← Crickets to Cha-Chings
Crickets to Cha-Chings
197. $70,000 in Mockup Sales with Cassiy Johnson
00:29:54
Free Trail of Simply Listed mockup software: In this episode, Julie interviews Cassiy Johnson, an established Etsy seller and software owner, who shares her journey from being laid off to finding success through print-on-demand and mock-ups....
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- [00:01]
A
Hey, and welcome to another episode of the Crickets to Cha Ching's podcast. I'm Julie Berninger from Gold City Ventures and I'm thrilled to announce that we have Cassie Johnson, a established Etsy seller, new software owner, here with us tonight. Welcome, Cassie.
- [00:15]
B
Hi, Julie. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here on the podcast.
- [00:20]
A
So excited to tell your story. And let's start where it all began. Jump right into it. Tell everyone a little bit about yourself and how you got started on Etsy.
- [00:29]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So, like a lot of people in 2020, I actually got laid off from my job, but I had always had this dream of having some kind of side hustle or additional income. I had tried things like making concrete candles to sell or like dipping, you know, mugs in nail polish, weird stuff. Like I tried a bunch of crafts and nothing really seemed actually scalable or even, you know, light enough to be shipped and make any money on it. And so, you know, I was on the hunt for a couple of, for some kind of side hustle. And so when I got this little bit of time off work, you know, unexpectedly I went to YouTube, started searching for side hustle ideas. I looked at a ton of different options, but it wasn't until I saw a video about print on demand where you could just make a design and post it for sale and it didn't get printed until the customer actually ordered it, really resonated with me because that just seemed so much easier than like buying stock and shipping it to Amazon's warehouse or any of the other type of side hustles. And so it was easy enough that I got started literally the next morning, posted some stuff for sale on Etsy and got my first sale pretty quickly from my mother in law and then my second sale from a stranger in the same day. So from there I was absolutely hooked. And now it's been, you know, four and a half years, you know, full steam ahead, and it's been absolutely life changing.
- [01:56]
A
Well, welcome to the Etsy Success club. I'm so just, I love hearing people's journeys and I think whether someone listening is just getting their first couple sales or whether they have thousands of sales, they can definitely relate to the excitement of hearing the Cha Ching. I still love the Cha Ching. Did you silence it on your phone now or do you let it go?
- [02:15]
B
It's funny that you say that because I always have had a silent phone. And so I was selling on Etsy for about six months, months before I knew that a real Cha Ching sound came. I only ever saw the Cha Ching words written until someone said something about the sound. And so then for a little while I turned the sound on so that I could hear it one time, but no since then, you know, testing it once. I always have my phone on silent, so I never get to hear the Cha Chings, unfortunately.
- [02:44]
A
Well, if anyone listening hasn't turned Cha Ching on, at least turn it on. I have little kids, so if anything wakes them up during their nap, the whole day is ruined. So I keep everything on lockdown, complete silent. But I do like hearing that you're changing from time to time when I. When I can turn it on. So getting into how you started with this whole mock up print on demand journey, and just for somebody listening who is not as familiar with the print on demand mock up process, could you just give a quick overview? Just for background, we did have Emily on, who is a coach in our community, that she's made 500k in 2 years selling print on Demand on Etsy. And in her episode she did touch briefly on how you use Printify and the different tools to help sell on Etsy, these particular products that you don't make yourself. But we didn't really talk in detail about the mockups. So can you explain for anyone listening, just context before we get into it further?
- [03:38]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So when you're selling Print on Demand, Printify is who I have, you know, specifically used to print the majority of my products. They will put your design on a kind of poorly made, in my opinion, picture of one of those products. They're not the nicest looking, they're not very trendy, they're just not quite what sells on Etsy. Specifically. Etsy kind of has its own aesthetic, its own vibe. You know, you want really nice photos of your items. And so what I really recommend for any successful print on demand business is that you use something called mock ups, which all that is you can purchase them right on Etsy if you just type in the product you're selling and the word mock ups after it. It's a picture of that product that, that is completely blank. So let's say a blank T shirt, for example. And then you would normally go in something like Canva, whatever you use to design and add your design on top of that photo to pretend that it's already made. And so then you can use any photos that you like for your products to stand out instead of everyone using print device photos. Right. And looking the same and kind of being mediocre. And so after I started my print on demand business and sold that for many years. And I think it was around when I had hit the 500,000 sale mark as well actually that I started my own mock up store. Taking the mock up photography and actually like being one of the models in the pictures and started my store selling those digital downloads as well was one of the other ways I've made money on Etsy.
