My 30-day challenge of selling Digital Art on Etsy: Success or Not
I have seen lots of videos on selling art patterns online and making tons of money, so I decided to try to sell AI art patterns for 30 days. So in this post, I’ll be going over the whole process, from generating to uploading to advertising. Let’s see how much money I make.
1. Selecting an AI Art Generator
The first step is to pick an AI art generator. I chose Mid-Journey for its features. I generated some art prints that can be seamlessly repeated.
People use them to create scrapbooks, cards, notebook covers, packaging, and print-on-demand products like phone cases, pillows, and mugs. The list goes on and on, which makes patterns a potentially great product to sell. As it seems to be in demand. The flower art pattern does it seamlessly, so I generated lots of them.
The plan was to sell on Etsy. It is an online marketplace that focuses on arts and crafts and is a popular place to shop for patterns, or what they also call digital paper. To determine what patterns I should sell, I used Etsy’s search suggestions and e-rank, a free Etsy keyword research tool, to find popular niches that don’t have too much competition.
Some I’ve stumbled upon include certain types of flowers, materials, and food. Patterns are typically sold as 300 DPI images that measure 3600 by 3600 pixels in resolution.
2. Overcoming Technical Challenges
During the export of files, I noticed that mid-journey’s maximum output display and specifications were 72 dpi resolutions and 1024x1024 pixels. To solve this issue, I had to make use of an image upscaler called Gigapixel AI, which was a paid tool. It did the job perfectly by elevating the images to the required quality, matching the marketplace standards. After all my AI patterns were generated and upscaled, I was now ready to create a listing on Etsy.
3. Creating the Listing on Etsy
Selling digital art prints on Etsy involves providing or offering them in packs. So I decided to sell my one digital art print in packs of eight, which brought up Etsy’s other limitations, which are only five digital files per listing. I breached this problem by changing my approach to uploading the patterns into a folder on Google Drive, creating a brand review required PDF document linking to the folder, and uploading it to Etsy. In addition, I also crafted my listings to include nice, appealing photos, good pricing, and the use of great titles and popular keywords. This was done to increase visibility and visits on Etsy.
4. Marketing and Sales Strategy
After two weeks of uploading my listing and having five sales on my products, I saw firsthand the difficulty of standing out among thousands of products. I decided to employ different strategies such as discounts, keyword optimization, and, most importantly, Etsy ads, hoping to increase sales through paid advertising. Unfortunately, despite all my efforts, the sales had little to no improvement, so I had to cut most of my listing’s price to $0.5 to $1, hoping to see a final push in sales as this was my last week.
5. Outcomes and Results
As the 30-day challenge came to a close, the results were not great, despite finally selling 10 patterns. To me, it was a loss, though I gained something, but not the thousands of dollars proclaimed by those YouTube creators.
Okay, it’s time for the reveal. I earned a total revenue of $7.47. For my expenses, Mid-Journey costs $31.50 for a one-month subscription, and the ads cost $15 over 15 days. Etsy also charged me 48 cents in transaction fees, 73 cents in processing fees, 15 cents in tax on seller fees, and 20 cents per listing in list fees. I had 107 listings, so that cost me $21.40 in total. My net income for this challenge is -$61.79.
Final Thoughts
Here are my honest thoughts. Selling AI patterns is not as easy as it seems. Everyone and their grandma can whip up an AI pattern with Mid-Journey. It’s dead simple, but it also leads to a very saturated market on Etsy. You can combat this by narrowing down on certain topics. It is profitable in the long run, but you have to mass produce these art prints to make a profit and be dedicated because you are not going to see the returns immediately. You might even start with a loss like me, but don’t lose hope; time will change.
I will continue to run the store to see how it goes After a while, I will update you all on my progress and growth until next time.
