Doug: Hey, what’s going on. Welcome to the Doug show. My name is Doug Cunnington. And today I have a very exciting interview. I’m going to learn a lot. I’ve been interested in the print on demand slash Etsy space for a little while. So I’m chatting with Emily Odio Sutton and Emily started selling on Etsy in January of 2023 and now has over 27, 000 sales.
In her two shops, she’s a former educator turned entrepreneur, and she loves supporting new Etsy sellers on their journey to passive income with both print on demand and digital products. She’s been featured on CNBC, business insider, market watch, and a lot more. Emily, how’s it going today?
Emily: I’m good.
Thanks for having me, Doug. I’m excited to be here.
Doug: And we were just getting to know each other really quick in about less than five minutes. And one very exciting thing, which is beyond the scope of the topic today is you have had a full time job like many of us did when we started our side hustle, but very soon you’re going to have a change.
Can you just share that really quick?
Emily: Absolutely. So in a couple days, I will be having my last day, you know, employed by my employer. And so I will be taking this entrepreneurship journey full time be a solopreneur and be kind of exploring more with Etsy and expanding my products and coaching and everything like that.
So I’m super excited. It’s a little nerve wracking for someone like me. I’ve been in the education space for so long. So doing something. Just out of the box and different is going to be exciting. A little nerve wracking, but I’m, I’m super excited.
Doug: I’m, I’m very excited for you to congratulations, big, huge step, especially after two years of doing this probably very much on the side and then, and then growing it up.
As someone who has been self employed for about 10 years I operate much better self employed. I think I was a horrible employee if I have to be honest to you, but like you seem like you’re, you were probably a good employee and, uh, we could quickly move on to the topic at hand. So let’s, um. Let’s talk about your first sort of exposure and getting started with Etsy in 2023.
Obviously you had a career, you were doing stuff, but you got, you got the itch. You were like, I kind of want to try this out. So how did it start?
Emily: Sure. So like many, I think side hustlers out there, I was. I always joke, I was doom scrolling on Instagram in the middle of the night, my daughter, my oldest daughter was going to be starting kindergarten the following year.
And my husband and I are both in very kind of traditional, even though remote traditional nine to five jobs, both come from education and. I was on Instagram scrolling and just seeing all these different side hustles. And you know, once your algorithm kind of picks up that you’re looking at side hustle gigs or jobs, then it starts to kind of flood your feed with all these different options.
So for a while, it was a little bit of filtering through what’s legitimate. What’s not, you know, w where could I see myself actually making money? And the motivation behind it was really to have a more income every month to pay off student loans, to not stress about taking the kids on vacation or paying for gymnastics, things like that.
And then the other piece was hopefully a goal of having time flexibility to spend more time. With my kids as they entered elementary school and being able to go on field trips and not have to worry about sick days and all of that that comes along with being a working parent. So that was my motivation.
I started with a couple of things. I actually started selling on Amazon, doing Amazon FBA. I looked at Amazon KDP, kind of tried a few things. And then I came across a YouTube video about print on demand, selling print on demand on Etsy. And it kind of hit everything that I was looking for, which was something I could do obviously that had flexibility.
I didn’t want to have any more inventory like I was having with Amazon. I didn’t want to actually have to physically touch a product. I wanted to be able to do the research to design, do all of that, but not have to actually store anything in our house. Like I said, we have two kids. It’s a lot going on over here.
So. Those were a lot of the motivations. And then I didn’t want to necessarily have to do social media or run ads or things like that. So it seemed a little too good to be true. But in January, 2023, I just decided I was going to go full force and I launched my shop and haven’t looked back since.
Doug: And. It’s okay if you don’t want to share this, but if you have like a certain amount of revenue that you’ve hit or anything like that again, it’s okay if you don’t, but I just want to give people an idea of the scope if possible.
Emily: Sure. Yes. So I actually just hit 500, 000 in revenue in my print on demand shop and in my digital product shop, I have about 30, 000 in revenue. So I’m roughly at about 530, 000. in the two years since I started.
Doug: Congratulations. Uh, what is, what does that mean for your family?
Emily: Oh, that’s a really good question.
I really liked that one. It has, you know, I, I try not to be too cliche or corny in my responses, but I’m, it really has changed everything. So as I mentioned, I’m getting to. You know, leave kind of the corporate worlds at the end of this week, which is fantastic. I am volunteering in my daughter’s class every week.
I’m going on those field trips. I’m really involved in her education now, which is exciting. I’m. You know, taking my kids to swim meets and gymnastics practices and having that flexibility to be able to focus on them as a parent is amazing. And that has been huge for us. But then outside of that, you know, my husband and I just went on our third cruise that was paid for by Etsy.
And for us having those opportunities to. Get away, connect, go on vacation, enjoy ourselves, has been amazing for us and our marriage and our relationship, and then we’ve paid off student loans, we’ve paid off debt, and that, just the, the weight that has been lifted off by so much of that, I’m Incredibly thankful for.
And I know that I have put in a lot of work, so that’s not, but I am very thankful just to Etsy in general and print on demand in general, that it’s opened up these doors for us.
Doug: Let’s talk about your husband a little bit. So when I got started online, I found some stuff, just like you said, I was like, this seems like a scam.
And then you look a little deeper and then you’re like, this is definitely a scam. And then you’re like, maybe not. Anyway, I was telling my wife about it and she was like. This is bananas. And, you know, eventually I wonder if we’re so what was what we were those early days like? Because, I mean, In the beginning, you don’t know what you don’t know, but you’re also very excited with like the new knowledge you’re getting.
