MY FIRST YEAR ON ETSY | BUILDING A ETSY DIGITAL PRODUCTS STORE AS A BEGINNER | MAKE MONEY ON ETSY

[@sarah_chang]

I remember watching your very first video when you first started and thinking, “Oh this is cool. I’ll stick around to see where she’s at in a year.” And here we are! It’s very encouraging to see how you stuck with it for now more than a year! Congrats on the success and lessons you’ve gleaned!

[@whatshaesells]

Yay thank you so much! Last year I didn't even know if it was possible to make a decent income on Etsy passively but it's amazing that it is possible! 💕

[@ladulcesita]

Honestly same I came back to check in🤗

[@franbullington]

Welcome back! I was so happy to see you post an update on your shop and thrilled for your success - making a $2800 profit a month is amazing when you haven't posted a single new listing this year. Some comments seem to be negative on your strategy - but you are making a great deal of profit AFTER all the fees and ads. So the end justifies the means IMHO. I wish you continued success and hope that you continue to occasionally post videos on this channel about your Etsy journey. I have found your transparency and freely given advice inspiring.

[@whatshaesells]

Hi Fran!! I'm so glad to be back 💕 Haha yeah people have always had a problem with my ad spend but I completely agree! The end justifies the means! Would gladly double my ad spend if it meant double the profit. Thank you for your support, I will continue to post videos 💕

[@csa_yt]

OMG Giiiirl!!! I'm so HAPPY you're back!!!

[@whatshaesells]

Thank youuuuuu!!! I am so glad to be back finally 🤦🏽‍♀️ I'm here to stay this time!

[@CarrieMarieDeLoge]

This is the first video I've watched from you but just seeing the transparency has really been a motivator for me! Thank you!

[@whatshaesells]

Thank you so much! I try so hard to just share everything and not gatekeep 😊

[@HannahDRose]

OMG shes is BACK

[@danitriesating]

I love this for you Shae, congrats on all your success!

[@whatshaesells]

Thank you so much 💕

[@hamzaahmad564]

Was waiting for this update!

[@whatshaesells]

Better late than never 😭

[@LatoyaAntonia_]

Soooooo good to see you Shae!!❤

[@whatshaesells]

Heyyyy Latoya! I'm so glad to be back 🙏🏽

[@Joe-808]

Shae's back! Yay! Welcome back and best of luck with your other business ventures! It's so interesting to me that even though your Etsy shop is very passive now that you still made a profit of $2,863.48 on $3,922.16 in ad spend. That's a monthly ROI of 73% (not including the fees since those come out after getting a sale). I don't know of any other business where you can make 73% ROI per month in such as passive way. Congratulations on that! I would assume that this ROI even exceeds your other business ventures. So, I guess I'm wondering if you've decided to pursue those other businesses purely just because it's something you find enjoyable? From strictly an ROI perspective, it seems that your Etsy shop must have the highest ROI, on a percentage basis. So glad you're back! Best of luck with everything you're pursuing!

[@whatshaesells]

Hey Joe! I'm happy to be back :) Thanks for doing this math, that's so interesting! The issue that I ran into with Etsy (I'll explain this in a video at some point) is scale. If I could receive the same ROI while say, doubling my Etsy shop- I'd totally do it! But there is a point where there's diminishing returns. And I feel like I've hit that with my shop and niche, there's really not a ton more promising products that I can make in my niche- at least not enough to double my shop. And my ad spend is pretty much at the top as I don't always hit the full amount every day. I think to actually "grow" on Etsy, I'd want to branch out into a new niche with completely new products! Not worth my time right now since it was so time intensive at the beginning! Even though it's passive now, I feel like I'm still "paying off" all the time I spent with very little profit at the beginning of starting my shop. But yes, I do have a thing for real estate ;) So I enjoy having different business ventures rather than just Etsy!

[@Joe-808]

@@whatshaesells Thanks so much for the reply and for those super valuable insights! It's so helpful to hear those types of things about scalability from someone who has actually done it. You're the best, Shae! I wish you and your husband the very best in all of your exciting business projects! :)

[@whatshaesells]

@@Joe-808 thank you Joe ☺️ Best of luck in all your endeavors!!

[@fabfal]

Good to hear you’re doing well, Shae!

[@whatshaesells]

Hiiiii thank you! Glad to be back :)

[@joanl3115]

Glad to see you’re doing well ‼️. Thank you so much for your honesty here💐. Great video 👏‼️💫📸🎥

[@whatshaesells]

Thank you! 🤗

[@FutureBoy.]

