canva template, continue editing, or share the template.
To sell your Canva template you’ll need to share it and grab the link for your future customers
You can view your template by going to the folder you created and to share you can click on the design to get the share link
Or to share the template you can go to edit the original design and then click the “Share” button in the top menu
In the Share dropdown you will go to the bottom drop down that says “Share a link to edit” click this and select the “Share a link to use as a template” option
This will automatically create a link to the right. Click “Copy link” to copy for sharing
You can then paste the link wherever you need to share it for your customers – in a pdf, in a message, on a thank you page!
That is all you need to do in order to create Canva templates as a digital product.
Canva Templates You Can Create
If you’re planning to sell your Canva templates you might be curious about what types of templates you should make. What are people buying? What types of templates should you make?
Here are some Canva templates to make:
Workbook templates
Ebook templates
Media kit templates
Resume templates
Instagram post templates
Instagram story templates
YouTube thumbnails
Social media graphics
And more!
For each of these template ideas you can base your design around your niche audience’s needs. This creates a product guaranteed to sell!
How Much Money Can You Make With Canva Templates?
Are you curious about this? Do you wonder how much money can you make selling Canva templates?
This is a common question on my videos about Canva templates. People want to know if it’s worth the work to design the template packages.
It’s also a tricky question to answer. The amount of money you can make selling Canva templates depends on a wide range of factors:
the type of template you sell
your design skills
product pricing
niche audience selection
quality of designs and service
ability to create offers that sell
promotion of your products
There are so many factors that go into actually selling the templates that the amount of money will vary widely.
How Much Money People Make Selling Canva Templates
That’s not super helpful so here are some examples of people I know:
Blogger A makes $2,300+ each month
Esty Seller B makes $300+ each month
Etsy Guru C makes $3,500+ each month
YouTuber D makes $100+ each month
These are real examples from people I know and it shows the wide range you can earn from selling Canva templates.
Some people have nailed their product, audience, and promotion which allows them to earn thousands per month. Others are earning just a couple hundred dollars. You will likely fall somewhere in this wide range!
Most people I know selling Canva templates do it as a side gig to their main income. Because it is passive income after the initial work it is a great additional income stream to an existing business or blog.
Where Can You Sell Canva Templates?
There are many places to sell Canva templates. The most popular is Etsy or on your own website.
There are multiple places you can sell Canva templates:
Add photos, videos, and a description to entice customers
Upload a PDF with instructions and a link to the template
Create a message to buyers with the link to your template
That’s it! Etsy will then do almost all the work for you as your templates sell over and over again.
Selling Canva Templates On Your Website
Selling your Canva templates on your own website is a little bit more complicated to start.
There are multiple options for selling digital products like Canva templates on a website. My two favorites are Shopify and WooCommerce. These are very popular e-commerce solutions and either one can be useful for you as a seller.
First, let’s look at selling Canva templates with your own website via Shopify.
Sell on your website with Shopify:
Shopify is ideal for e-commerce beginners because the tools are so easy to use.
Install the WooCommerce plugin. (This will create the e-commerce platform you need to sell on WordPress.)
Adjust the settings in WooCommerce to collect payments via Stripe and PayPal.
Create a New Product in your WooCommerce section.
Add the title, description, listing photo,
Check the “Virtual” and “Downloadable” box on the listing page.
Add your template link to the order email and thank you pages.
Click Publish to make your product go live for purchase.
Those are a few ways to get started selling on a website you fully control! Ultimately this is the best option for all digital product sellers as it will leave you with the most profit and the strongest brand.
While you can start off on a marketplace site like Etsy, you should always eventually create your own website to sell your products.
Want to keep learning?
Creating digital products you can sell is a wonderful online business and I enjoy sharing how to do the very same thing I’ve done to create a full time income!
The tips and tutorials linked below will help you create digital products worth selling.
I’ve been selling printables on Etsy now for almost two years and it has changed my life with a consistent and ever growing source of passive income.
Incorporating digital product sales into your business can be fun, motivating and a great way to increase your income without increasing your time spent earning money. It’s a mostly passive income stream that can earn you hundreds or thousands of dollars each month with very little continual effort.
In this post we will be covering how to make and sell printables on Etsy but you can browse this list of 63 digital product ideas to sell on Etsy for other ideas as well.
Ready to get started making printables to sell on Etsy for passive income?
Here’s everything you need to know to get started making and selling printables on Etsy.
