How to Sell Printables on Etsy for Beginners

Selling printables on Etsy is a great way to turn your creative skills into a profitable business.

If you’re a beginner looking to start selling printables on Etsy, you may have a lot of questions, such as what type of printables to create, how to price your products, and how to market your shop.

In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the process step by step, so you can confidently start selling your printables on Etsy.

Below are some of the things you need to know to get started.

What is a Printable?

Since you’re probably new to the printable, let’s first explore the definition of a printable.

Printables are digital files that customers can download and print at home. They can range from worksheets to planners, stickers, artwork, and more.

Is Selling Printables on Etsy Profitable?

Selling printables on Etsy has become increasingly popular in recent years, and for good reasons.

Low Start-Up Costs

Since printables are digital files, there are minimal costs involved in producing and delivering them to customers. This means that you can sell your printables at a lower price point compared to physical products, and still make a good profit.

Creating a printable requires software. Luckily, there is free software on the market that can do just as much as paid-for software.

Canva is one type of software that many printable sellers use. It has free and paid versions, but the free version is robust enough to create high-quality printables to sell in your Etsy shop.

Other software options to create printables include Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Suite, G-Suite, and Inkscape. These tools are free but do offer the ability to create unique and high-quality designs that stand out from the crowd to sell on Etsy.

By sticking to free software, you can start your printables business for little to no money at all.

Passive Income

The other benefit of a printables business is that it can become a steady source of passive income over time. Once you create a printable, you can sell the digital file over and over and over again.

You do not need to recreate the file. You do not need to fulfill orders. You simply upload the file to Etsy, and the buyer receives their digital downloads instantly after they make their purchase.

You receive payment without doing anything additional to your digital product. Over time, selling printables on Etsy will become passive, but you will need to put in some initial work on the front end of starting your Etsy printables business.

Can you Make Money Selling Printables on Etsy?

Yes, it is possible to make money selling printables on Etsy

The only thing creating printables costs you is your initial time investment and the listing fee. On Etsy, that fee is just 20 cents per four-month listing. That’s a small cost to pay for something you can sell over and over and over again.

The key to making money selling printables on Etsy is to create high-quality products that stand out from the competition and are relevant to your target audience.

It’s also important to price your printables competitively and optimize your listings for maximum visibility in Etsy’s search results.

Selling printables on Etsy can be a very profitable venture if done correctly.

Where Can You Sell Printables?

There are several places to sell printables once you create them, but we think the best place to sell your printables is Etsy.

Etsy is a massive marketplace that attracted 81.9 million shoppers to its site in 2020.

In 2021 and 2022, that number looks north of 90M shoppers!

If you’re creating educational printables, then a site like Teachers Pay Teachers may be your best bet. This is where teachers, educators, and parents find resources and other educational materials for themselves and their students or children. You do not have to be a teacher to sell on Tpt. In fact, it may be beneficial to sell on both marketplaces if you are creating printables that would meet the needs of both those target audiences.

If you want to sell on your own, you can sell through a Facebook Group or create your own website through Shopify or WooCommerce.

If you’re looking for a creative marketplace to sell your printables through, Design Bundles, Creative Market, or Karimoos are all good places to try.

Is it Worth Selling Printables on Etsy?

Yes, it can be worth selling printables on Etsy, especially if you have a creative talent and a passion for design. Printables offer a great opportunity to turn your skills into a profitable business.

With Etsy’s global marketplace, where you can reach a large audience of potential customers, the demand for printables is only increasing. Etsy has developed a reputation for selling printables, so people will visit the site specifically to buy printables.

When you optimize your products for SEO and maximum visibility, your items on Etsy won’t just show up in Etsy searches, but they’ll also show up on search engine searches such as Google and Bing. This is a great way to get your products in front of the right buyers and to increase your sales.

The traffic combined with the 20-cent listing fee makes selling printables on Etsy well worth it.

How to Create Printables to Sell

To start your Etsy printables business, you need to determine the types of printables that you will want to create. You can use sites like Pinterest to see what kinds of printables are already out there and for inspiration. You can also use Etsy itself to see what kinds of printables are selling and what types of printables interest you.

If you are in need of more ideas, we have 35+ printable ideas to help you get started.

Determining a Niche

Trying to create every type of printable you see on Etsy is too broad of a starting place for most Etsy sellers. You will want to begin by choosing a niche for your printables.

Most Etsy shops offer one or two types of printables and focus on those, such as planners and stickers, finance materials, or even seasonal printables.

Decide what types of printables you want to sell and focus your efforts on those. If you find your niche isn’t working for you, you can always shift your gears and move in a different direction.

How to Make Printables to Sell

Once you know what type of printables you want to create, it’s time to get designing.

As mentioned before, software like Canva and Inkscape are free and are great to get you started with designing your product.

Experienced designers can easily begin creating their printables whereas beginners may need to play with the tools to become familiar with them. Alternatively, there are courses to learn how to sell printables on Etsy for beginners.

Gold City Ventures’ E-printable course is designed for every skill level. It will give you step-by-step lessons on how to use Canva to create great-looking printables. You’ll also receive design tips and tricks.

With this course, you do not have to be tech-savvy. In addition to the detailed walk-throughs, you will receive premade templates that you can use and turn into a new end product to sell in your Etsy shop which is a great way to get started selling printables on Etsy quickly.