So how did he react early?
Emily: You know, it kind of surprised me. He was pretty on board from the beginning. I think he tends to naturally be more skeptical than I am, but he. What has been a really great support from the beginning. And he said like, go for it, like whatever you need to do, go for it. There, there were nights definitely early on where he’s like, okay, you’re working again.
Cause you know, it’s one of those things. Once you kind of get hooked, you’re, you’re in it and you become a little bit obsessed. At least I did, where it’s like, okay, I want to work on this any waking moment outside of work and outside of my kids. So we did have some of those balance conversations, but overall he has been like a hundred percent.
He’s wanted me to, to leave my job for a while and just focus on this. And I was a little hesitant just because it was a big leap for me, but I’ve been really grateful for his support.
Doug: Perfect. Well, and it sounds like you got a fairly quick start looking at the numbers that you have over just a short amount of time.
How fast was it from like when you first started to like. Make the first dollar or 100 or so.
Emily: Sure. So I made my first sale. I want to say it was about three weeks into opening and really starting to list products. And I, as an aside, I remember where I was at. Speaking of gymnastics at a gymnastics kids birthday party and they were eating cake and my phone like buzzed and lit up and it was my first sale from a stranger.
My mother in law had bought something previously and so I had to do a double take and I was like, Oh my gosh. And that was kind of like the proof of concept I needed that. Okay, there’s actually something here. If I could make one sale, surely I could make 10 sales. I could make 100. It was about three weeks and I made that first sale.
They kind of here and there trickled in one every few days and then it was about February. So it was probably almost two months in that I had one product that I posted that started to make consistent sales. I had kind of tapped into something that was very trendy at the moment and just happened to be one of the first people.
To the market with it. And that really was my first bestseller and things just kind of snowballed from there a couple months in. And after that was using what I was learning from that successful product and applying it to other products. And then things just. Kind of continue to grow.
Doug: Got it. Okay. So we’ve been a little higher level, but let’s dive down into the tactical kind of stuff.
So why print on demand and like why Etsy, that sort of thing. I know you kind of answered it before, but I know there’s like probably some key stuff, why it is a good place for a lot of people to start.
Emily: Sure. So for me, I didn’t have any. background in business. I had zero background in graphic design. I was probably one of the least qualified people to do any sort of business thing.
I had been in education, higher education, been working with students working in college campuses and I, when I came across this idea of print on demand on Etsy, I understood pretty quickly that Etsy would drive a lot of the traffic for you. And as I mentioned early on, I had a full time job. I didn’t want to be doing anything where I was posting my face all over social media.
I didn’t want to have to be spending a ton of upfront capital on product. I didn’t want to have to. Store the product myself. But I think, like I said, the biggest thing was that Etsy was going to help drive traffic for me if I could find these in demand ideas. And then with the print on demand model, I didn’t have to carry any of that physical product that I had been holding.
When selling on Amazon previously. So it seemed kind of like the best of both worlds. I had become familiar with selling on Amazon. And so I was kind of used to selling on that, on a platform and using the traffic there to be able to drive sales. And so when I saw this, it seemed like I said earlier, it seemed like.
Kind of the best fit best of both worlds for all of this. I, when I had looked at, you know, should I do Shopify? Should I do something else? I didn’t have, again, I didn’t want to have to drive my own traffic to my own brand, to my own website. And so with Etsy kind of offering up millions of buyers on a platter for you, it was.
I think a great starting point. And I, that’s why I say it’s one of my favorite beginner friendly platforms because there’s just so much there and you just kind of have to take advantage of it.
Doug: Okay. So you mentioned that you basically weren’t qualified to do this, right?
Emily: Yes. Yes, totally. A hundred percent.
Doug: What, you know, thinking about it and take a second, if you need to. What sort of unfair advantage or skill do you think you have that actually helped you out? Even though, like, on a qualification resume standpoint, it’s like, well, you’re not a graphic designer.
You don’t have the background in this. So, what unfair advantage do you think you might have had from your report? Professional career or whatever
Emily: one I would think is a little bit of delusion. I will lie. I was really persistent, a little bit delusional in the fact that like I’m going to make this work no matter what.
And I always joke with students or anyone I’m talking to that it is. In my opinion, kind of a key ingredient in some ways, especially if you’re not qualified to be able to just stay so persistent and consistent. So that’s more, I think like a personality trade. And I really got hooked into this. I think the other thing is that even though I worked in education, I was very data and numbers driven.
And I think. Oftentimes that works better in this space because you have to be able to analyze what the customers are really wanting. And to do that you can look at, there’s different Etsy research tools, you can go on Etsy itself, and be able to identify patterns, be able to identify where demand is, be able to identify what the buyers are wanting.
And I think having that mindset of kind of following the numbers was really helpful for me because I wasn’t so focused on what do I want to design? I wasn’t a graphic designer. I’m not an artist. So it wasn’t like, well, what do I want to do? It was more like, where are the numbers leading me? And. In my career and in my life, I, I do tend to be pretty data driven and looking at patterns, looking at numbers, like where does this take us?
What’s the best option? And I applied that here. And it was incredibly helpful.
Doug: I agree with you on the delusional part to the data. Of course, that helps. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s um, it’s like, you have to be smart enough to like. execute, but also crazy enough or delusional enough to think that you might actually work, even though if you look at the numbers, it’s like the odds are against you.
Like you should, we have no business doing it. Yeah.
