Make $100k/yr on Etsy

GM. This is Work "After" Work, the newsletter that's your Nick Cage for side hustles. We'll hunt down the treasures so you don't have to.

Here's how we're starting the week:

• 💻 Etsy print on demand

• 😂 Meme of the day

A LEGIT WAY TO MAKE $100,000/YR

If you have a knack for making cool designs or crafty items but aren't sure how to make money off it and don't want to have 1,000 shirts sitting in your closet waiting to be bought, then boy do I have a side hustle for you.

It's called print-on-demand, and like it sounds... every time you get a sale an automatic process starts and you don't have to do anything - it's fully automated.

How does it work?Let's say you're into graphic design and you're selling t-shirts. Instead of buying 1,000 tees and having to store them, all you have to do is list your product (that you don't physically have) and for every sale you get another company prints the shirt and ships it to the customer's address. You never actually had to deal with any goods - easy peasy!

No work on your part. All the work will be upfront with setting up your online store and coming up with great designs.

Why does this side hustle rock?

1. It’s all automated - printing & shipping

2. You don’t have to deal with physical products - only pay for what you sell, no guessing involved!

3. You don’t need to build a custom website - sell on Etsy, a site that got 566 million views last month

Plus, this is all from the comfort of your own home. I get all the responses and I hear you. This is a side hustle that's completely online and people have made over $100,000 in just year 1 of doing it!

There were 88M active buyers on Etsy in Q3 of 2022 and that number has been pretty steady for over a year now. The buyers are there, you just have to get them.

How can you do that?

FOLLOW THESE STEPS TO GETTING STARTED:

1. Pick a niche and a business name

Figure out what you want to sell on Etsy.

Make a list of all the things you love in life that can have a print on them. It could be coffee mugs, graphic tees, or water bottles - you name it.

Once you have your list, see if those items get a lot of sales on Etsy with EstyHunt. *you get 10 free searches per day*

So for example, if you were looking to sell custom t-shirts with cool designs, you'd type in "shirts" and you'll see people are selling 70, 80, even 90 shirts a week on Etsy - this is really good.

Coffee mugs seem to be a great product as well.

Now it’s time to pick an Etsy store name.

To do this, use a site like NameLix. Enter a few keywords that describe your product.

If we were making cool urban tees I’d put in keywords like “t-shirts”, “urban”, “cool”, “vibe”.

The site generates a ton of random names and even gives you unique styles for inspo.

2. Open an Etsy account

Go to Etsy and create an account. Then within that account, create your Etsy shop. This will be pretty easy.

You'll set up the basics:

• Your shop name

• Bank information

• Shop country/currency/language

You'll then have to create a listing. Just make this a draft one, you'll delete it later.

Now you're ready for step 3 - where all the magic happens.

3. Choose your print on demand fulfillment

The two big ones I’d recommend are Printify and Printful.

Both connect straight to your Etsy site and will allow you to publish products you create on here directly to your Etsy store.

Printify or Printful is where you'll create all your products and drop in any designs from Canva or Photoshop. Here's a video on how to connect it to your Etsy store - it takes about 30 seconds.

4. Create the designs for your product

This is going to be the hardest part of the process.

Sticking with selling t-shirts, if we want to sell a good amount you have to make stuff people actually want to buy. It can’t be two stick figures (although, who knows!)

If you’re going for simple tees with nice pictures and simple fonts, you can use free sites like Unsplash or Pexels and use those pictures for free without getting in legal trouble.

I also see a lot of top selling tees on Etsy that have funny or unique writing on them - like this one that has close to 900 sales:

And if you have a keen eye you'll also see this store has 117k sales. That's a lot of moolah!

You’ll have to get creative here and make multiple designs. Etsy is a numbers game so aim to have around 20-50 designs. The more products you can put in front of someone, the higher likelihood they’ll like one of them!

Remember, you can have as many designs as you want. You’re only accrue expenses once you make a sale.

5. Get customers

Your profit won't be that much per product, maybe like $5-$10. This means you need to get a lot of customers to buy your stuff.

Ranking on Etsy is tough, there’s a lot of competition on the site but there are a few ways to do it right.

Here’s an article on Printful that goes through ranking on Etsy in-depth but I’ll give you the cliff notes version:

• Make sure you have good SEO (search engine optimization) - if you’re selling t-shirts you better make sure that “t-shirt” is in your product title, Etsy tags, attributes, and categories. Use this keyword tool dominator

• Beef up the content of your listing - high-quality photos and clear and informative descriptions go a long way

• Keep your customer reviews high - have a good product and keep customers happy. One hasty review just starting out can be a huge burden

Also, consider putting some money into marketing with Facebook and Instagram ads to get eyeballs on your product.

I know these can be confusing sometimes so if you’d like I can write a whole newsletter on how to do FB ads properly, just lmk!

And there ya have it. This is how to start your own Etsy store and be off to the races.

It will take time to gain traction but if you have a solid product and can market it properly, you’ll slowly begin to gain sales, all automatically!

There are people out there making well over six figures doing this. Why can’t it be you?! 👊

MEME OF THE DAY

That's a wrap for today folks!

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.