This post contains affiliate links you can use to help compensate me for the time putting this together. I offer all the information for free instead of selling a course and will make a commission if you use the links included.
For the ease of learning we will break this down into three sections:
creating your digital product (printable)
creating your shop and listing digital products
marketing your item to get sales
While it might feel overwhelming as a beginner, creating and selling printables is an easy and profitable way to make money online.
In fact, I know many printable sellers that make $1,000 a month and some who make six figures a year just from selling printables.
Inspiring, right? You can do this too and this post will show you how.
Let’s get started!
What Are Printables?
You might be new to the world of printables and wondering what exactly are they?
A printable is a type of digital product that is delivered through digital download that the customer can print out at home.
It’s ideal for creators since you can create and sell a product multiple times with no printing and shipping. It’s also great for customers who can purchase the design for a cheaper price and print as they want to as many times as they need.
Printables are cheaper and more efficient for both the seller and customer.
Selling printables on Etsy can generate a great passive income each month but you have to put in time to understanding your audience and creatine unique printables they want to purchase.
Best Selling Printables On Etsy
Do you need a little inspiration before you start creating printables? Here are some of the best selling printables on Etsy:
Printable Planners
Planner Accessories & Inserts
Printable Invitations
Coloring Sheets
Crafting Patterns
There are many, many more categories of printables out there. You can even create your own niche if you see an area that is not being served.
How Much Money Can You Make Selling Printables?
Before you start making printables you probably want to know if it will be worth your time.
How much money are people actually making with printables on Etsy?
Personally I make between $500-$1,000 per month selling printables in just one of my shops. This is a pretty common amount for printable sellers who have about 100 listings and consistently add to their shop.
Making $50 a week selling printables can be achieved with a limited number of offerings and work. It’s one of the first milestones I see newer sellers achieve.
How much money you make will depend on several factors:
your pricing
product type
how many products you sell
if your products are seasonal
how often you run sales
success of your promotional methods
There are many other factors that will affect how much money you earn.
If you’re ready to get started making money with printables, let’s create your first one!
How To Create Printables To Sell On Etsy
Creating your printables is one of the first steps but if you have no design experience it might feel overwhelming. Luckily technology has made a variety of tools that make design work super easy. My go to for creating beautiful printables that sell is Canva.
Canva works great for most designs and the software is easy to use even for beginners. It’s one of the best design tools out there and has many benefits:
easy to use even as a beginner
many advances tools and function in 1 click
low cost – half the price compared to Adobe Creative
web based so you can access it anywhere
desktop and mobile applications
Obviously I love Canva and it is the leading online design tool used by millions for a reason.
In the following tutorials I walk through how to create printables using Canva. I cover how to create printable wall art and printable planners. The options are endless for the printables you make to sell!
In this Canva video tutorial I walk through how to create a printable chore chart that you can sell on Etsy.
In this Canva video tutorial I walk through how to create printable wall art for a nursery that you can sell on Etsy.
In this Canva video tutorial I walk through how to create a printable meal planning and pantry inventory that you can sell on Etsy.
All of these videos show you how to create printables and they are just a few of the options out there. They include different designs and styles so if you are completely new it might be worth watching both to get an idea of how to create different printables.
Important Things To Know About Canva
Here are a few important things to note when using Canva to create printables to sell:
You can’t just use a template you found on Canva’s templates section and sell as is. You must make your own design from scratch.
You have to have commercial use license of elements (or be using ones included as free / with Canva Pro) you are using in your design in order to sell it. Read the terms of service to be safe.
There is a learning to curve to creating printables in Canva but it’s much lower than other softwares.
Exporting in pdf file format gets you the best resolution for customers who will print your files.
Designing in Canva is obviously my preferred method of creating printables to sell but it is important to avoid any licensing restrictions or copyright issues for the work you create.
In this section we will cover a few ways to get design elements to create amazing designs without worrying about potential legal issues. Luckily the internet is filled with fonts and graphics you can use for creating commercial designs.
Commercial use means something can be used in a design you plan to sell. You need to make sure whatever you are using from the fonts to the graphics has a commercial use license so you are safe to sell your end product.
Here are my favorite sources for buying commercial use fonts, graphics, and more:
Creative Market– This is my personal favorite for designs since it has the highest quality of any of the sites I’ve found. Creative Market also gives you free goods every single week with a personal license so you can try them out for free before deciding if you want to buy a commercial license. It’s a great way to get started!
