Experimenting with printables to earn passive income on Etsy (update)

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business
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Last fall, I made a post about creating and selling printables on Etsy. I had my designers make a quarantine Bingo game, six types of greeting cards, and nine types of clipart.

Selling printables is great because the income you earn is almost entirely passive. When customers purchase printables, they’re able to download the items themselves, and usually, there’s nothing more for you to do.

Some of my printables do have customization options. Plus, with the quarantine Bingo, I tell customers if want additional playing cards, they can write to me and I will send those to them.

So sometimes, there is customer service work I have to do, but it’s minimal and you can avoid this if you don’t offer customization options or additional playing cards with your games.

To learn more about what I did with the printables I created in my original blog post, click here.

In this post, I wanted to share an update about how my Etsy printables have been doing in terms of views and sales. Plus, I wanted to go over some additional ideas for other printables you can create, including…

  • game ideas
  • greeting cards
  • printable coupons
  • and goal trackers.

Let’s take a look…

Part 1 – Reviewing my printables’ stats

Here’s what’s happened with my printables since I first wrote about the process:

Quarantine Bingo

Greeting cards

Those brought in $89.97. Not a ton, though hopefully they’ll grow over time… but still not very worth it in my opinion.

Clipart

Those brought in $15.30 – even less.

Total revenue brought in across all 3 products: $1,800.56

Part 2 – Additional ideas for printables

More games

As you can above, the Quarantine Bingo game has been my best-selling printable by far, generating $1,698.14 in sales over the last four months.

‘Quarantine’ isn’t the only Bingo theme you can create, though. You can also create Bingo games for upcoming holidays, such as Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, or Easter.

You can also make Bingo games based on specific special occasions, like birthdays, baby showers, bridal showers, or bachelorette/bachelor parties.

With the pandemic ongoing, people are still looking for ways to have fun and interact with friends, family, and co-workers in a way that’s safe and remote. And a virtual Bingo game is perfect for this, as people can play together over Zoom, FaceTime, or Skype.

Examples of phrases and icons to appear in the Bingo spaces

If you decide to create any themed Bingo games for upcoming holidays or special events, here are some suggestions for what to include on the playing cards:

Valentine’s Day

box of chocolates
bottle of champagne
love letter
romantic dinner
Teddy bear
Cupid’s arrow
bouquet of roses

St. Patrick’s Day 

shamrock
leprechaun
Ireland
pot of gold
rainbow
shot of whiskey
glass of Guinness

Easter

Easter bunny
Easter eggs
Easter basket
chicks
lambs
jelly beans
bouquet of tulips

Special events 

For birthdays, baby showers, bridal showers, and bachelor/bachelorette party Bingo games, you can focus on the guests and make a “find the guest” version of the game.

The spaces might say things like “find the guest who…”

Is left-handed
Is a business owner
Is wearing something red
Has a tattoo
Served in the military
Is a vegetarian
Can speak more than one language

…This type of Bingo works the best when the guests know each other. But it can still work even if not all of the guests do, especially if several of the spaces are things that people can see (e.g. Is wearing earrings).

You don’t have to limit your game ideas to just Bingo, though. If you search on Etsy, you’ll find other game ideas, such as…

Birthday 

Ever or Never…
Would He/She Rather…
Birthday Drink If…
How Well Do You Know the Birthday Boy/Girl?

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Baby shower

Advice for the Mommy-to-be
The Price Is Right
Baby Predictions
Who Knows Mommy Best
Wishes for Baby
Baby Word Scramble

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Bridal shower 

Bride or Groom?
Guess Who Said It
Would She Rather…

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Bachelor/Bachelorette party

What’s on Your Phone?
Photo Scavenger Hunt
Dirty Minds
Bachelor/Bachelorette Drink If…
Over or Under?
How Well Do You Know the Bachelor/Bachelorette?

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Greeting cards

Previously, I created the following types of greeting cards:

  • birthday
  • anniversary
  • thank you
  • get well

But there are other types of ‘year-round’ cards you can create if they’re a low investment of time for you to test — for example…

  • baby shower
  • bridal shower
  • bachelor/bachelorette party
  • wedding
  • congratulations
  • condolences

As a refresher on the process I used with my greeting cards, please refer back to my original printables blog post.

Here are some examples of the types of cards you can make for the new categories I mentioned:

Baby shower

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Bridal shower

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Bachelorette party

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Wedding

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Congratulations

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Condolences

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Printable coupons 

Printable coupons are a cute gift idea for customers. You can come up with a set of pre-made coupons and/or give customers the option to create their own, custom coupons.

Some examples of pre-made coupons might be for things like…

  • one-hour massage
  • home-cooked dinner of your choice
  • breakfast in bed
  • Netflix binging with your choice of show or movie
  • picnic lunch
  • outdoor adventure
  • a day with no complaining
  • game night in

Here are some examples of what the coupons might look like:

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Goal trackers 

Goal trackers are especially popular right after New Year’s when people have just made their New Year’s resolutions. But really, this kind of thing is timely year-round. There are always people looking to lose weight, exercise more, eat healthier, pursue a dream, create better habits, or improve themselves in some other capacity.

To help with this process, goal trackers come in handy as a means of measuring your progress. If you run a search on Etsy for “goal tracker printable,” you’ll find numerous listings. Goal trackers can pertain to a variety of categories, including…

  • fitness
  • health
  • career
  • financial
  • family
  • personal
  • travel

Here are a few examples for inspiration:

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

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What are your thoughts on these printable ideas? Do you have any suggestions you can share? Please let me know by leaving a comment below. And if you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends and followers!

Selling printables on Etsy and how that can affect your ecommerce business

BONUS! Find this helpful? To download this post as a PDF, click here!

3 thoughts on “Experimenting with printables to earn passive income on Etsy (update)”

  1. debbie calianno

    RacheL,
    How do you provide them the file once they purchase? Do you email them the PDF?
    Thanks.
    Debbie

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