It’s been a few months since I started selling print-on-demand products on Etsy. Previously, I’d sold these products on Amazon only. But I saw many people crushing it on Etsy, so I decided to extend my offerings to this interesting marketplace.
Over the past two months, I slowly listed a few products on Etsy. Much to my surprise, I’ve made a sale or more almost every day on Etsy over the past 30 days.
Currently, I’ve earned over $642 on Etsy by selling print-on-demand products.
That’s pretty fast, compared to how long it took me to make $642 on Amazon. It took me much less time to reach the same goal on Etsy.
In this post, I’ll show you what I’ve learned after selling a few products, and share some of the techniques I use to sell print-on-demand products on Etsy.
I’m sure you can use some of my tricks to build your own print-on-demand business on Etsy. 🙂
Selling on Etsy is Easier than selling on Amazon
The first thing I found out is that it’s easier to sell print-on-demand products on Etsy than it is on Amazon.
I had only 800 products when I started making at least a sale every day.
On Amazon, I needed a thousand products to do the same thing.
I think it’s because print-on-demand products are usually a gift.
If you check out the products on Etsy, you’ll see that most of them are gifts or handmade items.
So coffee mugs, shot glasses and other print-on-demand products with hilarious or meaningful messages on them tend to sell well here.
Moreover, if you look more closely, you’ll find that unique gifts – especially ones that can be personalized – sell really well. (For example, coffee mugs with the name of the owner (or the name of someone they love) on it.
That’s why print-on-demand products sell well on Etsy.
There is a Listing Fee on Etsy
The second thing I found is that the competition on Etsy is much lower than it is on Amazon.
I think one of the reasons for that is that Etsy has a listing fee. Sellers need to pay $0.20 to list a product, and the listing will last for four months.
If you have 1,000 products, you have to pay $200 every 4 months to keep your listings alive.
Many sellers I know are not willing to pay that fee...
They can apply for the GTIN Exemption and list products for free on Amazon. Listing fees are not something they are familiar with, so they don’t want to pay them.
Anyway, this is a huge advantage for Etsy’s sellers. It allows them to avoid competition.
Let say we have 1,000 products on Etsy and have to pay $50 a month. We need to sell only 10-15 products to cover our listing fees.
That’s VERY EASY to do. 🙂
Customers from Many Countries
The next thing I found out is that I’m selling to customers from many countries, including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, France, etc.
I checked the stats on SimilarWeb and found that people from these countries visit Etsy every month.
I was surprised about this, because most of my sales on Amazon are from the US. I’ve had an Amazon Canada account for many months, but I’ve had only a few orders.
But on Etsy, it seems easier to get sales from other countries around the world.
If you check the Etsy site, you will see that they have localized it pretty well.
I’m in Thailand, and the website shows me prices in Thai Baht.
When I go to a product page, it also shows me whether this product will be shipped to Thailand, along with the shipping cost.
I think this is the main reason why I’ve had sales from many different countries.
Descriptions and Tags Are Important
I did some research on Etsy after I made a few sales.
Etsy provides a stats dashboard for sellers that allows them to check where their visitors are from, and which keywords they used to search for products.
You can easily see which keywords help people find your shop.
I tried to search Etsy using a keyword that people had used to find my shop. I discovered that my product was ranked in the top ten.
Then, I checked the other products in the top ten. Most of them had the same keyword in both title and product descriptions.
Some of them have the keyword in the title only, but not in the product description. I think it’s because they have a good sales record on Etsy. I checked the sale stats for those shops, and they’ve been making strong sales for years.
Maybe this is another factor Etsy uses to rank products.
Anyway, if you’re new to Etsy, it’s very important to have a relevant keyword in the product title, product description and/or product tag.
Your Sales Rates Matter
Having a main keyword in the title, description and tag is only one factor. I’ve also noticed that Etsy gives new products a chance to rank better than old ones.
I saw many of my new products in the top ranking for different keywords in the first week.
A week later, the ones that didn’t sell had moved to the bottom or to the next page. The new top ten had been replaced with the new products and old ones that had a decent sales record.
So I think if a new product doesn’t sell for a period of time, its ranking will be worse.
I checked another keyword for one of my top-selling products, I found that it has been one of the top three keywords for a few weeks now.
It seems that how quickly you sell is another important factor. If your product doesn’t make money for Etsy, Etsy will place other good products into the top rankings.
This also means that it’s very important to have only relevant keywords in your product titles, descriptions, and tags.
If you insert irrelevant keywords for your product, people may search and find that your product is not what they’re looking for. They’ll skip over your product, and your product will earn a lower ranking score.
So it’s important to equip your product with good product info right from the start. Otherwise, it will be hard to sell that product.
To Sum Up
Okay, these are five important things I learned after I making my first $642 on Etsy.
If you’re already selling print-on-demand products on other marketplaces (but not Etsy), I recommend that you try it out.
It’s a unique marketplace, and I have found that it’s much easier to sell print-on-demand products there than it is on Amazon.
Also, many people I know have made a lot of sales on this marketplace ALONE.
Have a great day! 🙂
Bank “Etsy is Easy” K.
P.S. I currently have over a thousand products on Etsy and I spend just a few minutes maintain them using my automated system, PODTurbo.
Some of you might know of it, because I promoted it a few weeks ago.
Some people have already used it to make sales on Etsy.
Anyway, we’ve closed PODTurbo for a while to fix some bugs and add more features such as Amazon Integration, automated fulfillment, etc.
We plan to open it up again to the public next year. If you’re interested, click the button below to add yourself to the waiting list.
I’ll send you a notification when we open it up again.
You rock!