Etsy – You can also find commercial use design elements on Etsy from other sellers! This is one of my favorite options since I love supporting fellow Etsy sellers and can often find great deals since many shops offer value bundles for their designs.
Font Squirrel – This is a great option for finding fonts to use since they scour the internet for free commercial use fonts. While Canva includes many fonts you can use for commercial use this is a great addition if you want to stand out and make your designs look a little bit better.
These are just a couple places to find font and graphics for commercial use that you can use when creating your digital products to sell on Etsy.
Checking Design Trademarks
There is another thing you need to be careful about when designing printables and that is trademarks!
Before you start creating printables to sell yoou need to make sure you are not violating any trademarks with the phrases you will be using. If you are designing anything with quotes or phrases you must check trademarks first because many of these popular quotes and phrases are actually trademarked.
This is important because if you use something that is trademarked then the trademark owner can legally come after you and Etsy will shut down your shop. If you violate trademarks you are a risk to Etsy as a platform. I’ve seen them shut down many shops for this reason.
Trademarks apply to the obvious things like Disney, Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc. But they also apply to common phrases like dog mom, boy mom, onesie, etc. Companies with a lot of money will often trademark these popular phrases and then file trademark infringement notices to wipe out competition. It might not feel fair, but it is reality and you need to be aware of this.
You can perform a search for any trademarks on TESS, the Trademark Electronic Search System. This search will let you know if you need to abandon a phrase if it’s trademarked or go ahead with your design free and clear.
I can’t recommend highly enough that you should run these searches first before creating designs to sell. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking “everyone else is selling it” but I promise it is only a matter of time before it catches up to those sellers.
Before You Launch Your Etsy Shop
It is possible to open an Etsy shop with just one item but I recommend you have at least a handful before you open your shop and start selling.
Why should you start with more than one item?
It looks better. First, it will look better when you share your shop or someone lands on it. A shop with more items looks better since Etsy shows your listing thumbnails in rows. With just one item your shop won’t look as professional to potential shoppers. Shoppers are more likely to trust a shop with multiple items than just one.
More sales opportunities. Second, and this is obvious, but more product listings means you have more opportunities to make sales. You will have more options for people to buy from you. Each extra item you have listed is an opportunity for someone to buy from you and to add additional products to their cart when they buy from you.
Increased visibility on Etsy. Etsy is a huge platform with lots of competition. Many people think every niche is already oversaturated. Having more listings gives you more chances to show up in search results and alongside your competition. With additional listings you can target different keywords and reach new audiences. The more listings you have the more visibility you will have on Etsy.
So how many product listings to you need before you launch your shop?
I recommend launching an Etsy shop with at least 8 items but ideally 24 to fill out all the lines.
I highly recommend you create a few products before moving on to the logistics of opening your shop since you will need at least one to start and ideally will launch your shop with multiple.
In order to start an Etsy shop you will need an idea of what you want to sell and a name picked out for your new Etsy store. If you haven’t already decided this before starting you will want to think about what you will sell in your new Etsy store and what brand you want to build around your shop.
Once you’ve got a general idea you are ready to watch this video tutorial on how to create your new Etsy shop!
You can start your shop with this link for 40 free listings to jumpstart your shop without having to waste money on those first listings.
How To Sell Digital Products On Etsy
Selling digital products on Etsy is easy but creating your listing is going to be different than creating a listing for a physical product.
In the video tutorial above we walk through the steps to create a listing on Etsy step by step. Creating a listing is not difficult but it can be helpful to see the process laid out step by step like I do in the video.
Digital Product File Delivery
Let’s talk about the details and most frequently asked questions about delivering digital download files to your buyers on Etsy.
File Types
Printables can be created in multiple file types. The most common will be PDF, JPG, and PNG. For printables I always recommend PDF since they are easier to print and will be the highest quality option for someone printing. You can always include multiple file types for your customer.
Naming Your Files
Naming your digital download files doesn’t need to be complicated but it should be useful and make sense to your customers. Make sure you name them in a way that is easily identifiable so your customers can find them quickly once downloaded.
That means you will want to change things from IMG_2021_06_05.PDF to something like Spending_Tracker_Pennies_Not_Perfection.PDF or something similar.
This is a simple thing to do when you are creating your printables and it will help keep you and your customer organized.
Adding Files To Your Etsy Listing
When setting up your listing you will be able to upload 5 files with your listing.
You should upload the printable files but you can also include instructions or bonuses here as well.
