As I am always looking for ways to generate additional income online, earlier this year I decided to try Etsy. After careful planning and research, I opened my first Etsy shop on May 1st.
My 1-year goal is to have a store that generates at least $2k monthly in passive income. I know there are a lot of people offering Etsy courses and claiming to have a store that makes 6 figures but that probably took years and multiple stores. So, at least for now, I have set a goal that seems more realistic in the short term.
I will be sharing my etsy progress every 3 months from now on. I think I can add value by showing some realistic expectations for people that may be interested in opening their own store and also by sharing what I learn along the way. So, let’s start with the 3-month check.
The Results
As of August 1st, exactly the 3 month mark, I have made exactly 41 sales and $108 in profit with $88 out of that being July sales. Am I happy with this? Well, partially. I’m still very far from my goal of $2k a month but my store is clearly in an upward trend as you can see in the monthly results below.
| Month | Sales | Revenue |
| May | 0 | $0 |
| June | 10 | $20 |
| July | 31 | $88 |
The Process
To talk about the process I need to start a month before I actually created my shop. During April, I spent quite a lot of time choosing a niche, doing keyword and competitor research and planning products I wanted to sell. Let me break it down.
Choosing a niche – Time spent: 12 hours
Choosing a niche is probably the most important part of the process and I really wanted to do it right. I could probably write a full article explaining the “how to choose a niche” process I followed but I will try to summarize it here. It took me about a week to choose a niche following these steps:
- Brainstorming niche ideas
- Keyword research for each of the niche ideas
- Competitor research for each of the niche ideas
- Analyzing results and short listing niches
- Choosing my final niche
Branding – Time spent: 6 hours
After I decided on the niche, I needed to create a brand around it. I spent some time thinking of a name for the store, creating a logo and a banner.
- Choosing a name for my shop: I used some free AI generator resources. My favorite is Namelix . I also made sure the name was available on Etsy.
- Creating a logo: This is not my first time creating a brand and I usually like to use Canva for this part of the process, and for everything else design related to be honest. There is a free version but personally I use the pro version as it lets me use more graphics and features.
- Creating a banner and slogan for the shop: After having the logo this should be faster as you probably want to use a similar theme and color palette.
Keyword Research – Time spent: 6 hours
You may be wondering, didn’t I do keyword research already when I was choosing a niche? Well, yes, but now it’s time to dive deeper. I used both Erank and SaleSamurai for the process. Both tools are pretty affordable at less than $10 per month and they also offer free trials. I found both tools to be useful in different ways, but if I have to recommend one I would choose Sale Samurai. During this time, I spent hours finding some juicy keywords. This means keywords that have high search volume and low competition. Sounds easier said than done, so again I may write a full article about doing keyword research.
Product planning – Time spent: 2 hours
After having a list of about 20 very good keywords, I matched each keyword to a product I would create. Once I had the list of products, I chose 8 products that I wanted to create first. I chose 8 because based on my research most successful stores in my niche had launched an average of 8 products during their first month on Etsy, but this number can vary depending on the niche.
Product research – Time spent: 2 hours per product
This is the process I followed for each of the products I created for my store.
- Go on Etsy, and look for competitor listings for this product
- Use Erank to analyze each of these listings. Look at different metrics such as age, views, sales, conversion rate, price.
- Besides metrics, I also analyze the listing itself and take notes of details such as best and worst reviews, product features, color palette, and more.
- Repeat this process for each competitor listing. Depending on the product and competition volume, I like to do this for 5 to 20 products.
- Finally, I go back to your notes and analyze the best performing products. What are they doing that I want to replicate? How can I make the product even better? Then, I also look at the worst performing products. Why is it not performing well? What does this tell me and what mistakes should I avoid?
Product creation – Time spent: totally depends on product
Now, to the most fun and creative part. After the previous research, I already had a pretty good idea of what I wanted my product to look like and what features I wanted to include. After the product is ready, one important part is creating the images/slides for the listing. Again, I used Canva for this process.
Lessons learned
The first (organic) sale takes time
I opened my shop on May 1st and I wanted to see how long it took to get the first sale organically. There is nothing wrong with asking friends to buy your product and leave a review but I wanted to see if i could get one sale before telling my friends. I got my first sale on June 3rd, more than a month after opening. I should say though that I did not do any social media marketing or Etsy Ads during this time as I was fully focused on creating and launching products.
What I would do differently next time: Just ask friends from the beginning to buy from my store if they are interested in the products and leave a review.
Social media marketing works even as a new store
After getting my first sale, I started doing Tik Tok videos to promote my store. I’m not a Tik Tok expert yet, so my videos are still pretty basic. However, I did find some customers through this platform. One of the biggest orders actually came from Tik Tok. Someone really liked my store and bought 5 products!
I need to keep growing my Tik Tok account and will report back on results. I am also starting to test Pinterest. Although, unlike Tik Tok it takes longer for pins to get traffic.
What I would do differently next time: Tik Tok is awesome! I’d just start earlier next time.
Publishing variations of a product helps you optimize your listings
For every product I created, I listed at least 3 variations of it. This means that I would either change the color palette of the product or use a different image for the listing. For example: If you have a “teacher digital planner” in blue, you can also make one in black and white. Also, you can try having a listing that showcases just the planner cover and another that shows some of the content. This strategy helped me realize what colorway was more popular and what listing style I should keep.
What I would do differently next time: I’d also experiment with different keywords. Having the exact same product in the same color and with the same listing pictures but create 2 different listings for it with different keywords. I started doing this recently and I started getting sales for a couple of products that were not selling at all.
Price higher and constantly run sales
Pricing is a very important part of the process. As a new store, you want your price point to be competitive which does not necessarily mean having the lowest price. If you truly believe your product is superior, you can and should price it accordingly. I think the strategy I followed here is working wonders. I ran a 70% off store wide promotion during the first 2 months, but I had priced my products so that after the 70% off they would be at a competitive price point compared to the competition. I have to say this also depends on what competitors in the niche are doing. In my niche, most stores run sales all the time, so I have to keep up with that. However, I price higher knowing I will be constantly running sales.
What I would do differently next time: Nothing. Just repeat this strategy.
Next steps
For the next 3 months, I want to focus on:
- Figuring out an Etsy Ads strategy that works for my store. I have been turning Etsy Ads on and off and trying it for different products but I still have not figured out a strategy that works for me.
- Growing my Tik Tok account and starting Pinterest marketing.
- Prepare for the Holiday season. I am working on some new Holiday themed products.
Well, this is all for now. I will report back with my 6-month update in November. And before I go you are probably wondering, what am I selling? Digital products. Google Sheets templates for a specific niche. I don’t want to reveal my Etsy store for now because that could impact the conversion rate and its growth, but I do plan to reveal it in the future.