As a busy mom, having a passive income business is the dream. I mean, the idea of making money in your sleep, c’mon, who doesn’t want that.
The truth is passive income businesses do take a lot of up front work. While there are many to choose from, one that I have first hand experience in is selling printable files on Etsy.
Digital downloads are all over the place nowadays. One of the fastest growing side-hustles you can start from home is an Etsy Printables business.
What are Etsy Printables?
Printables are digital products you download and print at home.
Examples include birthday party invitations, wedding decor, gift tags, candy bar wrappers and quotes for wall art.
Why Start An Etsy Printables Business?
Earning money outside of your day job is one of the most powerful things you can do for your personal finances. It can give you more financial freedom and control. Every extra dollar you earn brings you one step closer to your financial goals.
Extra money can allow you to:
Pay off debt
Buy a car
Start an emergency fund
Save up for your next vacation
Or even quit your day job
The great thing is, you don’t need any special skills or qualifications to start earning extra money in your spare time. The most important thing you can do is to get started. That’s why earning passive income is so powerful.
One of the best ways to earn passive income is by starting your own Etsy Printables Business. You create the design once and then sell it indefinitely with no extra work involved. This allows you time freedom along with your financial freedom.
Sure, you can do something like drive for Uber or Lyft to earn money on the side, but you’ll always be trading your time for money.
There’s no way to scale those side hustles.
With Etsy printables, you’re able to frontload much of the work and then collect the profits while you sleep. You can do it in your spare time without leaving the house. All you need is a computer and internet.
Building passive income gives you so much more flexibility.
How it Works
When you start an Etsy printables business. You simply set up an Etsy seller account, design printable worksheets, invitations, signs, or other items, and then list them for sale in your shop.
It can be a super simple business to set up and you can make sales with out much marketing by selling to people already searching for items on Etsy.
Of course, to maximize your profits, you will need to make sure you have beautiful listing images, a good title and description, and good keywords that your would-be customers are using to search for what you created.
Even though printables are not expensive products, they sell amazingly well and many people have full-time jobs just from making and selling their work online.
What Etsy Printables Sell Well?
The most intimidating part of starting a printables business is just thinking of an idea. It can feel overwhelming to have to figure out what to list. But I’ll let you in on two little secrets.
1. There are no bad ideas.
People are making money on Etsy selling printable wine labels so that brides can ask their friends to be bridesmaids. Other people create cute kitchen labels. People buy printable spice labels and jar labels on Etsy too.
Other people sell games for bachelorette parties or baby showers or holiday parties. You don’t have to think of something complicated.
2. Pinterest is an awesome source of ideas
A great source of product ideas is Pinterest. You can search for printables on Pinterest and get ideas. For example, with Valentine’s day people were selling printable classroom valentines, love coupons, cards, party games, worksheets, wine labels, and more.
Using seasonal trends to brainstorm printables is a great way to think of new ideas and stay on top of the market! Search around Pinterest and see what you can find.
27 Etsy Printables That Sell Well
Here are 27 ideas that can start you off.
Banners, signs, and posters
Planners
Digital paper
Bookmarks
Guestbooks
Calendars
Fonts
Candy bar wrappers
Cards and announcements
Checklists
Clipart
Gift Tags
Collage art and pictures
Date cards
Games
Coloring pages
Worksheets
Countdowns and advent calendars
Embroidery designs and patterns
Craft patterns
Home decor
Design kits
Business cards
Door hangers
Favor boxes and tags
Invitations
Holiday decor
How Can I Design My Printables
There are people killing it selling printables on Etsy who:
Had no graphic design background before starting
Didn’t consider themselves creative
Had only a couple of free hours per week
Never used or even heard of Etsy before
There are plenty of no cost ways to create the designs for your printables. You can use PowerPoint or Slides. You can also use Canva.com to create beautiful designs for free. There is a paid version of Canva, but you don’t need that to create fun and beautiful designs for your products.
You don’t need a graphic design degree to create something people will buy. My first digital products were worksheets I had created for myself to keep my household information organized. I then decided to upload them to Etsy as I figured if I found them useful, so would other people.
I started a second Etsy shop where I create printable invitations, thank you cards, and kids party packages. I had been creating these kinds of items for my own kids and thought others might like them as well. Then I started making more just for the fun of it when I have spare time.
You can check out my two shops below:
I don’t have to worry about shipping or inventory like other Etsy sellers. And because I don’t have manufacturing costs other than my time, the profit on each sale is huge!
Things to Be Aware of
While it’s definitely possible to create designs for free using programs like Canva.com or PowerPoint, there is a cost for listing items on Etsy.
While it only costs 20 cents per item, depending on how many items you upload it can add up. You automatically get charged the listing $0.20 fee each time an item sells as well as every three months even if the item does not sell.
Therefore, unlike many Print on Demand sites, or selling low/no content books on Amazon, there is an upfront cost to selling on Etsy.
In addition, Etsy, of course, does take some fees at the time of a sale, but every platform does that. In my experience, I can make a much better profit selling an invitation on Etsy as a printable, than selling the same design on Zazzle where the customer can actually get the invitation printed.
In addition, for items that require personalization, strictly using Etsy may not be passive. For example if you sell an invitation that needs to include all the party info, once a sale is made you will need to add that info and then send the file to the customer.
On the other hand, there are sites like corjl.com and templett.com, where you upload your designs and link them to the Etsy listing which will allow customers to edit the information themselves. These sites however do have a cost.
A third option is to make the files editable in Adobe, but to be honest I don’t know how to do that, so I can’t provide guidance there. I would assume you would need to have software from the Adobe suite, but you can correct me if I’m wrong in the comments.
The Benefits of an Etsy Printables Business
Etsy printables is definitely one of my favorite side hustles. You can create and upload designs whenever you have free time. You don’t have to worry about fulfilling orders (unless you make printables that require you to personalize them). And you get to maximize profits.
The upfront cost is pretty low at 20 cents per listing so it won’t break the bank. And you can still make sales even if you don’t have time to promote your business much just from people already searching on Etsy. Plus, if you want to boost sales, there are tons of options from Etsy ads, to promoting listings on Pinterest or social media, to offering sales.
But, you don’t even have to worry about all that just to get started. Just create something you think is fun or useful and list it because other people will probably think it’s fun and useful too!
If you are intrigued but are looking for more info, check out my list of resources for creating an Etsy printables business.
Cheers,
Emily