Customer Downloads
When someone purchases your printable from your Etsy shop the files are automatically available for them to download inside their account. As the seller you don’t have to send any files to the customer or interact with them unless they send you a message with questions.
After a purchase your customer will be be able to go to “Purchases and Reviews” under “Your Account”. Here they will see all the files they purchased from you.
Then they can click the black “Download Files” button which takes them to a screen where they can download each file individually. by clicking each “Download” button.
One of the common problems I hear from digital product Etsy sellers is that they don’t know what to do with a file that is too large to upload on Etsy.
Etsy has a max file size of 20MB for digital downloads. If your file size is larger than that then you will need to host the download somewhere else like Google Drive or DropBox. Then send the link to that download via the PDF with your instructions.
Including Download Instructions
Even with a clear cut process of downloading digital files you will still have customers with questions. I highly recommend you create instructions for how to access and open your printables.
Providing detailed information about how to find and download your files will help you save time and provide additional value to your customers. You can share this information in as many places as possible so they know what to expect and how to proceed with your files.
Things you can include for your customer’s education:
This is a printable that is a digital file – nothing will be shipped
File types and size of the files
Ideal printing methods and information
Where to access files in their account
How to download digital files in their account
Any other disclaimers that are important for your shop like refund policy, commercial use policy, and color discrepancy issues
It works best with customers to spell out as much information as possible. Then if they don’t read it and still ask questions you can quickly refer back to the original instructions.
You can include all of this in your notes to digital buyers section and also as a downloadable pdf file that you can label either “Read First” or “Instructions”. This is an additional opportunity to include elements to reinforce your brand and build a relationship with the customer by being helpful.
How To Get More Sales On Etsy
Getting your first sales on Etsy can be a challenge for new sellers with a brand new Etsy shop. It can also be difficult to get sales at all at times!
In this section we look at how to get more sales on Etsy and tips for how to get sales especially when you are a newer shop without an established customer base.
Here are some ideas for getting sales on Etsy, especially as a new seller:
Pick a niche & stick to it
On Etsy most shops are very focused around one niche or type of product.
When you start and try to grow a new shop you should pick a niche and stick to it.
It confuses buyers who might find your shop when you are selling 1 or 2 items of many random things.
Master one thing first
Similar to the niche concept, master one thing first.
To truly have a successful shop you will want to master the one thing you plan to be known for first.
It means that you will work to establish both your product creation skills and your shop as a a leader in your niche so people share your shop and come back again and again,.
Be different from others
Being different from others is key to success on Etsy.
In order to stand out and build your shop’s reputation on Etsy you will want to be different from the competition, not a copy.
You will want to figure out some way to make your product different and unique. You will be inspired by others but instead of copying, find ways to stand out.
Get sales for social proof
Sales are social proof. Knowing others bought the product you are selling helps convince buyers to trust you.
Your goal in order to get more sales is to build your sales number.
Shops that already have a lot of sales in fact tend to get more sales, partly because they are selling a good product and partly because new buyers feel like they can trust someone with thousands of sales.
Getting your first sales
Your first sales will likely come from either being patient (very, very patient) or by getting creative.
Since sales are social proof you may have to “prime the pump” and have someone you know buy your product first. Or you may want to team up with another new Etsy seller and buy each other’s products.
Perhaps your first sale can come from a friend or family member who wants to support you and start you on the path to success.
Get creative because often new shops aren’t optimized well enough for SEO and the lack of sales can turn off buyers who do find you.
Use Etsy’s marketing tools
Etsy has a number of great marketing tools built into their system.
Within Etsy you can do things like set up marketing emails to reach out to someone who has an item in their cart to give them a coupon code.
You can run sales and offer incentives that encourage people to buy. These are so useful and you should utilize them to get more sales.
These are all tips to start your shop off and get it growing so it can eventually grow and become something you can even live off of financially.
How To Improve Your Etsy Photos
One important way to improve your sales on Etsy is to make better listing photos, especially the first one that customers will see in the search and browse results.
Photo Mockups
An easy way to do this is to create mockups of your designs so customers can see what the final product will look like when printed and in use. Mockups will bring your product to life and lead to more sales.
Canva – There are lots of mockup options with a Canva Pro subscription and their smart mockups feature is very helpful.
MissMockup – This Etsy seller has beautiful aesthetic mockups you can purchase for your shop.