Emily: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And I think that being able, that mindset piece is so important. And like, I know it can be. Some people kind of roll their eyes at it, but I think it’s such an important piece because it’s so easy to give up early on when it’s nothing is happening.
But if you have that, that little bit of delusion or that persistence, it’s going to kind of take you through those quiet, rocky periods at the beginning and just kind of propel you forward.
Doug: So back to the tactical sort of idea. So, We’ve identified print on demand is good and Etsy is a great platform.
There’s a built in marketplace. People are going there to buy stuff. They’re not going there for another reason. So I think you may have mentioned it, but if not, we could talk a little bit more about the products and the fact that these are sort of giftable things. So can you talk about why that makes a difference?
Emily: Sure. So when I first started January, February, March, 2023, I started like many print on demand sellers focused on t shirts sweatshirts. That tends to be, if you watch most of the content out there on YouTube or other places, it tends to be more focused on apparel, which makes a lot of sense. There’s a lot of demand for apparel somewhere like Etsy.
So I started there because that’s. What I was learning and then a few months in, I decided to try some other products. And I remember I designed a product, it was a home decor item and it sold the next day. And I remember thinking, huh, that’s really interesting. I wonder why that is because it wasn’t even very good.
It was kind of a mock up I had been testing, just listing it. Wasn’t anything that I had put a ton of effort into. So in. The print on demand worlds, you’ll hear a lot of people say when something is working double down on it. So I kept digging into these home to work products or things that customers were starting to respond to me and saying, Oh, my grandmother loved this as a gift.
My sister loved this as a gift. And soon enough, the light bulbs went off and I was like, Oh, giftable products is really where there could be. a lot of opportunity while apparel is great. Apparel can be hard because many people don’t like to purchase apparel for gifts because they don’t know sizing, they don’t know fit, things like that.
And then with apparel, you have those sizing issues. You have more return requests, things like that because. Again, they’re buying it online. They’re not sure how it’s going to fit them. So I started moving pretty much entirely in the direction of these giftable products, things like candles, journals, ornaments, mugs, tote bags.
Things along those lines that you didn’t have those sizing concerns that you could either personalize or not personalize, but make them really unique to a special occasion or a special customer, make them funny or sentimental, and it would really connect with buyers because they couldn’t go run down the street to target and buy the same thing.
And it was something they could ship to someone as a congratulations or a thinking of you, any occasion like that. And so I really just. moved full force in that direction, and that’s really why now I focus primarily on working with students on this giftable print on demand idea because there’s so much opportunity on Etsy for that.
Doug: Alright. So before we started recording, I was like, ah, my wife and I have thrown around like print on demand type products and. Really, it’s because we’re, we buy some of those, like we actually buy some t shirts and other stuff like that. But it’s stuff that we would want to buy. We’re like, Oh, does this exist?
And we don’t find it. And I haven’t done any research, nor do I know, like where to look for the data for like, are these products in demand? Does anyone care? The good part is like. You know, if you design something on Canva, you’re not ordering like a thousand of these that you have to stick somewhere and deal with it.
It’s like, it’s, you know, it’s time, which is quite valuable, but it’s, it’s only time and you’re not like ordering a bunch of stuff. So all that to say, how important is it? Like, is my idea, my approach dumb where I’m like, all right, I didn’t do any research, but I think people might want to see a mug with my face on it, for example.
So, yeah, like how, how important is that research?
Emily: The research to me is really foundational to the success with print on demand on Etsy, because like I said earlier, understanding what the buyers are looking for, what is actually actively selling on Etsy is really important, but I think Kind of what you’re saying.
It’s also finding the gaps. You know, if they’re, they’re actually having a couple of times where I’ve gone to look for something and I don’t see what I’m looking for. And it does kind of, you know, a light bulb goes off. It’s like, Oh, maybe I should think about designing for that. And so it is a mix of using your own interest, your own experiences.
I always recommend to students, you know, brainstorm at the beginning, what are all the hobbies that you have? What are all the careers you’ve had? What relationships do you have in your life? What special events are you a part of, or have been a part of, and just start looking at those on Etsy and see what’s selling out there.
See what’s, what seems to be in demand. And like, I did mention earlier, there are some research tools that can help with that as well. But without knowing what customers are really looking for, then it’s hard to know what to design. So I tell students don’t open Canva until you have done the research.
Like don’t even think about typing in canva. com until you have gone and validated what you might be interested in selling. But then what I would say is. Because of that low risk that there is with this, because you’re not having to purchase a thousand candles and store them in a garage, you can test the, I test things all the time.
And that’s what I love about it is, you know, like you said, you’re really just losing time, but it’s a great opportunity to try things, try different designs, try different niches, try different customers, ideas, and see what kind of works before you keep moving forward.
Doug: Who. Actually like prints out these products, like where does it come from?
And that’s the thing, like I’ve, I’ve not done any research, but I’m like, I’m, I know there’s print on demand for other stuff and other shops that I’ve set up, but I haven’t tried it or looked in Etsy. So who does that?
Emily: Sure. So I use Printify and Printify is my main print provider and with Printify they have one of the largest catalogs of print on demand products.
I mean everything from aprons to doormats to shoes to dog products, I mean t shirts, obviously everything we’ve talked about they offer. And really how it works is you do that research, figure out what’s in demand. You go to a site like Canva or a design tool like Kittles, something like that. You make a design for that product.