Great to see you back! I watched your videos last year at a time when I couldn't start my etsy shop. Now I have the time and your old videos will be a great help. If you want to make new videos, I would love a series/guide on starting and growing an etsy shop from zero, but from your perspective now, with 18 months' experience. Kind of a "if I had to start again based on what I now know" guide. Thanks again for all your videos!

[@whatshaesells]

Hey!! That is a great video idea. I will definitely make that video! Congrats on starting a new shop ☺️

[@tonifromtx]

So glad to see the update! Shae, I am so happy about your success and the smart decisions you make as a young person! I do have a question. Do you promote your products on Etsy? Many blessings!

[@whatshaesells]

Thank you so much! I do run Etsy ads (you can see my spend when I do monthly breakdowns in the video) of about $100-$130 per day. Then, I forgot to mention in this video but I've mentioned in others that I did post my Etsy items on Pinterest. Pinterest doesn't bring in a lot of traffic though!

[@tonifromtx]

Duh, I meant Pinterest. Thanks for the reply!

[@whatshaesells]

@@tonifromtx Yep! I wish there was a better way to track what sales (if any) came from pinterest... but I don't think it accounts for a large amount of sales at all!

[@sandrak.3077]

Happy to see you again !! 😊🎉

[@whatshaesells]

Thank you!! Glad to be back ❤️

[@NykenyMoneyOnline]

Yaayyyyy I literally waiting for this notification!!!

[@whatshaesells]

Girl finally!!! Love your new vid btw ❤️

[@NykenyMoneyOnline]

@@whatshaesells Wow!! Thank you so much!! I am hoping YT keeps me being consistent with Etsy! All the best🤩

[@whatshaesells]

@@NykenyMoneyOnline Yes at the beginning of my shop, posting the vids was a way to keep myself accountable for sure!

[@MukhabbatkhonRustamjonova]

That is amazing results, how many listings do you have until now? I know that you are used to post 3 listing per day and did you continue that pace till end of the year? I am so happy for your results and it is truly impressive. Good luck with your business and I hope that you will keep posting your monthly income reports soon

[@emouws1562]

Wow! Well done!!! So inspiring! How many listings do you currently have in your shop?

[@whatshaesells]

Thank you :) I have about 250! I had over 300 but I have deactivated stale listings lately

[@brandis.7481]

@@whatshaesellsjust asked this, before seeing! Do you mostly sell high ticket items or do you sell a lot of low cost products?

[@whatshaesells]

@@brandis.7481 low cost digital products! Average price is just over $7

[@fillipa3189]

Hi Shae! So glad to see you back on KZbin. I'm on the verge of closing my Etsy shop after not having a sale since April and losing so much money every month on listing fees and etsy ads. I've been on Etsy over 2 years and the constant failure is absolutely soul destroying. Do you think I should finally throw in the towel? 😖

[@whatshaesells]

Oh no that is so hard to hear! I am so sorry. What is your niche and how often are you listing brand new items?

[@fillipa3189]

@@whatshaesells I sell custom dog portraits and the portraits printed onto tshirts etc, so my niche is dog owners. I've been reviewing products every month and revamping my listings/removing listings with no interactions/replacing with new products. I just feel like its not going to work so at what point do I stop entirely. Putting in 12 hours a day for the last 2 years and not getting anywhere just feels like I've been wasting my time, so how much more time should I waste kind of thing. I've recently been made redundant from my main job too so I have no income at all so that's adding more pressure on top and I can't afford to add more listings or advertise anymore because my personal finances are so tight. Sorry for the rant!

[@whatshaesells]

@@fillipa3189 feel free to rant all you want! That is so frustrating. I think dog owners is a very profitable niche but there are probably so many factors playing into why your shop isn't making a ton of sales. If it were me, I'd stop the ad spend or at least cut it back to only advertise your top 1-3 listings that have sold in the past. If you want, I can take a look at your shop and see if there's anything else that stands out to me that could be a problem? feel free to DM me on my insta @shaesellstampa

[@anniebananie]

I’m a SAHM and I would honestly be happy with several hundred to a thousand a month. Your videos are motivating! I will definitely use your referral link when I set up my shop 😊

[@whatshaesells]

Hey! So glad my videos are helpful :) Best of luck with your shop! Let me know how it goes 🥰

[@aaisha...]