Listing Videos
Listing videos are another way to improve your product’s performance on Etsy. Etsy even says this when you are creating a listing:
“Buyers are loving listing videos!We know that shoppers are more likely to purchase an item if the listing includes a video. Cha-ching!*
*Based on a July 2020 analysis of over 5 million buyers, comparing the purchasing behavior of those who were shown listing videos to those who were not.”
If Etsy is saying buying love listing videos then you should take note and add listing videos for your printables!
A few ways to make quick listing videos:
PlaceIt – Along with mockups you can also create short videos with this monthly subscription design program.
Canva – There are also plenty of ways to use Canva to create videos that you can use for your listings!
Your phone – Use your phone to take a quick in person video of your printable after you’ve printed it out. People love to see the real end result before they buy.
A few quick tips for successful listing videos:
Videos can be 5 – 15 seconds and will not include sound
Focus on your product being the star rather than background items
Adjust your settings to record high resolution video—aim for 1080p or higher
Crop your video after you upload it to get the right dimensions
Choose a spot to film with plenty of indirect natural light that can softly fall on your subject from the side
Keep your camera steady and use a tripod if you have one
Choose the same aspect ration (a ratio of width to height) of your listing video to reflect the same orientation as your primary listing photo
Avoid adding filters or altering the color saturation on your listing videos to provide an accurate depiction of your products – the closer it is to reality the less issues you’ll have from customers
Those are a few ways to improve your listings for success by using mockups and videos!
How To Promote Your Products
Once you’ve got a sale or two you’re ready to scale your shop to get more sales. This will be done by focusing on promotion. Without some level of promotion you will not get views which means you will not get sales.
You don’t have to do every form of promotion for your shop. In fact I recommend you focus on just one method of promotion until you have mastered it. Pick one and work on it until you have traffic and sales going and then add another.
Ideas for promoting your shop and products:
Create a YouTube channel showing off your products
Write tutorials on your blog about the item
Create a Pinterest account and use Tailwind to pin and promote
Share on your personal social media accounts
Share on your business/shop social media accounts
In general there are multiple ways to bring people into your shop:
Etsy SEO
Etsy marketing
Etsy repeat customers
Social media
Newsletter
Word of mouth
Remember that you’ll have to continually promote your work and often people will need to see it multiple times before buying.
Keep learning how to grow your shop!
The most important part of getting more sales to your Etsy shop is to keep learning and growing.
Etsy changes regularly and in order to grow you’ll have to keep learning and growing to keep your shop relevant and bringing in sales consistently.
Etsy SEO Tips
One of the best ways to succeed on Etsy is by learning how SEO works and using it to get more people to your listings.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important tools for selling anything online because it brings you traffic without the need to continually make changes and updates. It’s much more sustainable long-term than social media for promotion, but it does take more time to see rewards for your efforts.
When you use SEO you are optimizing your work in order to be found through the search function on Etsy’s website.
Here are some of the best Etsy SEO Tips to help improve your listings:
Know Your Customer – Knowing your ideal customer helps with SEO because you will want to know how they think about and describe your products. Are they going to be looking for nursery wall art? Or baby shower gift? Or Depending on who your target customer is they might be using all of these and more. Knowing what words and phrases they are using can help jumpstart your listing with keywords important for SEO.
Use Phrases That Auto-Populate – The best keyword research tool is actually Etsy itself. You can start typing in phrases into the Etsy search bar and Etsy will populate keyword phases that they think might interest you as a buyer. You should take these phrases and use them in your research and in your listings. If something does not auto-populate in the Etsy search bar it likely means there is not enough interest and it’s not a good phrase to use.
Get Specific – Because there is so much competition SEO is best utilized by going after the “long tail keywords” which just means the longer phrases. You are going to be competing against way more people when you use a phrase like “Instagram template” instead of “Instagram story template for coaches”. Getting more specific in what you are using for your descriptions and keywords will help the right people find you.
Prioritize The Beginning – The first characters of your listing title and your description are the most important. You will want to use this space to include keywords that were the most fitting based on your research. It’s important to remember that the beginning of your title and the beginning of your description will be seen first by both the user and the algorithm.
Fill in All Your Tags – You get the option to use 13 tags to describe your item. It is recommended that you use your keywords phrases to use up all of these tag opportunities. Tags do have a limit of 20 characters so you won’t be able to use all your long-tail keywords but you should definitely make sure you use up all 13 positions with tags. For the best results at least a few of your tags should match the keywords from your title.