You upload it to Printify and then Printify then easily and seamlessly syncs that listing and that product with your Etsy shop. And then over on Etsy, you can make any adjustments you want to the listing, kind of optimize it and publish it. When you get an order from Etsy and then It bounces back and syncs back to Printify and so all your orders are there and you can do automatic approval or manual approval, but you can go to Printify and again, it speaks, Printify and Etsy speak to each other really seamlessly, which makes it incredibly easy.
Doug: What are the margins like?
Emily: It depends on the product. I typically say mine are roughly 30%, but I have some products that have margins that are 50%. So it just depends. And, um, I’m pretty intentional about making sure that I’m balancing, you know, something like candles might have a little bit lower margin.
More in the 30 percent range, something like journals has more like 50 percent blankets, like 50%. So trying to make sure that those are healthy margins there. But typically for most products, you can expect 30 to 50 percent on those profit margins.
Doug: I’m jumping all around. So I do want to go back to the tool that you mentioned to do the research to find out like are people searching for this kind of product or not?
Emily: Yes. So I use a couple. There’s definitely several out there. My favorite research tool right now is called ever be. I have been using that. pretty much since the beginning, but that is my go to research tool that allows you to see again, what’s actively selling, what shops, like it will break everything down almost in like a spreadsheet or a chart format for you, which as someone, again, who likes to look at those numbers, it’s It’s very easy to digest and to be able to just see what keywords are they using, what products seem to be trending and what’s working.
And so that has been really my go to research tool that I use over time
Doug: Do you develop a little intuition about what is going to work? From my standpoint, I used to do a lot more in just Google SEO and at some point, like You know, the, the numbers and the data, like it’s good to go verify, but sometimes you just know that is a good product.
That’s a good keyword, you know, the market and you, you know, the data might tell you one thing, but you’re like, I feel pretty confident to at least test this.
Emily: Yes and no. It’s interesting. There will be sometimes things that I am. Really excited about, like I nailed this one, this is going to be great.
And then it maybe sells a few times and that’s it. And then I’ve had products that are really not my favorite, but I’m like, well, I’ll test it and just see, and they become best sellers. So there is an interesting, that’s why I do recommend testing. Like if you’ve designed something, just. So I’m going to talk a little bit about how you can test it.
Just see what happens. Because sometimes, again, you just don’t know kind of what the Etsy algorithm or the customers are going to really latch on to and it’ll take off. But you do definitely develop some type of intuition that. Okay. This seems really promising and I’m going to really try here and focus here for a bit and publish, you know, some designs in this area because I feel like this definitely has potential and you I call it Etsy brain.
You start to get Etsy brain where you can just go on Etsy and start, you know, looking and you’re like, Oh yes. Or. No, this isn’t, this is too saturated for me or whatever that might be. So you definitely start to look at things through that lens of the potential and seeing where those opportunities are.
And that’s always exciting. It’s a little bit of a scavenger hunt and that part I, I do really enjoy.
Doug: And a lot of listeners of the show do come from like. SEO and a keyword research standpoint. So I think like, I mean, we have like the keyword skills already. It’s just like going to a different platform, a couple of different tools, but like, you know, people can tell when you start looking at the headline the copy and you’re like, Oh, I see like what they’re doing here.
Exactly. So,
Emily: yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Same thing, just different, a different space for it.
Doug: Do you run ads or do any like additional marketing outside of Etsy?
Emily: So I did not run ads for about the first year or so in my shop. I have more recently this past year been testing them Not at super high numbers pretty minimal in terms of ad usage I do not market my shop outside of Etsy at all.
So I don’t Use social media. Currently, I don’t do any email marketing or anything like that. So on the whole, I would say 90 something percent of my sales are organic. Which has been great. And that’s what we, we teach students too, is that this is very possible using organic methods, using SEO, using keywords, researching, finding these in demand products.
And you can, I reached my first. I would say almost 200, 000 in revenue without ads. So it’s definitely possible and feasible.
Doug: Okay. One issue with easy to start low overhead side hustles is they’re not really defensible. And. It makes sense. If you can get started, earn some money in three weeks, someone else can too.
And they might be a graphic designer and have keyword research background and they got a head start on you. So like, is this defensible? Like, I mean, I could use it. tool or something else, I could see shops that are selling a bunch of stuff and then I could try to copy or emulate or improve actually and do a better job than someone who has maybe an established track record and just do a little bit better job.
So is it defensible?
Emily: I would say even though there’s kind of that low entry point to get started, it does require. And it does require that hard work and that effort. It’s most, it’s definitely not an overnight. You’re going to make 10, 000 next month doing this. So while it is a low entry point in terms of you can very much be a beginner, you can start with.
Under 50, those types of things. I think sometimes what’s get gets lost in the mix, especially on social media and others that are promoting print on demand is that it does take time. And while I made my first sale in three weeks, if I had just stopped there, I would not. Have really done much else, but it takes that persistent and consistent effort, especially in that first year or so.
I would say it’s it’s not passive income, but it can get to the point where it’s more automated, where you can work on it and invested in it. For a good amount of time. And then from there, you know, you can maintain and not have to spend so much time on it. So now I would say, well, in the beginning, I was spending every night, every early morning working on this.
Now I probably spend about 10 hours a week. And so that I will take that hard work at the beginning to get this later. But I think there are a lot of folks who. You know, might see a little bit of success and then they back off or it takes too much at the beginning to build up that they tend to fall off, or at least is what I’ve seen.
