Making Money on Etsy: Retro Wall Art Success Story

Starting a brand new store on Etsy in 2024, the user made $1,800 in 3 weeks selling retro vintage style wall art with 30-72% profit margins.

### Success Story: Launching a Profitable Etsy Store in 2024
* 💸 A new Etsy store in the wall art niche, focusing on retro vintage designs, made **$1,800 in revenue within 3 weeks**, with a profit margin of **30-45%**.
* 🏆 The store identified **under-the-radar products**, with the top seller making **$6,450/month** and a **50% profit margin**.
* 🎨 Designs were created using Canva templates or by hiring a graphic designer for **$5-15 per design**.
* 📊 The store used 3 launch strategies: **selecting the top 20 products**, running Etsy ads with a **$5/day budget**, and **automating personalization where possible**.
* 🚀 Plans to scale the business include setting up a website to **drive traffic from social media** and potentially **sell the business in the future**.
* 🖼 The retro vintage niche was chosen based on research showing **healthy demand and competition**.
* 💡 "I wanted to start with 20 because I can focus on producing the **highest quality listing** with 20 instead of **200 low-quality listings**."
* 🌐 "Etsy is a great option when you're first starting out because it's **quick to set up a store, get some sales, and validate your product**. But remember that you are **renting your store on Etsy**."

it's almost impossible to sell on Etsy. You see all these comments everywhere online - huge competition, you're not going to get noticed until you run expensive ads. The market is already oversaturated on Etsy and Etsy is disgusting. All right, but is this all true? I guess the big question everyone is asking: can you still make money on Etsy with a brand new store today in 2024? Now my own store has been around for a few years now, still making more than five figures a month. But does a brand new store still have a chance today? So 3 weeks ago, I took the challenge and started a brand new store on Etsy using print-on-demand products. I paid the $15 that they now charge for new sellers, and I began doing my product research. And I actually found something in the wall art niche that's actually selling pretty well. It's not the typical wall art designs that you see on Etsy, but something a bit under the radar. And I'm going to show you that a bit later in the video. So I got to

work, and I picked the best 20 designs, created 20 listings on Etsy, and waited to see if I can get any sales. So, how much did I make on my first week? Zero, kind of expected, but on the second week, I actually started getting some sales. Fast forward to 3 weeks later, I was able to make 45 sales and about $1,800 in revenue. Just after 3 weeks, and that's not bad. My profit margin was about 30-45% on average, but technically that was about two weeks' worth of sales 'cause I didn't make anything on my first week. Now, obviously, $1,800 is not something to write home about, but I think it's a strong validation that the store is working. It's a realistic number to expect and pretty pretty happy considering that it's a brand new store. So today, I'll be sharing with you what the product or the niche is, and you can see my thought process, the profit breakdown of each product, and I'm also going to share three of my launch

strategies that I used to generate the first $1,800 in sales in about 3 weeks. Make sure you watch till the end because every strategy ties to one another. As a bonus, I'm also going to share my plan to scale this side hustle into a scalable business. Huge thanks to gelato for sponsoring this video, but more on them later. Let's dive in. So, the broader niche that I ended up going for is the wall art niche, but I narrowed it down and found a style that not a lot of people talk about but has a healthy demand on Etsy. So, this is the retro vintage style. Now, keep in mind that I won't be showing everyone my exact designs for obvious reasons, but I'm going to show you the three stores that I found inspiration from, and I'll break down the math on how much you can profit from each of the products that I'm showing you. So, let's start with the first store. They are selling vintage St. posters, very simple ones like this.

Cowboy cat print here now. I use everb to research potential products, so if you've got the Chrome extension here, you can see how much they're making with this listing. So, this listing alone sells 258 units a month and is making $6,450 every single month. And if you notice, they are relatively new, about 6 months old, which is a good indication that a listing that is new can still compete. And now, if you go back to the listing and read the description, they're actually selling just the poster and not even including the frame. Now, let's check how much you can profit from something like this. As you can already tell, this is a print on demand product. They are using a print on demand provider to print and ship this physical product, so they just need to create the designs, and everything else is pretty much automated. So, they've got a few sizes. You can pick the middle one here, medium print 11 by 14 in for $30. Now, for printing posters like this, I like to use gelato because they