- [05:10]
A
Wow. So you actually. Did you get like samples sent to you and then you would put on. Was it clothes or was it more like mugs, apparel or everything? How did you just go about doing this? That's cool.
- [05:21]
B
Yeah, so I just went on a website called Jiffy Shirts.com is where I ordered all my blank products for and just ordered hundreds. I don't know, maybe not hundreds, but lots of blank shirts. We've really only ever done. I started it with my sister shirts and sweatshirts, you know, just apparel items. We've done a couple of things for like ornaments but not really many other products. It was mostly just clothing. So you just buy the blank products and then just take pictures of yourself using them or wearing them. You do have to do some editing but then you just post it for sale on Etsy and when someone buys it then they just get to download it and start using it in their store. So it's pretty easy.
- [05:59]
A
Wow. So did you make a lot of money in sales using this?
- [06:04]
B
We've sold about $70,000 in our mock up store since starting it like two years ago. But what's cool is that one's completely passive. You know, there's basically no customer service. We don't have to fulfill any orders. It's all kind of just more automated. I'm sure if I put a lot more time into it I could make a lot more money. I know one of my friends, Alina, she has a mock up store on Etsy watermelon mocks and she started the mock up store and I think sold 10,000 mock ups her first year. So she's made a real income from it because she's actually a good photographer and has put up lots and lots of images whereas we've just kind of done it maybe in five or six photo shoots over a couple of years and not put a ton of time into it. But it has been an interesting experience.
- [06:46]
A
Yeah, definitely a potential idea if someone wants to run that down. I'm sure with AI too there, there are many AI product shops. Although I'd be afraid if someone didn't actually use the real shirt that Printify uses like the same, you know, I don't know, Gildan or whatever the name of the shirt brand is, it might not be right when the customer ends up buying it and sees it at their house.
- [07:06]
B
Technically, Etsy says you have to use a real photo of the actual correct product. And so there are people who make AI mock ups and sell them. But I really wouldn't recommend it selling AI mockups because I think there is a big gray area there that Etsy doesn't want people to use those types.
- [07:27]
A
Right. I know Etsy put out that information regarding mock ups. Maybe it was a year ago and there was so much drama in our world where people were freaking out about using mock ups and all of that. But it sounds like your takeaway from that experience is just Etsy wants to give the customer the best experience possible. So if you're purchasing a mock up and you're purchasing a mock up where the person has actually used that shirt or that item or whatever, then you're kind of meeting Etsy's seller handbook. We're not lawyers or anything, but that's kind of how you're interpreting it, correct?
- [07:57]
B
Yeah. As long as it accurately shows what the customer is going to receive, you're good to go. And Etsy did confirm that verbally when asked at that time when all the drama happened. So yes, as long as you're using a real picture of the actual product the customer will receive, you're totally good to go.
- [08:15]
A
Right. I'm guessing if you're buying mock ups on Etsy, you probably should make sure that the person is listing in the description that they used it. How do you signal in your shop to buyers like, hey, this is a legit thing. It's not, I'm not an AI model.
- [08:27]
B
Or anything, you know, I haven't actually put anything in there that it's not AI, but you know, again, I'm kind of an amateur. I think they look, they look real. I don't think they look AI. You know, it's not like a airbrushed AI person, which I feel like is like a telltale look at look into the pictures, but I feel like once you've looked at them for a little while, you can kind of tell which ones are AI and which ones aren't, you know?
- [08:52]
A
Yeah, and I know Etsy has the AI disclosure too. Not that people properly disclose, but they could. Yes, you're supposed to for sure. So moving on to kind of where you got the idea for this new tool that will better help with mock ups. Was there like a Certain pain point or thing that you were running into of why you decided, oh, I'm going to be the one to step up and solve this.