Doug: Okay, that does, that makes sense. And there’s a lot of things where it’s like a lot of startup basically working full time and then you could hit a maintenance mode, which is not growth usually, but sometimes, you know, things work out.
Emily: Right. Exactly.
Doug: So you have two stores on Etsy. Can you talk about the number of products you have and is that important to have a lot of products or not?
Emily: It would definitely depend on the shop. So I do have two, two shops. One is my print on demand shop, which is my main. Income driver, that’s where I spend the bulk of my time. And then about nine months into my Etsy journey, I decided to start a digital product shop, a printable shop, and that has become much more, I, I, I very much don’t spend too much time in there, but it brings in, you know, a fairly steady income for us, which is, which is great.
So that’s, those are kind of the two shops that I have. What was the second part of your question? I’m sorry.
Doug: Number of products.
Emily: Number of products, yes. So the, my print on demand shop has always had much more. Usually I average on any given day or month about 850 to 900 products that are active in that shop.
However, I have definitely published probably close to 2000 total at this point in two years. Because some of them again are old products that I listed and just didn’t go anywhere because I was still learning or things that I’ve let expire. So, but any given time, it’s about 850 to about 900 print on demand products.
In my digital product shop, again, I have spent a good amount less amount of time in that shop. That’s been more of a side side hustle. And I usually have in there about 200 products or so.
Doug: Got it. Okay. So 2000 products over two years. So this is like roughly three a day or something like that. So is that a lot of products do you think?
It sounds like a lot to me, but of course every. You know, anything that you’re doing if you work on it each day and you write a hundred words, like before too long, you have a book, right? So it’s a lot, but you’ve been working on it for a little while, but isn’t that a lot?
Emily: I would say it’s It’s probably on the higher end, but I know many POD sellers that have thousands active in their shop.
And I’ve always joked, if I had two of me, I probably would too, but time again, kids, job, all the things, it’s very hard to, you know, To kind of keep up at that pace, but I would say it depends there. You’ll see some shops on Etsy that don’t have that many products, but they’re really nailing the, their customer, the demand for that.
But I would say in print on demand, there is a bit of a quantity game in the sense that you want to try things. You want to see what’s working, especially if you don’t have experience. Now, if you have experience with SEO and keyword research and all of that, it might not take you 800 products to get to that point.
You might be able to nail that much sooner than someone who’s a complete beginner. So it all kind of comes down to what’s your background experience. What’s your experience with graphic design? What’s your experience with SEO? And if you have some of that, you may not need to do as many products, but for someone like me who was coming in with With no background in business or SEO or any of this, that was, you know, me figuring it out as I went.
Doug: I’ve had a friend or two with fairly significant Etsy shops, and I’m pretty sure they were unable to sell the shop when they were ready to exit, and they had, I mean, I think it They just ran into a dead end and they didn’t know what to do.
And they’re, I mean, I think they’re shop dwindled. So is that right? Can you sell an Etsy shop or not? Is there any exit plan or is it, it’s like you’re tied to it until you could do something with it.
Emily: From my understanding, you can’t sell an Etsy shop by itself. Now, if you had your own brand website, Shopify, things like that, I believe you can then sell that, but as a business, but you’re not able to sell an Etsy shop.
just as a standalone Etsy shop from my understanding. So that is something, you know, for me, I haven’t aspired to get to this place where I become like this brand and I’m, you know, expanding into Shopify. I know other Etsy sellers who are, and they are building Shopify out where they’re selling on Amazon and doing all these other things.
And I think that’s wonderful, but from what I understand. Etsy alone, you’re not able to sell.
Doug: So, and it’s a, it’s a minor downside. I mean. A lot of things have to happen for you to be in a position where you’re like, Oh, this could be really profitable if I sell it. But it is a situation where it’s like you’re a little bit you’re tied down to it and you, you can’t exit in a very clean way, I would say.
So. It just has this sort of dwindle down. All right. Very good. So we haven’t talked about mistakes that you’ve made and surely we’ve had some blunders as you’re learning. So yeah, tell us about some of the big ones and sort of how you got out of those mistakes.
Emily: Sure. So in terms of just general strategy mistakes, I think like many.
Newer print on demand sellers, especially on Etsy, you are trying to compete with the big dogs. They’re trying to compete with these mega sellers that have thousands and thousands of sales. And I think that’s where a lot of new sellers often get frustrated and discouraged. And what I learned after a little bit of time was that there are ways to stand out, and that is to make your products more specific and more narrowed down.
So, trying to compete with a generic, Mom t shirt is going to be really hard. And most of us, when we start begin with that kind of thing, you know, begin with a generic teacher shirt or a generic mom shirt. And it’s. You’re not really going to have a chance at standing out against a seller who has a hundred thousand sales who’s selling a mama bear shirt.
But if I were to narrow down to say something that’s baseball mom or lacrosse mom or twin mom or a Halloween shirt for a pregnant mom with twins. And I know that sounds really specific, but they sell. And so I learned after a couple of months that I was making that mistake of. Trying to go too broad and trying to appeal to too many people where I really needed to specify what I was selling to a very specific person.
And again, when I moved to these giftable products that became even more obvious, because as I mentioned, people are going to Etsy for something unique. They’re going to Etsy for something that they can’t find at a big box store. And so being able to provide them with something really different. And it didn’t have to be anything really complex, just some words on a design, but it spoke to that person in particular.