have tons of different frames, frames, and poster options, and they've even got this poster with Museum paper quality, right? And I've actually ordered the frame from gelato before, and I can attest to the quality of the frames. So let's just choose this classic one right here. We're going to use the size we want, 11 by 4, and the product price is $7.78. Now, keep in mind that if you have an active subscription to gelato, you get 10% off all the products. So your cost comes down to about $7. So you want to add $4.92 for shipping. So the total cost will be $11.92. Now, if you sell this for $30 like this store here, and you take out all Etsy fees and all the costs, you can still make about $15, which is about 50% profit margin. Now, I like to aim for at least 30% margins so I have some room left for marketing, or I can even offer better quality paper like this Museum quality paper if I wanted to, 'cause the better quality, you can

give to your customer, the better your reviews are going to be. Now, I've got two ways you can create designs like this. If you're an artist, obviously you can create this by yourself. But if you're not, you can go to K to find designs that you can use for your products. So, they've got plenty of templates to choose from. If you type in retro here, you'll see that they've got tons of images that you can start working with. You can edit them as you wish. You can change the text, move things around, and they recently released an eraser tool that allows you to edit or erase certain parts of an image, right? And this is actually a highly requested feature, and I personally love this 'cause it's something that I use a lot. And they also have a lot of pre-made designs for tumblers, signs, planners, and even Etsy banners. And what I like about K here is that when you design on the platform, you can use their mockup generator here to create really good mockup images.

know how crucial it is to have great mockups on your SC listing, and they've also got tons of other mockups from wall art, mugs, t-shirts, so you don't have to pay a separate subscription to a website like Placeit 'cause everything's pretty much in here. Now, the other way is to hire a graphic designer for this. I have a graphic designer that I've worked with for a couple of years now, and I initially found her on Fiverr, so she's my go-to designer for all my design work. So if you don't want to mess around with software or an AI tool like mid-Journey, having a dedicated designer on your side is always useful. So you can pay per job, which is usually like around $5 to $15 depending on the type of design. Especially if you're selling a product that has a healthy margin like this, I think it makes a lot of sense to pay a designer so you can focus on other areas of your business, and besides, it's just a one-time cost that you incur.

when you first create that product. Now let's move on to the second store. Now this is another example of a store that's doing very well with retro prints. So they've got wall art, mugs, t-shirts, all kinds of different products. And let's pull up Everb. And I want to see how much the store is making. Now as you can see, they're making quite a lot here. But let's see the actual revenue. So I'm going to export this table to Excel. And when you do that, you can sum up this revenue column here. And you can see that they're making $44,000 in revenue every month. Now let's take a look at one of their products, which is this custom couple sprint here. Let's see how much you can expect to make with something like this. So let's choose the same size, 11 by 4. And notice that this listing is also selling just the printed poster without the frame. So if you use this product from Gelato and sell it for $25, you're going to make about $10 per sale. And that is

42% profit margin, so pretty healthy margins as well. Now let's estimate how much they're making as a store. And of course, I'm going to be very conservative and assume that they make an average of 30% profit margin across all their products, and not even 42%. So, if you multiply 30% by their store's revenue, which is $44,000, that's $113,000 every single month in profit. And I'm pretty sure that it's probably just a fraction of what they make as a whole, because if you notice, they also have their own website and they drive traffic from their own social media accounts. And obviously, when you sell products on your website, you'll make an even higher margin, because you're not paying for a lot of the fees that SC charges. Now, if you look at this listing here, they actually offer personalization on the image, where you can add a custom name on the poster. You're probably thinking, well, that's a lot of manual work if I have to add a custom name for

every order now. Not many people know this, but you can actually automate this process as well. So if you use Gelato as your print-on-demand provider, Gelato has an auto-personalization feature here where it can automatically fulfill personalized orders just like this without you being involved in the process. So to give you an overview of the process, when a customer writes their name here, for example, Maria, Gelato will automatically take that name and place it on a predetermined area on the poster. Or you can even take a step further and even allow the customer the option to change the font, the location of the text, or even add their own graphics. So I think this is such a powerful automation feature if you sell personalized products because you can imagine how much time this is going to save you. By the way, if you want to test this out for yourself, you can try it for free on Gelato. So if you guys want that extra 10% off all your products on Gelato, you can use my link, which will get you the Gelato Plus plan for free.