- [09:14]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So in my almost five years now on Etsy, I think I have listed over 5000 items for sale on Etsy. And making mock ups is probably one of my least favorite parts. It's just tedious. It's always the same. It just takes an extra few minutes, you know, it doesn't take forever, don't get me wrong. But I'd say maybe two to five to 10 minutes, depending on what you're doing and how complicated it is to make mock ups for one listing. And so if you're trying to get out 5, 10, 15 listings every day, that could be 20, 30 minutes, an hour, two hours a day that you're spending on this one task that you really just could automate is the idea. And so instead of having to get your design file, drag it onto each image, maybe tilt it, maybe lower the opacity, then do the next one, do the next one, do the next one, save it to your computer, have a million of these files on your computer, then have to go to Etsy and upload it to Etsy. It just is a long, long process that I know a lot of my students have made a bunch of designs and then ended up not listing them because getting it from the design made to actually list it on Etsy just felt like too big of a mountain to climb that they just decided, okay, you know what, no, I don't really want to do that right now. So my whole thought was if I could help people lessen the amount of time between making their design and getting listed in their store, that people will get more items listed in their store and in turn make more money on Etsy. So it's not just save time, but it's just get it done in general. And so that's where the idea of simply listed was born. That's my new mock up automation software. And so it works really simply. You use your own mockups, you put them into my system and tell me where you want the design to be placed. And then we just replace that little place card for where the design's going to be. With your design, we save it, we upload it to your Etsy store, and so you can, in one click, make all of your mockups and then click once again and publish it to Etsy. And so I've tested it. You could do about a thousand mockups in your store in three minutes. Hmm.
- [11:39]
A
Okay, cool. So I think now we all are like, let us see it. We're, we're hooked. How does this work? So do, would you mind? And by the way, I'm not meaning to put you on the spot with a demo, but can we pull it up? And if for anyone listening when the podcast, I'm going to publish this to YouTube in case you want to switch over so that you can watch the actual screen. But instead of asking you a million questions, I'm thinking maybe we should just see it happen once in action and then ask any questions after. Once I, I can visually get how the process works.
- [12:08]
B
Absolutely. Let me pull it up and I'll share my screen and that way you can see exactly how it works. And Julie is going to have a code for you down in the Description For a 14 day free trial if you want to give it a try. All for free.
- [12:25]
A
Excellent. We love a good free trial. I can see it looks great.
- [12:31]
B
Okay, perfect. So the first thing I'll cover is right this very moment as Julie and I are recording this, my software simply listed only connects to Printify. So if you're not using Printify right at this very second, then this software won't help you. But in just a few weeks we are going to be launching a custom version. So make sure to keep an eye out for that where you could make mock ups for digital downloads, printables items from other print providers like you know, Printful or Gelato, anyone that you want. So at this very moment our first version is just Printify and that's what I'll show you right this second. But it will work basically the same exact way when you're making items for other things that's just not live yet. But we are already about halfway done with it. So by time you watch this, it might even be live. So definitely Check out our YouTube channel simply listed to see if that is live if you haven't checked it out yet. So let me just kind of walk you through this process because it is nice and simple. So you would create a template for a product. So this one in example I'll show you is a Comfort Colors 1717 shirt from the provider SwiftPod. So on Printify that's who's printing it. So you make a template for a really specific product because that way we are going to pull the design from that product on Printify. I'll show you here. So like let's say this horse shirt here on Printify, I added this design to a Printify Comfort color shirt from SwiftPod and so it has to match the template that you made. So you'll add your picture. So this is the my own pictures that I added to simply listed. So a picture of say each shirt however you like. And this is your full Etsy listing. So it would have your size chart.
- [14:20]
A
So you uploaded this?