So that starting to generic was a mistake, I would say. And then I learned again within a couple months, okay, this is not working. So we need to, to narrow down a little bit. So I would say that would probably be like the first big thing that I learned. And then I would. So I would say the second mistake is that I was hesitant for a long time to lean into, I would say like really establishing a tone for my shop, really establishing something and my, my humor and how I deal with things tends to be in our family, more sarcastic, more witty, maybe a curse word here or there.
And so. I started to lean into that more about a year or so into my shop. And again, those products started taking off because there are other people like that out there that maybe they don’t want a sentimental grief gift. They want something that’s a little bit more direct or a little bit more sarcastic or dry.
And there’s a lot of those consumers out there. So I started to lean into that. Again in try instead of trying to be something that I wasn’t or trying to present something that really wasn’t authentic to who I was but was still in line with the customers. So that I would say is another area where I saw a lot of growth and I learned to kind of lean in to what I knew who I was and how I could provide something different.
Doug: Very good. Any other mistakes?
Emily: I would say the third mistake I made was trying to be a graphic designer when I’m not so early on again I was doing apparel and typically t shirt designs depending on what who you’re selling to can be a little bit more there’s more graphics, there’s more colors. And when I moved to these giftable products, so candles, journals, ornaments, bags, I realized really quickly that I could just do black text on a label or black text or white text on a journal.
And as long as that message, those words, you know, resonated with someone, they were going to buy it. So my best selling product right now. It has three words on it, and that’s all it says, and it sells multiple, multiple times a day. But it’s because what it says really connects, connects with people and makes them feel something.
And so I realized don’t try to overdo. Don’t try to overdo it. Don’t try to play your hand too much. Like, you’re not a graphic designer. So let’s find products that kind of align. And I feel like I’m much better with words, and being able to find words that stick with people, as opposed to designing a graphic that I, don’t have experience doing.
Doug: Okay. And I was going to ask you if you conquered the graphic design stuff and got a little better, or you’re just like, you know what, I’m going to just stick to some words and maybe a little clip art or something.
Emily: Yeah. I don’t want to underplay. I, I do think I have. I’ve been able to really work on those more because with digital products you do have to add more elements sometimes to them.
So I would say like, I have definitely worked on it. I watched endless amounts of videos. So I definitely have learned a ton and it’s absolutely doable and feasible for someone who doesn’t have that background. What I would say I probably brought to the table was, um, I think I inherited this from my mom, but she has a good eye just like, does something look good or not?
And that’s part of this process is like being able to look at a design and being like, yeah, that looks good. Or no, I think that needs to be tweaked. And so that helped me kind of learn through the process of, okay, I need to fix this or no, this doesn’t look good. And just keep learning some of those skills.
And over the two years, I’ve definitely come a significantly long way in the graphic design space.
Doug: Got it. Okay. And let’s, let’s talk a little bit more about that. So I’ve used Canva for several years now and I have the premium version. So you do have access to like better sort of clip art in general. Are you able to like literally find like good clip art there and use your you know, your eye for whether something is a thumbs up or a thumbs down and basically, you know, be able to operate.
Your print on demand design and the digital products all from like a Canva premium without adding any additional kind of graphics.
Emily: Yes, definitely. You can absolutely run all of this just strictly through Canva and As I talked about, especially if you’re doing some of these products where you can stick to just some simple text or maybe a small graphic, you can absolutely just use Canva Premium and be set up to go.
I would say if you are going to be doing more detailed or complex designs or things like that. There are some really great resources out there for, for additional graphics that can help as well, but on the whole, I run my shops, primarily through Canva. There are, I always. I would recommend to everyone to read the Canva policies in terms of making sure that you’re following their policies to be able to sell your designs.
But generally it’s just you need to combine elements in Canva. So if you have text and you have a graphic, that’s great, but you just can’t sell one Canva graphic. on a t shirt. So you just have to combine some graphics or add text, things like that. And then you would be good to go.
Doug: Got it. I was going to say, I remember reading through years ago and I couldn’t remember that.
That is just like the one caveat. So that makes sense too. Yeah. Okay. So we’re starting to wrap up here. I do have a couple more questions before we hit the last couple, including, I have an idea and I’m going to It’s not going to be what I might try to do, but I think it’ll work. So I’ll be curious about your opinion.
So people should stick around for that. But you have mentioned students in a course. And can you just talk about that just a little bit? I mean, I think basically with what we talked about today. And people can do research, right? There’s a ton of stuff on YouTube and online. But with a course you, you get like a lot more.
So can you talk about the course a little bit?
Emily: Sure. I am super, super excited about this course. So in a couple months ago, Cody and Julie from gold city ventures who have had the E printables course for several years now, and they are leaders in the Etsy digital product space. We worked together and collaborated to launch a course called the gift lab.
And the gift lab is a print on demand course focused on selling these giftable print on demand products. So in the course, I walk you through truly step by step everything from. researching as we’ve talked about a lot today, how to optimize your listings, how to create these simple designs for these giftable print on demand products, how to look at your stats and then just scaling your shop from there and how to double down when things start to work.
So we are super excited about this course. And with it, some of the things that I’m most excited about it, we include Five design templates for the five products that we teach you how to sell. And those five products are ornaments, candles, journals, tote bags, and mugs. And those five products were selected truly based on research.
So I dug into research using ever be to identify what products newer shops on Etsy were having success selling, because we wanted it to be products that. Newer shops could jump into and actually have a higher chance and higher probability of making sales. So we narrowed down that list to those five based on that research.