for 30 days. So, extra profit margin for you guys. All right, so let's look at the third store here. Now you've probably seen a couple of sport shirt paintings like this before, but instead this is a portrait of a house. Now, I know this is not a retro vintage style artwork, but I've got something similar to this as well at my store, and this might inspire you as well. So, according to Everb, this listing makes $24,000 a month or 418 units every single month. Now, let's do a quick math and calculate the profit. I found this product on Gelato, and if you choose the 8 by 11 size, the price is $6.40. And if you take 10% off since you have the Gelato Plus plan, it's $5.76. And then you're going to add $4.92 for shipping. So, the total cost is $16.80. Now, if you sell this for $59, just like the seller here, you can make $42 in profit after the fees, which is a 72% profit margin. So, in other words, if you

sell 418 units times $42 in profit. That's $117,000 in profit every month just for this listing alone. And we have no way of knowing which variant or size that's selling the most, but I'm just choosing the middle size here. But I think $177,000 is a quite a conservative number. Now of course with this type of products, you can't automate the Fulfillment because you have to take the photo from the customer and convert it to a watercolor painting. But there's still a way to the process, which is by hiring an artist to handle the design work. So I found that there are sellers on fiber who can convert a photo into line or watercolor drawing for just $5 here or this one selling it for $10. Yes, you can figure out how to do this using AI for a significantly lower cost, but I think you going to probably end up spending the time converting the photo, you know, the back and forth with the revisions, etc. So the beauty of hiring

someone like this is that you're going to be saving a lot of time. Time so you can focus on growing the business. And plus if you're making 72% margins on these products. Even if you pay $15 for a designer. It still leaves you plenty of margins. So I've got three strategies that I want to share. That I use to get this brand new store. It's first sales for the first three weeks. Number one is top 20. So you've probably seen stores that have thousands of listings. And a lot of people tell you that strategy is to upload as many designs as you can. And you're bound to sell some of it. But let's be real. When you're first starting out. You probably don't have the time to create that many listings. And you know for me as a customer. If I see a store selling all kinds of junk. I usually don't buy. So what I did was I made a list of about 40-50 products. That were selling well during my research. Put it on a spreadsheet. And just select the top

20 listings that I want to start with, and I wanted to start with 20 because I can focus on producing the highest quality listing with 20 instead of 200 low-quality listings. 'Cause if you talk about competition, low-effort products will have the highest competition. And also, by just having 20 listings, it allows me to start getting sales quicker and validate if the products are actually working versus waiting a couple more months to see if your idea works. Now, the second strategy I use is to run Etsy ads, and obviously, you got to spend a little bit of money for this. Now, I personally believe that this is a better way of launching products because I've used this method personally for many of my product launches, and it's actually also what I recommend for my students. But before you run Etsy ads, you have to understand how the Etsy algorithm works. So the majority, 80-90% of sales, are made on the first page of search results. So when you first list a product, your organic listing is probably on page 20.

but when was the last time you click through 20 pages to buy a product. Right now, the big question is how do you get from page 20 to page one. Now, there's only one thing that Etsy looks for to rank your products, that is sales velocity. So, when you first list your product, you're on page 20 and there's no sales velocity. So, we solve this by turning on Etsy ads. So, when you do this, Etsy will place you directly on page one and you're immediately exposed to 80-90% of the traffic. And if you have a good product, you have a good offer, you're going to get sales. And when you start getting sales, your organic listing will also move up the rankings from page 20, 15, 10, and eventually to page one. Now, two reasons why I prefer this approach. So, if you're targeting a specific holiday like Mother's Day, maybe it's a month away, timing is crucial because you're not waiting on the sidelines, but you're in the game right away. You can't afford to

miss the wave while it's happening, plus because you're getting sales, you immediately get feedback from your customers if your product is good or not, where you can then improve your products and potentially get even more sales. And when you get more sales, you'll move even further up on page one even faster. So think of etcs as an investment and not as an expense. So this business doesn't require a lot of money to start. Maybe just a couple of tools here and there, and they're very inexpensive. So if you start a physical product business, you'll probably spend at least 10-20K on your first inventory order. But with print demand, you're spending zero in inventory up front. So why not allocate a bit of money to get that validation quicker? So I set a budget of just $5 a day for this, which I'm probably going to increase soon. And look, running Etsy ads is not like placing ads on a billboard where you can't measure performance. With Etsy ads, you can measure every version, and you can control how much you spend per

day and since these ads are on a pay-per-click system, you only pay when someone clicks on your listing. So tell me in the comments below, are you guys running ads for your store, or if you're struggling with it, or if you've had pretty good success, share with me in the comments below. Now, the third strategy is to automate where you can. So two out of 20 of my listings have a custom personalization option, and as I mentioned before, this can be automated with the Gelato Personalization Studio tool. But if you have a listing where you have to manually convert a photo into a watercolor portrait, for example, try your best to hire a design expert to fulfill the orders. And to be honest, I would even hire if I know how to design. So 5-10 bucks will save you so many hours and, most importantly, your sanity. So you have to switch your mind from working in the business to working on the business. You want to delegate operational tasks that are repeatable so you have time to think about how to grow.

