An Update: How To Sell on Etsy Without Crafting, Packaging, or Shipping Anything
By: Cassandra Rivera
Tags: Money, Entrepreneurship, Ecommerce, Make Money Online, Passive Income

An Update: How To Sell on Etsy Without Crafting, Packaging, or Shipping Anything

STFU Candle Co. As Seen On Etsy

It’s been about a month and a couple of weeks since I opened my Print On Demand, Etsy shop, and all in all, I sold 12 candles totaling $253.31.

I had ZERO SALES for an entire month and it wasn’t until I made some changes that I actually started to see some movement!

We’ll discuss the changes I made here in a bit but first, what the heck is a Print On Demand, Etsy shop, anyway?

To save you some time & to quickly summarize — I work with a print on demand company called Printed Mint. They have several products that you can upload your designs to and they will produce, package, and ship items on your behalf. You will eventually integrate your Etsy shop with Printed Mint which will save you a ton of time when it comes to inputting people’s addresses and punching the order.

If you’d like to learn in detail how to set this up you can check out my last article in The Startup, “How To Sell on Etsy Without Crafting, Packaging, or Shipping Anything.”

For myself, however, I chose their candles for my creative playground. That’s because I still think it’s a popular & growing niche and it is endlessly customizable.

STFU Candle Co. Etsy Store

What about all the people who dedicate their lives to their Etsy shops?

I will be the first person to admit that MANY people work incredibly hard on Etsy by handcrafting products, managing sales, and fulfilling orders & for reals, I applaud you guys!

I even personally shop on Etsy specifically for hand-made things, BUT in my opinion, all is fair in sales & business. It really comes down to who is the better marketer at the end of the day.

If you are someone who is busy AF working a full-time job and you NEED to earn a little extra income to help keep the lights on…this might be a killer option for you! No shame in the creative game.

“But, I’m not a designer or artist, so this isn’t for me.”

I beg of thee, do not let this detail get in your way of creating. You don’t necessarily have to be a designer to design a product line. You could just be someone like myself, who possesses an endless supply of sarcasm and has access to some cool free fonts.

You can use resources like Vexels, Canva, or Photoshop. Many of them have awesome templates that are great starting points!

All that matters is you put in some research. Check out what your competitors are doing & develop something you enjoy or you know others will enjoy.

Whether you are “Stinky Candles Rock” or like my little gem, “STFU Candle Co.” I realize more than ever that the success of this business model depends entirely on how well I can build its brand.

Branding is the holy grail of all things e-comm, baby.

Advertising is amazing, but it's simply a waste to not use free platforms.

If you’re hurting for cash, you really don’t have to pay for advertising, BUT you better be creating shareable content on the reg to get the word out about your merch.

You need to spread your wings and get multi-platform & post on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Buy a candle and send it to an influencer, what-e-v-e-r! There are no rules here.

It isn’t difficult to spread the word if you’re willing to put in some time and energy. Seeing as I am not fulfilling orders myself, managing inventory, or running to the post office, I have come to realize that really, there is no excuse to not put in some extra work/effort on the computer.

So before you decide to take on this endeavor, let's talk about the mistakes I made so you can kick my ass in your earnings, right away!

Mistake #1: Thinking Etsy’s Marketplace is just going to “work” for you. When you open your business you must realize that you’re competing with 50+ other creators doing the exact same thing. Most of which, have been on the platform for several years and have ravishing, 5-star-reviews. If you don’t believe me, just type in “funny candles” into the Etsy search bar, and you may be surprised at the hour you lose, searching for your own product.

When you open your business you must realize that you’re competing with 50+ other creators doing the exact same thing. Most of which, have been on the platform for several years and have ravishing, 5-star-reviews. If you don’t believe me, just type in “funny candles” into the Etsy search bar, and you may be surprised at the hour you lose, searching for your own product. Opportunity: Through keywords, tags, and SEO magic, surely, your work will eventually reach the people, but it wasn’t until I started using Etsy Ads that I began to see some sales. Prior to starting this, I committed that any money I made on Medium would be used to advertise, so thank you to everyone who read the last article. You helped me re-invest $78!!

Through keywords, tags, and SEO magic, surely, your work will eventually reach the people, but it wasn’t until I started using Etsy Ads that I began to see some sales. Prior to starting this, I committed that any money I made on Medium would be used to advertise, so thank you to everyone who read the last article. You helped me re-invest $78!! Mistake #2: Thinking your designs are fire and never being critical of your creativity. My initial designs were a jumble of quickly throwing together whatever the heck popped into my noggin’ and putting some pink stuff on it but really, it wasn’t enough. Even after I started advertising, I still wasn’t selling.

My initial designs were a jumble of quickly throwing together whatever the heck popped into my noggin’ and putting some pink stuff on it but really, it wasn’t enough. Even after I started advertising, I still wasn’t selling. Opportunity: Therefore, I decided to re-brand a bit. I chose 4 fonts that I could recycle from small phrases to more intimate designs. I did this because the only candle that was selling at the time was this one:

SO, get creative, test things out, and give the people what they want! Currently, my daily goal is to upload a new design every morning, right after reading the Morning Brew and checking out the NASDAQ, yo.