And in the course, we provide five design templates to get you started. But my favorite, favorite piece of this is we also provide you a workbook that teaches you how to niche down your product. So we talked about, you know, a Halloween shirt for twin moms. No, that sounds very specific, but this workbook literally provides you all of the occasions or many occasions that happen year round where someone might be purchasing a gift.
It provides you a list of customer types. People, identities, relationships, and the products that we offer. And it gives you a formula to combine those to be able to niche down your products for Etsy specifically. So we’re giving you a lot of tools that kind of help walk you through each step, but then also provide you that supplemental help to be able to launch quickly.
And. We also include things like customer service message templates, and we have a group coaching component as an add on if that’s something someone is interested in. And I’m just really, really excited about this because in the print on demand space, as I mentioned, many of the YouTube videos and content are more focused on apparel.
And so we’re really excited to provide this different path that might work for, for many new sellers. Again, We, we talk about simple designs, how to connect with your customers. And that’s something that we’re thrilled about sharing with aspiring print on demand sellers.
Doug: So you mentioned customer service and by the way, we’ll, we’ll link up so people can get to it.
I’m an affiliate. I think I’ll double check with Cody. I’ll just pick them. But yeah, so everyone, I’m, I’m an affiliate. So I get a commission if you buy it. But have a look, and there’s actually an example of like some of the templates so people can actually get a good look at it, but you did mention customer service and we didn’t touch on that at all, completely slipped in my mind, even though my wife has actually like tried to send messages to some Etsy sellers in the past.
And it’s like, when are they going to reply back? So what kind of customer service should somebody expect for the type of products that we’re talking about here?
Emily: Sure. So there is some customer service definitely involved. You know, you’re obviously shipping a physical product to someone. So that does sometimes involve some messages on the whole throughout the year.
I would say. 10 months out of the year, the customer service is minimal. I, and again, I’m selling at a really steady rate at this moment, but I probably get one or two messages a day. And sometimes that’s hi, I’m really interested. I just got a message before we hopped on. I’m really interested in ordering.
20 of these, can you provide a discount or, you know, is there any, anything you can offer or can you customize this? So sometimes it’s that, and I tend to lean on the side of always trying to help the customer and customize or personalize things. Cause that’s, I think important. And again, it, it helps me as well.
So that tends to be one side. I would say the, the other side of it is, is mostly to do with shipping, right? So this shipped. Five days ago. It’s still not here. Do you know what’s going on? And what’s really, really nice about Printify is they have made it super easy to submit questions to them on your orders and they respond really quickly and they pretty much handle if something gets broken in the mail, say it’s a mug, it breaks in the mail.
I can go on that order and Printify request a reprint and they take care of everything for me. So they do make it incredibly easy. To be able to manage any of those, but I would say those happen not as often as you might think. It’s, it’s pretty rare. So I would say on the whole, most of the messages I get are Can you customize this for me?
I want to order this or they have a question about it before they order. Or it’s something like, Hey, do you know where this is? The shipping kind of stalled. Can you help? Or, Hey, this broke. Can you please replace it? But those are, those are further in between in Q4 that, that definitely increases in November, December.
It’s a, it’s a bit higher, but I would say 10 months out of the year, it’s relatively steady and calm.
Doug: Okay. And. I mean, the thing is, people just order a ton of stuff over November, December. So
Emily: yes, it’s worth it.
Doug: Okay. So, um, I’m thinking of a few more questions, but we’ll certainly end before too long here, but okay.
So if someone is like, Hey, I’m going to order 20. What kind of discounts do you give them?
Emily: I usually give them a, so I do run fairly regular sales in my shop and I, I do price my products accordingly for that. So if I am running a sale, it’s generally 15 percent off. So when someone reaches out, I will offer them 20 percent off.
I do offer, I do also do my shipping in a way where customers will just pay shipping for the first item. So if they are doing a bulk or a bulk. order, it saves them a significant amount when they’re only paying shipping on that first item. But I do make sure my pricing kind of factors all of that in so that I’m still making that healthy margin.
Even if they’re ordering, if they’re ordering 20 blankets or 20 candles, I’m still making a healthy margin, even if I’m offering them reduced shipping rates.
Doug: When someone asks for a customization, how much more do you charge?
Emily: I actually don’t charge anything extra just because, well, I will say my personalized products, I do price a couple dollars higher typically than my non personalized products.
So they do pay that, that rate that’s a couple dollars higher. I will say I, for some of them, I won’t charge. And the reason for that is because I will take that customization, list it as a new product in my shop. And what I have found is that generally, and I have one that’s, it’s happening this week.
Someone had asked me to customize a few weeks ago and now I’m selling them regularly. And it’s. So if someone reaches out and says to me, Hey, I’m really interested in the wording saying this, then I know there’s probably some demand out there. So in, then I take that, I list it and then I start to make sales on it, which is great.
Doug: So my idea for a shop is maybe like quotes from. We’ll say TV show, right? So did you watch Seinfeld by chance?
Emily: My husband did, but I, me, very little. Okay.
Doug: This is something you’re not supposed to do for a podcast or anything where you’re like explaining a show, but there’s a nice joke in there. And there’s a quote and basically it would be the print on the shirt.
And it would say a hundred percent wool. with some cotton. So it’s kind of funny if people know the show, it’s like you have an instant connection. So are like TV movie quotes or those like a reasonable area to go into very niche. But also if people know it, then they’re like, that is awesome.
Emily: So I will say you do have to be very, very careful about trademark issues on Etsy.
