This article is an expanded version of my recent answer on Quora to How lucrative is selling digital downloads on Etsy?
Lucrative depends on who you talk to. Everyone selling courses on making money on Etsy from digital downloads shouts that it’s highly lucrative. But like with marketing any product on Etsy, you have to work it. Etsy’s not a magic board you can just throw something up on and expect to get rich.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a demand for digital downloads on Etsy. I’ve sold ebooks there with some success. If you are willing to do the research into specific kinds of digital downloads and carve out a niche for your own products, you can make a decent income but only if you do your homework.
Digital downloads covers a lot of different kinds of products like: craft patterns, daily planners, artwork, ebooks, templates, and many others. Using a tool like Marmalead or EtsyRank, you can view search stats for each of these categories and competition which gives you an idea of both the demand and how difficult it will be to break into the market.
For example: on EtsyRank.com, a search for “digital download” brought back results of around 3,000 monthly searches on Etsy and roughly the same on Google. You don’t know though if those searches are by shoppers looking to buy or vendors looking for product examples to sell. You have to dig deeper with the search tool to find long tail keywords to identify actual buyer demand.
“Digital download” is probably too broad a search term to start with. Researching a digital download like “crochet patterns” (on EtsyRank) revealed more than 29,000 for that phrase in Dec. 2018. This was a peak month for that search term around Christmas. In Feb. 2018, there were only 1,700 searches on Etsy. So there’s clearly a seasonal fluctuation.
Another popular digital download to sell on Etsy is “embroidery fonts” averaging 4,000 to 7,000 searches per month and like with “crochet patterns,” rising in the season up to Christmas.
Other digital download products include photography, artwork / clipart, recipes, and how-to guides.
If you come across someone telling you they are getting rich selling downloads on Etsy, they probably have a course to pitch. I’m not saying their course won’t help you learn what you need to do to create a successful digital downloads business on Etsy, just know if you are willing to do the work before you invest in the course.
One final thought on the subject: those making really big bucks with downloads aren’t announcing it to the world. Would you?
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