Selling Digital Products On Etsy - Is It Worth It?

Marketing And Business Ecommerce Essentials
1

I was going to DM Diane this question, but I thought I'd ask it here if anyone else had any ideas or thoughts.

Quick background context:
I run multiple niche sites, once of which is a printables shop, hosted through Shopify (found here) - it's basically just a bunch of planners, calendars, wall art, etc. I don't make a lot of sales on Shopify and have been thinking of putting all the printables on Etsy.

Reason I'm on the fence right now is I know that Etsy is pretty saturated with all these printables, and so the main question I'm wondering, is it really worth it to put them all up on Etsy (I think there are 60 or so products). Or is it better to try to find an alternative place to sell them. I'd mainly be using Etsy to try to use their platform to gain a larger reach.

Curious what everyone's opinion is.

2

I absolutely love selling printables on Etsy, and it definitely has pros and cons.

 

On the plus side, once you have added a listing to your shop, you don't have to do anything to that listing ever again, it just stays there forever!

No updating, no worrying about Google, you don't even need a specific niche, etc.

People go to Etsy with purchasing in mind, they are not there to read stuff, you don't need to prove you are an expert in anything.

Etsy brings the audience to you, and each listing costs $0.20 every 4 months. The easiest thing is to set it for auto-renewal, but if you don't want to do that, simply renew it when due, you will get a reminder.

 

Now, on the negative side - Etsy does charge various fees, which soon add up.

  • Transaction fee: 6.5% of item price

  • Payment processing (US): 3% + $0.25 per order, taken from the order total.

  • Listing fee: $0.20 per listing (4 months; renews per quantity sold).

So, if you have a listing for $3, the profit would be $2.26.

Digital products are typically priced very low, so it's a numbers game - the more listings the better - I currently have just under 700, and my conversion rate is 4.1 %.

 

Etsy has its own SEO and algorithm, you need keywords, descriptions, tags, images, videos. Quick views, favorites and sales on new listings work in your favor, Etsy will list them higher. If you have an email list or related social media to bring your own audience, this helps.

Or you can run Etsy ads immediately, for as little as $1 per day, and stop them at any time. But here is where your fees really add up! Typically, a further 12% to 15% on your sale price.