If you’ve been searching for an easy and effortless way to make money online, then here’s a great way for you. People are making thousands of dollars selling digital products on Etsy and you can do it too. The best part is, you don’t even need to create anything yourself. All you need is a free ChatGPT account, a Google Drive account, and a some time to spend on it.
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Understanding the Business Model
We’re not talking about selling physical products like T-shirts or handmade crafts. Instead, you’ll be selling digital design packs. Digital design packs are collections of images that people can use for their own projects, like creating custom T-shirts, mugs, or other merchandise. You’re not designing these images yourself either instead, you’ll use AI tools like ChatGPT and Leonardo AI to do this task.
The reason this business works so well is that businesses and individual creators need designs, but they don’t have the time or skills to make them. That’s where you come in. By creating and selling ready-to-use design bundles, you can make good amount of money.
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Setting Up Your Etsy Shop
To get started with this business, you need to setup an Etsy shop first. To do that, head over to Etsy and create a seller account. It’s easiest to sign in with your Google account. Once you’re in, click on ‘Get Started,’ and follow the steps mentioned below:
- Choose ‘I’m starting to sell for the first time.’
- Then, you can skip the questions about what you’re selling.
- After that, choose your language, country, and currency preferences.
- At last, you need to pick a name for your store. You can name it anything you like. If you’re struglling to come up with name ideas for your store, then you can use tools like ChatGPT to come up with a good name.
- And just like that, your shop is ready to list items for sale. Now let’s move to the next step.
Spying on Successful Shops
To see what’s working and what’s not, you can use a tool called Allura. It pulls out data from Etsy stores along with how much money they’re making. For example, a shop named Epoca made over $28,896 selling digital design packs. Another seller, Byron, pulled in $38,711 selling the same thing. They’re not selling physical items, just downloadable design bundles. Some sellers are even making six figures every year selling these designs.
Creating the Designs with AI
Now, we’ll generate the designs that you can sell to make money. For that, we’ll use two free AI tools.
We’ll use ChatGPT to brainstorm design ideas and Leonardo AI to generate high-quality images, which can be used as designs.
To create your designs, start by asking ChatGPT for design ideas. For example, you can ask: “Give me 10 ideas for retro T-shirt designs.” with ChatGPT and it will come up with the ideas for you! Once you have your list of ideas, you can copy those idea and paste it into Leonardo to generate the images.
Leonardo AI is free, but it’s quite slow so, be patient while it generates your designs.
Tip: While giving prompt to Leonardo AI to generate images, avoid using basic words. AI tools struggle a lot with text. I would suggest you to stick with visual ideas like “psychedelic landscapes” or “vintage muscle cars.”
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Uploading Your Designs to Etsy
Once you finish creating your designs, it’s time to list them for sale. I would suggest you to include atleast 500-1000 designs in your bundle to make it more valuable for your buyers. It can also increase your chances of getting more sales.
Now, it’s time to create your Etsy listing. Here’s how to do it:
- While uploading your bundle to Etsy, set the item type as Digital File.
- For the title, you can use keywords like “Retro T-shirt Design Bundle | PNG Files | Digital Download.” A title like this can help buyers to understand what your product is in no time.
- Then, write a detailed description for your product and don’t forget to add keywords in it. (if you can’t do it yourself, then you can use ChatGPT to do it).
- After that, choose the best looking images to showcase as cover images for your listing.
Delivering the Product
Etsy doesn’t let you upload large files directly. Instead, here’s a clever way to do it:
- Upload your design folder to Google Drive.
- Create a Google Doc with a thank-you message and a link to your Drive folder which has your designs (set it to ‘Anyone with the link can view’).
- Download the Google Doc as a PDF.
- Then, Upload the PDF to your Etsy listing as the ‘digital file.’
Now, when someone buys your product, they get the PDF. When they open the pdf and click on the link, they will receive their designs.
Scaling Your Business
Want to make more money? Here’s how to do it:
- List your designs on other platforms: Redbubble, Zazzle, or Creative Market.
- Build an email list: Offer a discount on their next purchase in your thank-you message. Collect emails and promote new design bundles.
- Set up subscriptions: Use PayPal’s subscription tool to offer a monthly bundle of fresh designs. For example: “1,000 new designs every month for $20/month.”
This can turn your side hustle into a recurring income stream, where customers will pay you automatically every month!
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Final Thoughts
Selling digital design packs on Etsy can be a great way to make passive income. This business is low-cost, low-maintenance, and highly scalable. It may take some time to create designs in the beginning, but you have to do it only once.
Would you try this business idea? Let me know in the comments down below.