And so that there are a lot of shops that are selling. TV show, movie quotes, things like that, song lyrics. But I typically recommend steering away from that just because It can eventually get your shop dinged or shut down if they decide to file for any trademark issues. Now, if it’s something that’s in the public use in the public space, then that’s different.
However, if it’s something where Taylor Swift shirts are huge right now on Etsy or have been for years, but if she decided to file any, you know, trademark suits or anything like that, I have heard of some Etsy sellers getting. Dinged or shut down for that, say with Disney or, or other movies, music artists, something along those lines.
So that would be something just to be cautious of what I would say.
Doug: And that’s what we arrived at too. Yeah. Fair use is a little bit tough. And it’s also like, can you, can you own a phrase and it’s like sometimes, but not always. And then, you know, if it’s a quote from. Yeah. So it’s tough to say.
Emily: Right. It is.
It’s it’s, there’s a lot of gray there. So I think for some sellers, they’re willing to try it for me. Obviously I, I haven’t, I’ve kind of just steered away from it, but some people take a risk and see, and kind of that gray space. I just. Stay away from it, but
Doug: yeah, and I was gonna say I know I’ve seen so many like movie quotes around different times of the year depending on like Let’s say it’s like a Halloween related one or something people love seasonality and stuff.
So yes interesting. Okay, very good So I think we went through almost Everything that I could think of asking, is there anything else that I didn’t ask you that you think we should cover?
Emily: Ooh, that’s a good question. I feel like we’ve really hit on everything. I would say, I mean, I really feel like we’ve kind of hit on everything.
I did want to go back to the Having an Etsy shop and not being able to necessarily sell it. And what I did want to say, if there are, you know, if there are listeners out there, things that are looking kind of long term, there are definitely options to scale this beyond Etsy. And so when I say it’s a great.
Starting platform. It’s great beginner platform. I think for many, it’s the platform they’re going to sell on and that’s great. But for many people, they do expand and grow and scale to other places. They create their own brands. They create their own Shopify. I know people that are really killing it on TikTok shop, we will see how that goes, but there are definitely other avenues to continue growing your brand if that’s something that you’re interested in.
And Printify also does have a great option where you can open a shop directly through them and be able to market it that way on platform. So I just wanted to hit on that again because I didn’t want to make it seem like there really was an opportunity.
Doug: And I think, yeah, that totally valid. And the thing is like, if people were at the very beginning and they’re thinking, all right, how am I going to sell this in three years? Like they’re putting the cart way ahead of the horse here. And it’s like, you got to get going. And if you have that problem, it’s a great problem to have.
And you could like figure out how to get out of it later. All right. I have one more question. If you’re able, we’re a tad over time. Do you have a minute?
Emily: Yeah, I’m good.
Doug: So, I’ve been working online for like over 10 years and before we started, I told you I’m quite lazy. Now it’s hard to get me to do anything.
I love these interviews and stuff. But when I’m looking back and as I’m, you know, as I have more experience, I’ve failed way more times than I was successful. You only need one or two things to work and then that’s pretty much fine. But, but I’m looking back. And I’m thinking and hearing people smarter than me.
Like a lot of people don’t account for luck as much as they should. And when I look back, I’m like, I think I got incredibly lucky, probably a couple of times. And you know, with the spirit of looking at it that way, you’re more on the early part of your journey. You’re about to leave your full time corporate gig and do the entrepreneurship thing, which is awesome.
But I’m curious, do you think you got a little bit lucky and. What are your thoughts on that?
Emily: Yeah, that’s actually a really great question. I, I would say I have two answers to this. So with my Etsy shops in particular, I really don’t know that luck played too much. Now, whatever you think about the Etsy algorithm or this or that, who knows?
We don’t really know what’s going on, but I would say I. I spent a lot of time at the beginning, really, really focused and working hard on this, but where I would say that luck and things like that played in my favor, for example, getting the opportunity to connect with Julie and Cody from gold city ventures that to me kind of felt like a.
Like, uh, you know, luck just kind of, or it fell into my lap and that was something that I’m very grateful for. And that’s obviously shaped how many students now that I’m helping to coach and the course that we’ve launched and things like that in terms of Etsy. I really, you know, I think. It all came down to the data and really that persistence.
And so I would say maybe things outside of my Etsy shop have have shown up that I would never have expected. But in terms of my Etsy shops themselves. Um, I think those have just fully relied on good old fashioned hard work and as we mentioned a little bit of that delusion, but yeah, so that’s kind of how I would, how I would think about that.
But that’s a really great question.
Doug: All right. That’s a good answer. Thanks for going through everything and sticking around a little longer. So we’ll link up to everything. We have the gift lab that people could check out the course. I think that that’s just open. People could go check it out and get more information.
Where else can people find you, Emily? Sure.
Emily: So I’m on Instagram at eCom emily, and that’s eComm with two M’s. So I post there weekly with tips, ideas, strategies, all things Etsy, print on demand. Really excited to be there. And then I also have my own website, eComm emily.com as well. So you can find me there.
And then I did just wanna plug, we also, if you’re not quite sure if this is. something you might be interested in. We do have a free workshop as well. So if you want to learn more, we have that. It’s called gifting gold, and that could be something to check out if you’re interested in kind of learning a little bit more before you know, if this is something you might want to explore.
Doug: Perfect. Yeah. We’ll link up to all that stuff, the Instagram and the workshop. I know gold city does really good workshop. So you end up getting a ton of value just from going to the free workshop. And yeah, I’ll be interested to catch up in a few months, see how everything’s going. So thanks again.
Emily: Thank you.