Remember SEO Takes Time – The biggest frustration I see with new sellers especially is that the SEO work they are doing isn’t bringing in sales fast enough. Remember that SEO is based on an algorithm and it can take weeks for your changes to even be noticed and cataloged in that algorithm. Once you’ve made changes you should wait a month at the least before you change anything else again. Otherwise you will never know what works and what doesn’t for SEO because you need to give it time.
You can read more Etsy SEO tips in my post about Etsy SEO.
How To Create & Run Etsy Sales
Using Etsy sales and coupons can help you make more sales and earn more money on Etsy.
In this tutorial I’m going over all the things you need to know about sales and coupons on Etsy so you can start running sales and make more money with your Etsy shop.
This video tutorial will definitely help you use these sales and coupon features in order to increase your sales. It covers:
the different sales and coupons you can create on Etsy
the targeted offers you can use to make more sales on Etsy
how to create a coupon code for more sales on Etsy
In my Etsy shop for digital products I’ve made more money by running percentage off sales each month and think it’s an exceptional way to make more sales especially for digital products.
Etsy can be an amazing place to build a business and earn passive income through selling printables.
If you want to grow on Etsy I recommend my friend Sharon’s Etsy Entrepreneur course where she walks you through the process of setting up an Etsy shop and growing it to make $1,000 a month or more. She grew her Etsy store of digital downloads to more than $1,000 a month and has inspired many people to do the same.
I always recommend Sharon’s course Etsy Entrepreneur when someone is interested specifically in the passive income power of Etsy. She built passive income streams on Etsy that allowed her to travel the world for two years without a job.
Keep Growing Your Printables Shop
Remember that your Etsy growth will depend on being consistent and growing over time. Very few people start their Etsy shop and go full time the very same month. For most of us we begin with one product and grow over time.
Over time you will learn tips and tricks to grow your Etsy shop and find that success on Etsy can be far beyond you expected. I personally know multiple full time Etsy sellers who started as a fun side hustle and now make a full time living selling on Etsy.
In addition to free material about Etsy you can also take a course to fast track your growth and sucess.
Here are two Etsy courses worth trying out:
Etsy Entrepreneur – This course teaches you everything you need to know about digital products on Etsy and how to create a business from your Etsy shop.
E-Printables Course – This course focuses specifically on printables and guides you on how to create printables, how to sell them on Etsy, and how to market them for success.
Keep Learning
Here are some posts about starting and growing an Etsy shop and selling digital products that may help you:
Curved text can add visual interest to your designs especially when creating digital products to sell for passive income.
If you are creating your digital products or social media designs in Canva then it is very easy to create curved text within your design.
In this easy step-by-step two minute tutorial I walk you through the basics of how to create curved text for your designs.
Create Curved Text In Canva
In this video I’m sharing how to create curved text in Canva when you are creating digital products and social media content in Canva.
How to create curved text in Canva step by step:
Add text to the design
With the text box selected, click Effects in the top menu
A side bar will pop up on the left with text effect
Select Curve in the bottom right corner
Use the slider at the bottom of the sidebar to adjust the curve
You can slide to create a positive or negative curve in either direction
Use the Canva guidelines to adjust the text to fit your design
That’s how to create curved text in Canva, which is a super easy technique but can really increase the visual interest within your design. It’s a great way to make your designs stand out and look different.
Canva For Digital Products
I use Canva for making several digital products and curved text is one of the newer features they added in 2020 that has really helped a lot with making designs. I’m not a designer at all so having such an easy way to make curved text is really helpful. It’s been very useful for creating digital stickers, art printables, and more.
If you want to create digital products then Canva is a great place to start. There is a free version that you can use to start and you can get a free trial of the Pro version that offers many additional features.
I originally started creating digital products to help better monetize my YouTube channel but fell in love when it increased both my income and reach beyond YouTube.
It’s truly revolutionized my business and I’m always creating new digital products now because I love the creativity of thinking up how to best create something new.
Canva is the easiest software I’ve used to create digital products. It’s intuitive and simple to use yet has enough features to make it powerful enough to compete with Adobe programs.
Selling digital products online is a great way to make passive income either as a side hustle or a full time income.
I’ve previously shared 63 digital products you can sell online to make passive income and today’s list is a follow up for 15 MORE digital products you can create and sell.
All of these products are specifically chosen for the 2021 market and beyond based on trends and what is selling. Most of these markets are growing, trending, or have major potential for the future.
Hopefully these product ideas will give you an idea of where to start creating in order to sell!
