How To Sell Digital Downloads On Etsy

When Jenny Kun gave birth to her daughter, she created a few prints and hung them in the new nursery. One time, she was browsing on Pinterest, when she came across a digital download on Etsy and she was inspired. She decided to upload a few of her items and made a sale on her very first night.

The Crown Prints, her Etsy shop, was opened in August 2015. She has sold almost 5000 digital downloads ever since. What Jenny loves about selling digital downloads is the fact that customers get their purchase within minutes and she does not have to struggle with shipping.

If you are contemplating setting up a new shop for selling digital items, these tips will help you. Listing your digital items on Etsy is similar to listing a physical product. The only exception is that you upload the file that a buyer receives when they make a purchase. After a shopper places an order, they can find the file on their downloads page.

Among the items you can upload include, text files, audio, or image. You are not required to have special skills to list a digital item on Etsy but you need enough knowledge about design programs such as Adobe Illustrator so you can create files easily. Jenny says that Adobe Illustrator allows you to resize your files and it is a handy tool. If you already know how listing and selling works on Etsy then you should have no problem registering a digital file for the first time.

There are, however, minor distinctions when pricing and photographing your digital items and the customer service expectations are also a bit different. Outstanding photography is a huge deal for an Etsy listing. Photographing your digital items will be even more challenging, because you need to make sure that buyers know what exactly is for sale. Your titles and tags should emphasize that the item on sale is a digital download. Jenny, for instance, found a technique that works for her.

She prefers to set up her own props and frames at home and shoot her own digital items as opposed to using the mock-ups sold on Etsy. With digital products, you will not take trips to the post office or require storage space but sometimes more effort is needed in customer service.

Sarah Norwood, who sells digital download lingerie patterns and hand-sewn lingerie, understands that her customers require more in-depth information than her lingerie shoppers. Sarah has a blog that helps her share more details. A YouTube channel could also serve the same purpose.

Use your customers’ questions to improve your service for future sales. Before selling your digital item, send it to different printers so you will know what your customers are getting. When pricing; you have to think of things like the time you put in each design and what you consider a reasonable profit to attain your price for single pieces and sets.

Then add expenses to reach a final price. Selling digital downloads allows you to add more listings to your Etsy shop, reaching a different audience. For Jenny, it has helped her grow both as a designer and an artist.