the business. How do I 10x my Revenue now? Speaking of scaling the business, here's what I have in mind to scale the store. So, if you've been watching my videos, I've always said that if you want to build a real business, you got to have a presence outside of Etsy. Etsy is a great option when you're first starting out because it's quick to set up a store, get some sales, and validate your product. But remember that you are renting your store on Etsy. Etsy can suspend your account at any time, and your business will vanish overnight. So, that's why it's really important to set up a simple website, which is what I'm planning to do starting next month. 'Cause when you sell on your own store, you have full control of your revenue, and you can even sell the business one day for a huge payoff. And you can't do that with an Etsy store. So, starting next month, once I have the website ready, my plan is to drive traffic from social media to my own website. I want to let Etsy do its thing.

with the massive traffic it has. While I drive my own traffic to my website that I fully control. As you can also see, Kinder Planet here also has their own social. Simply showing people their products. And you know, most of these videos can be faceless, which means that you can also outsource this process one day to freelancers. But of course, when you're first starting out, you want to do this yourself. And don't be afraid to make mistakes, 'cause once you find your rhythm, it's going to be a lot easier. Now, I want to be realistic with this. I don't plan for everything to go super smoothly. So I'll be sharing with you guys all my struggles, my failures, and my wins. So you guys can see the things that you should do and things you should avoid. And I'm probably going to post some updates in the community section. So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of these updates. Now, if you guys love what you're hearing and you want to see even more product ideas, I recently did a video on

nine trending products that are currently exploding on Etsy. If you guys want to check that out, click on this video here, and I'll see you there.

I tried selling print on demand products on Etsy from $0 (Surprising)

Hi, I’m Jason. I’ll show you my secrets to making money online so you can run profitable businesses from anywhere in the world.

Growing up, entrepreneurship has always been my passion and I have since built multiple successful businesses that run themselves.

My goal now is to share my secrets on how to make money in ways schools never taught you. I'll also share with you how to build wealth for those of you who doesn't want to do it the 9-5 way.

I know this is possible because it happened to me & I really believe anyone can do it with the right guidance.

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Jason Lee

Making Money on Etsy: A New Seller's Success Story

A successful Etsy seller debunks the myth of oversaturation and high competition on the platform.

By using a print-on-demand model and focusing on retro vintage wall art, the seller made $1,800 in revenue within 3 weeks of starting a new store.

The seller shares the profitable niche, product inspiration, and launch strategies, proving that it is still possible to make a significant profit on Etsy as a new seller in 2024.

Gelato offers a high-quality classic frame for posters at $7.

78, with a 10% discount for active subscribers.

Adding shipping, the total cost comes to $11.

92, allowing a potential $15 profit when sold for $30, providing a 50% profit margin.

K provides design templates and a mockup generator for creating poster designs, while hiring a graphic designer from Fiverr offers another option.

Another store, Everb, is making $44,000 in revenue monthly from similar retro prints, indicating the potential for high profits in the poster business.

The Power of Automation in Personalized Product Sales

Stores are making substantial profits, with one store estimated to make $113,000 monthly.

Gelato offers an auto-personalization feature, saving time and effort in fulfilling personalized orders.

The use of Gelato's Plus plan allows for an extra 10% off on all products, resulting in higher profit margins.

Strategies for Launching and Scaling a New E-Commerce Store

Launching with a focused selection of top-selling products can lead to quicker sales and validation of product success.

Using Etsy ads and understanding the Etsy algorithm can help improve product visibility and drive sales on the platform.

Hiring a designer to handle the product customization process can save time and allow for a focus on business growth, especially when operating at a 72% profit margin.

Maximizing Your Etsy Product's Visibility and Sales

Etsy's key ranking factor is sales velocity, which can be jumpstarted by using Etsy ads to quickly move from page 20 to page one.

This approach allows for immediate exposure to traffic, timely targeting of specific events, and the opportunity to receive customer feedback for product improvement.

Additionally, automating tasks, such as using the Gelato Personalization Studio tool, and delegating other repeatable operational tasks, can free up time to focus on business growth.

Consider creating your own website to have full control of your revenue and potentially sell the business in the future.

Drive traffic to your website from social media while still utilizing Etsy's traffic.

Utilize social media for product promotion, with the potential to outsource this task in the future.