15 Digital Products to Sell Online In 2021
Here are 15 digital product ideas you can create and sell for passive income:
3D Print Files
Cookbooks
Copywriting Templates
Courses
Digital Planners
Digital Stickers
How To Guides
Lesson Plans
Product Mockups
Real Estate Templates
Resume Templates
Spreadsheets
Test Prep Guides
Video Effects
Wedding Plans & Tools
These digital products are all great options, but let’s look at why!
3D Print Files
3D printing continues to grow as a market and the recent pandemic sped up adoption of 3D printing for both practical purposes as well as a hobby. Creating 3D print files is definitely a niche market that everyone will not be able to access, but that means there is a lot of opportunity.
Cookbooks
There are many cookbooks already on the market but the opportunity exists for creators making recipes and cookbooks for specific niche diets. With so many different niche diets in existence now, there is plenty of room to create cookbooks catering to these specific audiences.
You can use the niche diet keywords to bring in traffic for sales since you will be targeting such a narrow audience. Remember the saying “the riches are in the niches” and this is definitely the case for cookbooks.
Copywriting Templates
Most people are not good writers but effective writing is what often drives successful businesses, product launches, and more. Creating and selling copywriting templates is a great digital product idea because you can target these markets.
Business owners who need help with copywriting on their websites or emails will purchase templates to save time and money from hiring a copywriter for their business.
Courses
Online education is a growing field expected to continue exploding in the future. Creating a course to sell your knowledge in a consumable way that leads people to a desired transformation is one of the best ways to monetize in 2021 and beyond. The online education industry continues to grow with no signs of slowing.
Courses are a great digital product because they are usually a higher priced product that is a more profitable product.
Many platforms like Teachable make creating and hosting a course very simple. With the ability to create a course via text r video you have lots of options to create your course and can get started with a free trial as you build out your content.
Digital Planners
Planners have been popular for several years but there has been a more recent trend toward digital planners. Many traditional planners have moved to planning on tablets and this has opened up a new digital product in the form of digital planners that can be used in apps like Good Notes.
There are several courses now that teach people how to make digital planners to sell because it’s such a popular digital product to sell. Once you learn how to make digital planners you can create and sell multiple versions and variations.
Digital Stickers
Similar to digital planners, digital stickers are part of the digital planner product line that appeals to a certain market planning via their iPads and other devices. Similar to physical stickers the digital stickers are used to prettify the planners or create functionality.
Digital stickers are a lower price point digital product but can be made quickly and sold in high volumes which helps with profitability.
How To Guides
How to guides are a great digital product to create if you have a large amount of knowledge but do not want to create a full course.
A how to guide generally will be text based and in the form of an e-book, workbook, and/or worksheets.
Lesson Plans
Lesson plans can be an incredible digital product for teachers to create and sell to other teachers. These plans can be based on certain topics or target certain grade levels and ages.
Sites like Teachers Pay Teachers as well as Etsy allow teachers to monetize their lesson plans by selling them to other teachers. One great option when selling lesson plans is to create multiple and sell them both individually and bundled at a higher price point.
Product Mockups
Many creators of digital products like wall art like to use product mockups to sell their creations. Product mockups help digital products sell by showcasing them in their final form. Mockups can be created for framed art, tshirts, and more.
Creating and selling prouct mockups themselves is a huge business. If you are a creative photographer you can create. avery successful shop selling mockups to other digital product creators. There are multiple Etsy shops doing this with tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of sales from product mockups alone.
Real Estate Templates
The real estate market has been hot for a while now in most areas and many real estate agents are making a killing with their services. Real estate agents are a great market t sell to because they often don’t want to create things themselves and are willing to pay for convenience and products that make them look more professional.
There are many digital products you can create in the niche of real estate templates: new home owner checklist templates, marketing material templates, open house flyer templates, new client packet templates, social media post templates and more.
Resume Templates
With many people looking for work there is a rise in the need for resume templates that stand out and get a second look. It’s a gap in the market where people generally overlook this digital product because they assume there are already plenty of free templates online for resumes.
Most people don’t have the Excel knowledge to create spreadsheets that can automatically do the calculations needed for certain tasks. This means there is a huge market for digital product creators to create spreadsheets that help users complete a certain task.
There are many types of spreadsheets you could create and sell:
budgeting spreadsheets
rental income spreadsheets
real estate deal analysis spreadsheets
business bookkeeping spreadsheets
financial planning spreadsheets
resale inventory spreadsheets
Test Prep Guides
Studying for many professional tests can be a challenge. Because of this people are willing to pay for help to study and pass certain tests. If you have successfully studied for and passed a professional test then you could create and sell a test prep guide.