Thank you for sharing this update Shae! I have an Etsy shop with 61 listings but I'm not getting many visits. I've only had 10 sales since Jan. I'm selling digital resources for teachers and homeschool educators. Any advice would be appreciated xx

[@whatshaesells]

Hi! I think for a shop early on, one of the best things for the algorithm is to see momentum and activity in your shop. So you can do that by listing every day like I did, which is a big endeavor though. You want to drum up more activity for your shop, so you could also do this by running a (small at first) ad spend to your top product, sharing that product with family and friends to get likes and views, and having some family members purchase from you! If you've gotten 10 sales, it's proof that there are people that want your product, but you just need to show etsy that your shop is active and "wants" to make sales!

[@jetd9716]

That's encouraging for newbies to see but at the same time that is a lot of add spend and yet you were still able to generate a net profit.. Good job!

[@whatshaesells]

I hope to help newbies! I only did this last year so it's totally possible to start today :) Yep I've slowly incremented my ad spend up, starting with $5 a day when I started. I would go almost a month before I'd up my ad spend to the next level. So it took me a long time to get to $130 per day! I potentially might increment my ad spend up even higher because I think it's essential to growing your shop these days and maintaining a large shop! I plan on making another video soon where I go into more detail about my ads strategy :)

[@wemustcreate106]

I kept checking back for this. Thanks for sharing!

[@whatshaesells]

Glad I could finally post an update 😅

[@juditnyilasi8445]

So good to see you back! You gave me last year soo much motivation and honestly I watched multiple Etsy videos but your results was outstanding. So I missed the updates so much. What I’m interested in, did you delete old non converting listings? How many listings do you have currently? Also do you advertise all your best sellers or just the ones what are in profit in ad level too? Also what do you thing the key for reaching higher conversion rate? Yours is really high, I honestly struggle to keep mine above 2%… but I’m not in digital product.

[@whatshaesells]

So glad my videos helped last year 🙏🏽 I have deleted some non-converting listings, but I honestly don't keep up with it as much as I should. If a listing hasn't even gotten a like or view in months, I do de-activate. I have about 250 listings! Ads are super tricky and I typically advertise bestsellers unless they suck up a ton of ad spend... I've been experimenting with shutting on and off products that are best sellers but take over my ad spend. I'm trying to find a happy medium because I want the ads to continue to boost the sales on that item but I don't want my ad spend to get taken up so quickly! For conversion rate, I think mine has always been that high and I attribute it to creating great looking products and listing photos. Also it might be niche-specific. Because I'm selling to business owners, there's probably less shopping around then there would be if I was selling a physical item that people buy to give as a gift, for example

[@simonefoleng627]

Your results are amazing. May I ask how many listings you have in your shop?

[@whatshaesells]

Thank you! About 250. I did have more but I've been removing some listings that aren't working. Honestly 90% of the sales come from the same 10 listings! It's wild

[@lisaliscio739]

Thanks Shae so much for your full transparency and so refreshing! and congrats on your success. I’m happy with my Etsy shop but thinking about building a Shopify shop and email list-is that something you considered or have done? Just curious on your views on building your business outside of Etsy..thank you 😊

[@whatshaesells]

Hey! Yes I absolutely think building your own email list, audience, etc. is a great way to go! It does depend on your niche as some would do a lot better than others and you could also build a following on social. That would have been a next step for me if I was still putting in a lot of time w/ the Etsy shop. My biggest issues right now are being subject to the whims of the Etsy algorithm and paying so much for ads. So you would avoid both of those issues by building your own shop. Also brand building will always be better for the long term. Keep me posted if you do go this route, I'd love to hear how it goes!

[@lisaliscio739]

@@whatshaesellsthank you! This helps me out I know I do have to get into email marketing and eventually Shopify but I may be changing my niche so I’m unsure yet as I’m in the PLR space and I find it’s getting out of hand now with MRR also taking over and long term unsure of it sustaining. I love real estate though so I’m also working on adding another investment property. I have to many ideas lol All the best! Cheers

[@whatshaesells]

@@lisaliscio739 oh yeah good point, I wouldn’t go to all the trouble of creating a Shopify store unless it’s a niche you already know is successful on Etsy and you’ve shown proof of concept! That’s so cool, where do you invest?

[@lisaliscio739]

Yes I agree it’s all about the right niche! We have invested in a condo and purchasing another one here in Toronto Canada in the next few months but would like to invest in a triplex or commercial building. That’s the goal with my online business to fund our real estate 😊

[@whatshaesells]

​@@lisaliscio739 That's amazing :) That's how I feel too... extra money from an online business is great but it is SO powerful when the money is invested in real estate. We have an investment property we bought a few years ago that we only were able to qualify for due to my Ebay income. (I did ebay. physical products before I did Etsy). I always joke that it's the house that ebay bought lol. Keep me posted on everything you're doing, I love it!!