The course also takes you through the steps of creating listings and the SEO process to maximize the number of buyers that see and potentially purchase your printables. SEO is super important when it comes to running a successful printables shop on Etsy.

Gold City Ventures has taken over 10,000 students through their course, many of which have become very successful printable sellers on Etsy. This course can help you take your printables business from a hobby to a bonafide side hustle.

How to Make Printables to Sell on Etsy

If you’re just starting out on Etsy, you can try making printables in some of the more popular selling categories first. These are the categories that Etsy shoppers know and deliberately look for.

Some of the bestselling types of printables on Etsy include:

Party Games

When it comes to party games, you can be talking about adult party games, kid-friendly games, or kids-only games.

People search Etsy to find games for everything from bachelorette parties to baby showers and weddings. You can find games for holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas, or events like birthday parties.

There are plenty of niche categories within party games to keep you creating for a while. The biggest thing to remember is to create unique high-quality products to diversify yourself from what is already available in the marketplace.

Planners

Everyone wants to be a little more organized in life, but sometimes they need the right tools to do it. Printable planners and calendars are popular sellers, especially at the start of a new year. You can even make specific planners such as meal planners, weight loss planners, or vacation planners.

A great digital planner course for beginners is the Passive Income Planner Girl course by the Secret OWL Society. It gives you all the tips and tricks you need to start a successful digital planner business!

Stickers

Just like party games, stickers cover a wide variety of categories. There are stickers for fun, stickers for your planners, and stickers that show fun phrases. Stickers are where your creativity can shine.

When it comes to stickers, yes, they can be printables. If you create SVG files, crafters can purchase the file and then load it into their Cricut and Silhouette machines to create their stickers at home.

A great course on how to create printable stickers is by Mim. She takes you, step by step, through what you need to know to start selling your own stickers.

Seasonal Printables

Etsy is the go-to site for people looking to decorate for the holidays. There are cute DIY napkin holders, place cards for Thanksgiving dinner, and patterns for crafts like table runners.

One of the best-selling seasonal printables on Etsy is coloring pages. They’re the perfect things to keep the kids busy while dinner is cooking.

If you can name a holiday, you can bet there is a printable on Etsy for that holiday.

Wall Art

Nowadays, people are just as likely to turn to Etsy for printable wall art as they are to go out and buy it.

One of the perks of buying wall art on Etsy is that you can adjust the size of the art to fit the frame or the space that you’re trying to decorate.

If you’re a talented artist, then wall art may be a good place to start your printables journey.

Teacher Resources and Materials

While teacher resources and materials might be best sold on Teachers Pay Teachers, Etsy is also a good place for them. Teacher resources and materials don’t just include worksheets, but they can also be classroom decor, classroom management activities, or cute crafts for students.

How to Start an Etsy Shop to Sell Printables

Once you have your printables created, you’ll need to create an Etsy shop to sell them in.

If you don’t already have an Etsy account, you will need to create one. Then, set up your shop.

One of the most critical pieces of creating an Etsy shop is the shop name. This is the name that people will know and recognize your shop by, so you need to make sure that your shop name is memorable and represents you and your products.

If you’re having trouble coming up with a shop name, here are some shop name ideas to get you started.

How do I Legally Sell Printables?

You need to do a few other things to make your Etsy printables business legitimate.

Get a Business License if Necessary

While Etsy doesn’t require you to have either a business license or a business tax certificate to set up your Etsy shop, that does not mean you don’t need them.

Some cities and counties require a business license, even for online businesses. Some states require that online businesses have business tax certificates too. You will need to check for your specific geographical region as to what the requirement is to make sure you comply with whatever online selling laws apply to you.

Follow Copyright and Trademark Laws

Another important thing to remember when running your printables business on Etsy is to follow all applicable copyright and trademark laws.

Unless you have permission or licensing rights, you cannot use images that belong to someone else. That means all the favorites like Paw Patrol, The Office, SpongeBob SquarePants, anything Disney, and more are off-limits.

This is also true for images. You can’t just search the internet for an image or graphic that meets your needs. You will need to go about the proper channels to obtain your graphics and images for commercial use.

Following copyright and trademark laws isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s also the only way to guarantee that your initial work does not go to waste.

Using Templates to Sell Printables Legally

Another way to stay compliant when selling printables on Etsy would be to sell PLR products. PLR stands for private label rights and is popular amongst sellers who are looking to sell don-for-you product templates to their customers who then take their template and turn it into a new end product.

How to Sell Printables for Steady Passive Income

Of course, creating the printables and setting up the shop are just the first steps on your selling journey.

You also need to figure out how to make your printables stand out in the crowd. Creating beautiful designs is one thing, but no one will see them or buy them if they’re not marketed correctly.

To successfully sell on Etsy, you need to have a good understanding of SEO and product placement. You need to figure out how to make your listings stand out and appear on the first page of a search.

Conclusion

Selling printables on Etsy can be a great way to turn your creative skills into a profitable business. Whether you’re a seasoned designer or just starting out, there are software options available to help you create beautiful printables.

While there are costs involved in creating and running an Etsy shop, such as the time and effort to create designs and market your shop, selling printables on Etsy can be a profitable venture if done correctly. You’ll need to create unique and high-quality designs, price your products competitively, and optimize your listings for maximum visibility in Etsy’s search results.

Additionally, marketing your shop through social media and other channels can help drive more traffic and sales to your Etsy store. With the right approach and strategies, selling printables on Etsy can be a rewarding and profitable business opportunity.

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