You can create test preparation study materials, how to pass guides, worksheets, and more around a certain test or how to study for that test.
Video Effects
With the explosion of video content online in recent years there has been an increase in opportunities to create tools to improve videos.
There are many video related products you can create from video effects to stock footage to video transitions, titles and more. Sites like Envato Elements allow you to sell video specific effects.
Wedding Plans & Tools
The wedding industry is huge and most brides and grooms plan to spend a massive amount of money on their wedding. Because of these budgets there is plenty of room available for digital products like wedding planning tools.
There is a market for tools for DIY brides trying to cobble together their wedding plans on the cheap and also for higher end brides who might also have a planner but still want to pay for convenience and organization. This is a great add on digital product if you are already in the wedding industry working with couples as a planner, photographer, or other vendor.
Why Sell Digital Products?
There are many reasons to sell digital products especially if you are looking for passive income. Selling any kind of digital product can create a new passive or mostly passive income stream for you.
Here are a few of the reasons why you should create and sell digital products:
You make them once and sell them many times
They can be very easy to make compared to physical products
Cheap to make since you can use free programs
High margins – you have no product cost so you keep the profit
Unlimited growth in sales without having to scale any production
Unlimited growth in income by reaching new customers
How To Decide What To Sell
If you have been trying to decide what to sell then this will definitely help get you started! Most of these ideas can be created in free programs like Canva or PlaceIt.
You don’t have to have design skills or a background in digital marketing in order to create and sell digital downloads. You don’t need a formal education or design background to create digital products and earn money selling them – you just have to be curious and willing to learn!
When deciding what type of digital product to sell I would recommend picking an area where you have a passion in life and then deciding the types of products. For example, maybe you think you should make SVG files because they are popular, but you really love making spreadsheets to keep your life and business organized. I’d focus on that instead!
Or maybe you like planning parties so you think you need to create party invitations. But I wouldn’t limit myself to one digital product. I’d think about what types of products would complement each other in a shop that helps my target audience. You can create listings that complement and link back to each other like related party invitations and party decor.
More digital product idea posts to help you decide:
There are a number of ways to create digital products online these days. It’s possible to make digital products to sell for free with a number of programs!
Adobe InDesign – I personally use Adobe InDesign for creating all my printables because it’s the best, most reliable and has the most flexibility. There is a learning curve because it’s a professional program but it’s worth it for the hassles it removes. Try creating with Adobe InDesign’s free trial.
Canva – Canva is one of the best free editing programs where you can create a digital products and the paid version is even better with bonus features that help take your work to the next level. Try creating with Canva.
Selling Digital Products Online
You will want an e-commerce platform that will allow you to both take payments and deliver your digital products to your customers. There are many different e-commerce platforms that make this possible so let’s look at the best ones for selling digital products specifically.
Podia– Podia is a more robust platform that will allow you to not only sell digital downloads but also offer memberships and online courses. If you have plans to grow a full online business it’s the ideal platform to use to keep everything in one place and is cheaper than most other platforms. Get a 14 day free trial of Podia here.
Shopify – One of the most popular platforms to use for selling goods online. Shopify has emerged at the top of many seller’s lists for the ease of use, beautiful designs, set pricing, and powerful backend. It offers everything you need to sell digital or physical products and scale your business too. Get a free trial of Shopify here.
WooCommerce – WooCommerce integrates easily with existing WordPress websites to sell digital downloads. WooCommerce is not specifically for digital downloads but they have made the process super simple for sellers and do not take additional fees from sales. I currently use WooCommerce to sell my digital downloads on my website. Get started with WooCommerce.
Growing A Digital Product Business On Etsy
Etsy has downsides but it’s also an amazing place to build a business and earn an income.
If you want to grow a business selling digital downloads on Etsy I recommend my friend Sharon’s Etsy Entrepreneur course where she walks you through the process of setting up an Etsy shop and growing it to make $1,000 a month or more. She grew her Etsy store of digital downloads to more than $1,000 a month and has inspired many people to do the same.
Remember that your business growth will depend on being consistent and growing over time adding valuable products. For most of us we begin with one product and grow over time building on what works.
Over time you will learn tips and tricks to grow your digital products shop and find that success can be far beyond you expected when you focus on profitable digital products.