[@brandis.7481]

This is incredible, congrats! Can you tell me how many listings you have active?

[@whatshaesells]

Thank you! I have about 250! I had over 300 originally but I have been deactivating listings that aren't performing well

[@lisaliscio739]

That’s so cool and eBay investment! Love it and I’ll aim for an Etsy investment 😊 yes absolutely I’ll let you know what happens and good luck to you with future investments!

[@whatshaesells]

Haha yes!! Best of luck to you as well :)

[@lisaliscio739]

also do you mind me asking what niche you went into for your Etsy shop? If you don’t want to disclose that though I understand

[@whatshaesells]

Hi! I sell Canva templates for small business owners. I don't go into too much detail about that on this channel but it's things like Instagram templates, business cards, signs, etc!

[@claudinep1991]

Wow!!! Are all your etsy ads budget exceed everyday?

[@whatshaesells]

Nope the budget is set to $130 per day but sometimes only hits like $100, depends on the day and what listings are currently on ads. I have a couple of listings that suck up a ton of ad spend so I have been experimenting with keeping them off of ads

[@CashGetter]

insane revenue. congrats

[@whatshaesells]

Thank you so much! Ad spend is so expensive but it is what it is!

[@CashGetter]

@@whatshaesells your profits are still lifechanging money for most people. also, you would surely be able to run the shop without ads, with organic traffic only, if you had the time for it

[@whatshaesells]

@@CashGetter true, I do think higher organic traffic is possible but would require still being a lot more active with creating and listing products!

[@MotivationPulsse]

I have 40 listings but no organic visits, seo and images are all good but still no hope what could i be doing wrong ?

[@whatshaesells]

Hmm what niche are you in?

[@saiasjourney]

Hello Shae! Thank you so much for video! May i know the average price of one of your product?

[@whatshaesells]

Hi! Right now the average is just over $7 :)

[@saiasjourney]

@@whatshaesells Thank you so much!

[@relievingmusicsound8010]

please, do a video about- "why etsy ads do work for new sellers" ads is not working for me.

[@whatshaesells]

Oh great idea! It's about time I make a new ads video because it's so important to get right and can lose you a ton of money otherwise. I definitely will make that vid!

[@charlottelinus2150]

​@whatshaesells Notification On, thanks in advance.

[@whatshaesells]

@@FeralDucky yep there is absolutely a strategy for running ads 🙌

[@xdpico652]

I was still waiting for the month 7

[@whatshaesells]

Lol sorry it took so long!

[@floridehounkpatin2110]

I won't be doing this. Having lower profit than the Etsy Ads fees for a digital download shop. That's just giving money to Etsy . What do you sell and you are happy with this? My digital download took me a lot of time to do it. I cannot afford to get that low

[@whatshaesells]

To me it's just the cost of doin' business! You have to play by Etsy's rules and I absolutely would not be making $2800 net profit per month passively if I didn't start spending a ton of money on ads. There is a method to it and you need to be smart and slowly increase ad spend, but without it, my shop would probably not make much money at all. If I was gauranteed to make $5k in profit per month from even $15k in ad spend, I'd still do it! It's passive income now since I already made the digital product... so it can either sit there and barely get organic sales or I can pay a lot and make a lot! That's how I see it 💕

[@floridehounkpatin2110]

@@whatshaesells my digital shop made me 1500 USD profit with no ads. And it was passive. I only put one products per week because I have a full time. I was expecting your video to teach me how to make more money like the 8000 USD profit. But I guess my shop is doing better

[@whatshaesells]

@@floridehounkpatin2110 lol you do you 😆

[@zeybo777]

yeah so basically you have a VERY good product but just because you are acting stingy you are gaining the least possible from the product. If you followed a good ad strategy and maybe invested like 500 dolars on ads you could have increased your gain 3x fold. Anyway you do you

[@whatshaesells]

@@zeybo777 couldn’t agree more ❤️… if your product is doing well organically, strategically running ads can exponentially increase your profit 😂 As a biz owner you CAN NOT be scared of spending money on marketing! But apparently we don’t all think like this 😆

[@Jessytalksofficial]

So great to see you! I was hoping you would provide an update on your progress and am so happy you did. You have given me that extra push that I have needed for a while now to keep going🫶🏼

[@whatshaesells]

Thanks for watching :) Wishing you success in your own shop! You got this!!