- [14:23]
B
Yeah, I uploaded all of these photos. So you can use any mock up photos that you like, but then you add the print area. So this is all you have to do. You add your photos and then this box right here you actually add yourself. So you say add print area and this is pulling from Printify right now in this case, for the custom version, you'll type in the size of your design that you made. So like if your canvas size on Canva for the design that you made is 4200 by 4800, that's what you'll eventually use. But right now we're pulling this size from Printify. So this is kind of like the placeholder for your design that matches where the actual design is on Printify. So here I'll share my screen over on Printify. So this box where Printify actually prints, that's what you're putting on the shirt to tell us where you want your design. If that doesn't make sense just yet, it will in a moment. So I'll show you the whole thing. I just wanted to kind of break it down real quickly. So all you have to do is tell us where the print area is and tag color so that we put the design on the right mockup photo. So like, let's say you have, you know, a brown design on the white shirt, but you have a white design on the green shirt. If you tag the color of the picture, we'll actually put it on the right one. So then, now let me show you how that works. Now you've got a little bit of context when you want to make mock ups for your products. All you'll do is click this button and tell me which designs you want printed on your item. So let's say I'll print these two products that have uploaded to Printify and click Create Mockup. And it's going to grab those designs from Printify and put it on each image. Lower the opacity, crop it, put it where you want it, behind the necklace, behind the hair, whatever you need, and you set up in your template. And it's also either going to make you a listing video where it's like a slideshow of the products. Let me see if this one has the video slideshow at the end. So it'll actually make you a listing video to upload to Etsy or you can upload your own video. So, like, let's say you want the same video on every single Etsy listing. So I'll show you this one in a little bit bigger. Then you can upload a video to all of your listings. For the size guide video, it's like it's not showing in the preview, but you can see it right here. And so if you wanted it to be the same video on every listing, you can upload one, or we can make it for you. But you can see in just a few seconds we added that design to all of the mockups here. And so you don't have to go through one by one and add these images on there. It does it for you.
- [17:09]
A
And I noticed you chose squares because we always wonder, you know, what's Etsy's flavor of the day in terms of the orient or like the orientation? Is it like, what is it? What is the pixels that it downloads at?
- [17:22]
B
Absolutely. So you get to choose that. So if you don't want it to be square, it doesn't have to be. It bases it on the photos you upload. So I personally like to do these square thumbnail images. But you're right, Etsy, it just depends on what platform you're on. Someone's shopping on their phone. I think it squares if they're on the computer. You know, depending on the screen they're on, it's squares. So, you know, there's no way to optimize for every single single scenario. But me Personally, I do 2700 by 2700 for all of mine. And that's worked really well for the type of photos that I do.
- [17:56]
A
So this is. This is really cool. So just to kind of make sure that I understand how it works. So in Printify itself, that's where you're uploading the designs. You never have to upload the design into Simply Listed it because it integrates with Printify, it can see can access your designs. So in Simply Listed, you only have to upload what the mockups that you want to use. And because when you sell print on demand, like let's say the candle example, I saw a candle there. A lot of people probably sell candles that are coming from my world because Emily sells candles and that's who is our print on demand coach, you would often do like 50 candles. But making 50 mockups in Canva, that's 50 times two minutes each. You know, you're Talking about a couple hours worth of candle mock ups. So you would just click the candle mock up, you want them all to be. And then it. Then you would just select all the designs you just uploaded to Printify and then you could just make a whole bunch and download them. Does it, how does it download them? Does it download them like in one zip drive or like, how does it do it?
- [18:53]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So if you're publishing to Etsy, if you're using print on demand with candles, then you just click Publish to Etsy.
- [19:01]
A
Oh, you don't even have to download. Then upload it just. So does it load a new Etsy listing for you or.
- [19:07]
B
No, you would have had to publish the candle from Printify to Etsy first. So like this is the, the full workflow. Upload your design to Printify.
- [19:16]
A
Yeah.
- [19:17]
B
Publish it to Etsy. Yeah, To Simply Listed. Make the mockups and we grab the design from Printify and publish those mock ups to Etsy.
- [19:26]
A
This is probably a super dumb question because I'm a printables person, not necessarily pod person. When let's say that you never did the simply listed step or like you went to bed and you wanted to finish it the next day, what does it look like on the Etsy? Is there like, is there something in the placeholder like that it could sell? And then until you finish this part.
- [19:44]
B
Yeah. So totally up to you personally when I use Printify because I know you don't do print on demand. Yeah. You can actually click a button that says Hide in Store and so it'll actually be in your inactive listings until your mockups. So I always select this button, it says Hide in Store. And so that way the. I think I have my Etsy mockup store open for an example. It'll show up in your drafts right here.
- [20:08]
A
Got it.
