This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Desiree Sandison, a 30-year-old Etsy seller in Vancouver, Canada. Insider has verified her store income. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I sell digital products on Etsy. I don’t have to print products or send out orders — it’s the perfect lifestyle business for me.
I’ve been a stay-at-home mom for almost six years now. When I had my first baby, I wanted to find a way to make extra income from home. I tried being a social-media manager and a virtual assistant.
But, I realized I was having to sell my time. That wasn’t the right fit for me with a baby at home.
I made templates for businesses on Canva
When I was working as a social-media manager and virtual assistant, I’d made templates on Canva for their businesses to use.
I thought: “If I started a business, I wouldn’t want to hire a designer to brand everything I needed to start off with.” I figured I could make templates for everything a business needed, such as onboarding documents, a client intake form and a digital business card. They download the template and could change elements, such as the color or fonts.
Canva has some free templates, but they don’t all work together. I realized there was a gap in the market for templates that are branded the same across different types of products, from Instagram posts to service pricing guides.
I’m an introvert and I didn’t want to become a creator
I figured I could sell templates to other businesses. I wasn’t sure how else I could sell them besides being an influencer.
But I’m an introvert. I don’t have a large social-media following. I couldn’t be an influencer.
I discovered people were making money from selling online templates on Etsy.
I set up my own Etsy store right before I had my second baby in May 2022. I hoped I could make 500 Canadian dollars a month.
I didn’t make much money until I grouped my products into bundles
Once I’d had my baby, I left my shop for a while. It started getting some sales in June and July.
I saw that people were selling templates for CA$5. I couldn’t compete with that on price. But it was when I decided to sell my digital products together in bundles in August that I started to really make money.
I’d group my products into bundles so that business could download a range of digital templates for a set price. I created a bundle with products for onboarding employees, a social-media bundle and a marketing bundle. I also had bundles tailored to the needs of specific types of businesses, such as wedding planners and virtual assistants.
I priced the bundles at CA$172 at first. My sales went up dramatically from making CA$101 in June to CA$2,300 in September.
I changed my market research
I put bundle prices on sale. It always shows the customer they are 75% off for 24 hours and there’s a countdown clock. That gives them a little more urgency to buy it. Now they’re priced between CA$25 and CA$45.
Occasionally, I add new products, but most of them are the same ones I started with.
Now I’ve changed my process. I use eRank, a platform that helps Etsy sellers find high-search volume, low-competition products. I look for products that have at least 300 searches a month, but fewer than 10,000 listings.
I add bonuses to my templates that clients aren’t getting from competitors
When I’ve found a product that works, it’s important to see what’s working for other sellers, and to find a way to improve the product. There’s no point in trying to sell a product that’s not already selling.
I’d add more on-trend branding, and bonuses for the customer.
More recently, I’ve started adding more written content within the templates and selling different versions of them tailored to particular industries. For example, if a client intake form was for a social-media manager, I would add some questions they might ask new clients.
Writing that content took me a long time. I’d spend around 10 hours writing each one.
Businesses aren’t spending money on frivolous things right now. They need something that will save them time and money.
I’ve made about $34,400 this year
I made CA$39,300, which is about $28,500, in revenue from my shop this year. I started another shop focused on digital products for wedding coordinators in September 2022. I made CA$8,200 from that shop over this year, which is about $5,900.
Both are pretty passive. I spend around an hour a month on my shops except for periods when I add new products.
One shop has 11 products and the other one has 23. You don’t need 100 listings in your shop to make a lot of money. But the more you have, the more you’ll appear in searches.
It’s helped my family save for trips
It was important that I found a way to contribute to our household but still be at home with my kids.
My income has meant we can do more fun things and save up. We’re going to Paris next year and Disneyland in December. We’ve also been able to help out people close to us who were going through difficult financial times. That’s been wonderful.
