These days, there’s no shortage of options for those looking for a side hustle. You can rap on Fiverr, start a blog, organize people’s homes or even make some weird deliveries. It all depends on what pockets of time you have available and what you’re interested in doing.
One particular side hustle that people have found to be lucrative and not too hard to dive into is selling printables on marketplaces like Etsy and Shopify. A printable is a two-dimensional design, like a card or a worksheet, that people can buy online and print at home, or send electronically.
“I highly recommend that people start with selling on a platform like Etsy that already has buyers,” says Julie Berninger, who makes about $10,000 per year selling printables on Etsy and who teaches a printables course herself. On platforms like Shopify or a blog, “it can take a lot of work to acquire customers.”
Here’s how to start a printables side hustle on Etsy according to Berninger and Rachel Jimenez, who brings in six figures per year selling printables on Etsy.
Consider, ‘what do people need?’
There are several ways to figure out what to make.
- “Try to think of an upcoming seasonal holiday or event or special occasion,” says Berninger. Is Halloween around the corner? Is Easter just a few months away? How about Chinese New Year? Let your calendar guide you in terms of what could be relevant and in-demand.
- Another option: “If you start with your strengths, your interests, things that are unique to you, that will help narrow down the focus,” says Jimenez. What would you make for another expert bowler, for example? Or someone who’s got a horseback riding competition coming up this weekend?
- Finally, consider “what do people need?” says Jimenez. Say it’s the beginning of the school year and you are a parent. If it’s customary to give teachers a gift on the first day of school, can you make a printable e-card? Or even a printable gift card holder? Consider people’s various pain points and think, “can I solve this problem with something that I could sell on Etsy?” says Jimenez.
Berninger recommends getting ideas on sites like Pinterest. “I type in different holidays or special occasions plus the word ‘digital product’ or ‘printable template’ and then I get ideas,” she says. Don’t copy what’s already out there, but let it inform the kinds of products people are looking for and what you might make.
Use Google Docs, Excel or Canva to make your product
When it comes to making your product, use the tool that makes the most sense.
If you’re making a worksheet, for example, Word or Google Docs could suffice. If you’re making a spreadsheet, Excel could work. For anything more graphic, “we recommend starting with a program like Canva,” says Berninger. “It’s free. It’s easy to use. It’s just a browser-based graphic design tool.”
Berninger also recommends printing out your product once you’ve finished creating it to ensure the design actually works the way you intended it to.
Create ‘beautiful listing images’
Once you’ve created your item and before you upload it, you want to make sure you have “really appealing and eye catching and beautiful listing images,” says Jimenez.
Think about how people could use your item or what the best layout to present it is. In the case of a gift card holder, “you would probably do better if you actually printed it out and you put an actual gift card in there” to show potential buyers what it could look like, says Berninger.
With printable cards, you could find a picture of a desk and digitally edit a photo of your printable on it “so it looks like a printable that’s on a desk,” says Berninger. Peruse Etsy as well to see how other sellers are presenting their items.
Use smart keywords
When it’s time to list, there are three components of the listing that will help you get noticed: the title, the description and the tags.
“With Etsy, you’re just trying to make it the most searchable thing possible,” says Berninger, “using smart keywords and strategy so that when someone goes on Etsy and they’re typing in whatever they’re looking for, you show up on page one.”
Some keywords to use in your title, description and tags are obvious, like the name of your item. But there may be some other terms people use to look for it that you’re not aware of.
To find them, Jimenez recommends using a tool like Ubersuggest, a Google Chrome extension which shows you how often a given term has been searched, as well as a series of other similar terms that people might use within the category. For “hanukkah card,” for example, Ubersuggest lists “happy hanukkah card,” “hanukkah card greetings” and “funny hanukkah card.” Depending on what’s most relevant, any of these could be used in your title, tags and description together.
When you insert your new keywords, make sure they sound natural wherever you use them.
‘Price right in the middle’
In terms of figuring out how much to charge, “I like to just price right in the middle of whatever else is already out there,” says Berninger. Pricing too high could turn people away and pricing too low could make people question the quality of the product, she says.
Remember, Etsy charges 20 cents per listing as well as a transaction fee that’s 6.5% of the price of your item.
Once your item is live, that’s it! “We call it the ‘set it and forget it’ of side hustles,” says Berninger.
Etsy sees millions of buyers. “If you get your title and your tags right and you did the market research upfront,” says Jimenez, “the algorithm should work for you.”
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