- [20:09]
B
And so then it'll just sit there and wait for you. And so then you can upload the mockups from Simply Listed. And when you're ready, then you can publish the listing once it has the mockups and just click Publish.
- [20:21]
A
Cool. So I bet you've been going absolutely wild with testing this and doing it. Like, how many users do you guys have? You. Did you just launch?
- [20:30]
B
We did just launch. We're I think two or three weeks in and we have about 300 users so far. We're just getting started, but we'd obviously love for anyone listening to this to check it out. I know a lot of your users are the printables and the other things as well. So again, that will be Available in just a few weeks.
- [20:48]
A
Oh, just weeks. You think it'll take them weeks to do digital downloads? That's pretty good.
- [20:52]
B
Yeah, I, I, like I said, we're about halfway done building it already. The only difference with doing the digital downloads is that we're not going to be able to bulk publish them to Etsy for you. So you can, you'll be able to click Publish to Etsy and just tell us what Etsy listing you want us to publish the mock ups to. So it'll be one extra click or you can download the mock ups and upload them anywhere you want. So if you're selling on Shopify or TikTok or somewhere else, you can just download them and upload them to those other platforms. But in the future we do want to integrate to other platforms if you need it. But for digital downloads you would just make the mock ups. They'd go into our little approval area. If you like them, you'd click Publish to Etsy and tell us which Etsy listing to publish them to. Because without the SKU numbers from Print to buy, we don't know what listing you want those photos to go to. So that will work slightly differently, but it will be just as fast, just as easy to actually make the mock ups. It's just one more click to tell us where you want it to go.
- [21:53]
A
Super cool. Okay, so I'll put the link to the 14 day free trial below and definitely two weeks gives you all a lot of time to play around with it. For ending out the podcast. This is actually a question I used to ask on my FIRE podcast. Financial independence, retire early. And Cassie told me before this episode started recording that she actually is very familiar with retire early. So I'm going to ask you this question. It's kind of a curveball. What is your wildest dream?
- [22:21]
B
My wildest dream? I would say I would love to be a best selling author someday.
- [22:30]
A
Very cool. I love it. I used to ask everyone this. I've asked over 200 people this question and everyone interprets it in different ways, but I love hearing their responses. So what would your book be? Would it be fiction? Would it be business? What do you think?
- [22:44]
B
Yeah, yeah. I haven't quite nailed down exactly what I would want the book to be about, but I am, you know, brainstorming all the time of what an eventual one could be. I think my dream would be that it would be a really great book for kind of business, but maybe more on the mindset side because I was very fortunately raised in a household that my parents were in multi level marketing businesses. They were in Amway, which some people are like, oh, it's a scam, it's a pyramid scheme. And I don't disagree with you. But the thing that was really great about those is I was raised believing that I could do absolutely anything if I tried hard enough, that all of my dreams were achievable, that I didn't have to work for someone else to make a living, that I could do whatever I wanted, that if I just worked really hard for it. I grew up reading like Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I grew up reading the. I don't know why I'm blanking on all the books now, but how to Win Friends and Influence People. You know, I was like a preteen when I read all these books. So I feel like I was indoctrinated to believe in myself. And not everybody gets that. And so I would love to write a book that helps people get from wanting to chase whatever dream they have to believing that they can do it and actually taking the steps in their everyday life to get there. Because if you just worked towards your goal a little bit every day, starting January 1st to the end of the year, just a tiny step towards whatever your goal is for the entire year, you would be a completely different person at the end of those 365 days. But we all have a hard time doing that. You know, we can do the work for somebody else all day, every day. But when it comes to doing it for ourselves, a lot of us struggle. So I think that's my dream, is that I could help people kind of bridge that gap to kind of chasing their dreams and getting exactly what they want. Because I've been very blessed to, you know, have that just in me that I can just go and do it and I know it's going to work out. I have this never ending optimism that I just want to give to everybody else. I want to share it.
- [24:49]
A
Oh my goodness. Well, you already have me fired up. January 1st is just around the corner. So everyone listening. January 1st is coming. Cassie's leading us all to go and go after our dreams. I love it. And also just being a parent, it's nice to hear what it is like when you grow up having these opportunities. A little bit of financial acumen, a little bit of entrepreneurship and mindset stuff taught you at a young age, it's only a positive thing. So that's awesome. My business partner Cody, his mom actually was very into all this stuff and introduced him really young, which is nice. And Now I look at him, I'm like, he's 28 years old, traveling around the world, living the dream, living his best life. And I think a lot of that is because he probably was raised with that sort of mindset and outlook on life. So that's what I'll try to do with my kids. We'll try to impart, you know, the wisdom on them. They're a little young for. For deep talks right now. It's more. More practical in the moment type things. But thank you for sharing that. I think that that's really important.
- [25:45]
B
I actually have a kid that's about to be 16, and on Thanksgiving this year, everyone in my family wrote down, like on a little leaf what they were thankful for for the year. And they, like, put it on the wall on a tree. And my baby, so sweet, wrote down that they were thankful for their car. They got a car this year, so really, really nice. They're thankful for that. They also wrote down that they were thankful for Etsy and YouTube and what it's been able to offer them. And I just think that's so sweet because so many people in my life just didn't even know you could start a side hustle. They didn't believe that any of them would work. They're all scams, you know, like, I'm the only one that I know doing something like this in my normal everyday circle. And if you are in that same position, just always remember this. One Thing that I heard that I just love is that if someone doesn't have what you want, then don't listen to what they have to say. If they're not living the life that you want, don't listen to them. If they're miserable and have a job they hate and they're like, don't do Etsy. That's probably a scam that's never going to work out. How would they know? Just listen to Julie. Listen to the people on YouTube. There's plenty of people around doing what you want and can show you the way. And it is possible for each and every one of us. I absolutely believe that Etsy is not too oversaturated. There are new opportunities every day in different niches, different design styles, different products. Like, you can do this if you just set your mind to it.
- [27:13]
A
Yep. I think we're so lucky that we're living in a time that Etsy exists and it's so creative and fun. I mean, it's not even. I mean, yeah, you can make money, but it's fun, you know, I used to make money in a lot more boring ways than this. I mean, this is great. I love. I love being creative and using my brain and thinking about what shoppers want. And Etsy shoppers are creative. They want creative stuff. It's fun.
- [27:34]
B
You know, I will say at the end of this, and I know we'll wrap up soon, is that if you're sitting here listening to Julie saying that and you're like, I don't think being creative is fun. I don't believe that I'm creative because I think a lot of people start Etsy for the other side of it. They just want to make money, but they're not creative. And they're like, so maybe this isn't possible for me. I would challenge you to read one book in 2025, and it's called the Laws of Creativity by Joey Capone. And I honestly think every creative person should read it. The biggest thing that I took away from that book that has been absolutely a game changer for me, is that it's not necessarily about being creative and thinking of things out of thin air. It's about combining. And once you put that together, there is infinite possibilities for you creatively, even if you don't think you are. If you're like, okay, I see this retro wavy font selling really well on an item from this seller, but I also see these, like, really cute pastel colors on this other seller. What if I combine them together? Or, you know, like, whatever the trends are, like combining elements of things that other people have done into something new and unique, but the elements aren't new and unique. That is the path to success, in my opinion. So I just wanted to throw that out there because I think a lot of people don't necessarily resonate with being creative. So that's just my two cents. If you would read any book in 2025, please let it be the Laws of Creativity, because it's so good.
- [29:02]
A
Okay, Cassie's got us starting a book club too. Let's go. January 1st, everyone. I actually joined a book club, but I love the idea of doing a more of a mindset business creativity book. That's awesome. I'll link to that below in case anyone wants to check that out too. Cassie, if people. To learn more about you, we're going to link to the software below. But let's say they want to kind of follow you more personally. How would they do that?
- [29:23]
B
Absolutely. So I don't have any, like, personal social media that I let anyone follow, but you do have my YouTube channel. Which is just Cassie Johnson. My name. I have my website, cassiejohnson.com with everything that I offer. And then that new software, if you want to check it out, is simply listed IO simply listed IO.
- [29:41]
A
Awesome. And I'll link the 14 day free trial below. Thank you so much for coming on. This has been so much fun and I'm excited to dive in and to give this a go.
- [29:49]
B
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Thanks everyone listening. Have a great day.