Etsy Printables: $10,000 a Month Selling Digital Products on Etsy (Greatest Hits)

Summary

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The Side Hustle Show: Etsy Printables – $10,000 a Month Selling Digital Products on Etsy (Greatest Hits)

Date: March 23, 2026
Host: Nick Loper
Guest: Rachel Jones (Money Hacking Mama)
Summary prepared by podcast summarizer

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Episode Overview

This "Greatest Hits" episode revisits Rachel Jones, creator of a leading Etsy printables shop, who has turned digital downloads into a $10,000/month business while balancing a full-time job and family. Nick Loper explores the tactics and lessons behind Rachel’s success: researching profitable niches, optimizing listings, scaling with minimal overhead, and adapting as the market evolves. A special “time travel” segment at the end checks in on Rachel five years later, exploring how trends, competition, and AI have changed the Etsy printables game.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Finding Profitable Niches

• Success Leaves Clues: Rachel emphasizes exploring Etsy to see what’s working.
  • “My biggest recommendation is to go on Etsy and just explore...look for that bestseller tag...Etsy gives this information away, which I love.” — Rachel Jones [02:37]
• Leverage Trends: Major holidays and events (Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, graduation, Christmas) drive demand for themed printables.
• Macro Awareness: Stay tuned to world events; COVID-19 forms became a niche opportunity early in the pandemic.

2. Product Research & Tools

• Use Best Seller Tags as indicators of demand.
• Erank:
  • A tool for competitive research, keyword analysis, tracking product performance.
  • “Erank is a tool that I highly recommend...That was a huge turning point for me.” — Rachel Jones [10:43, 11:12]
• Long-Tail Keywords: Target specific needs with low-competition phrases for better visibility.
  • “I try to find those long tail keywords...it’s enough that my products will get seen because there’s some people searching for it and I’m going to easily come to the top.” — Rachel Jones [13:10]

3. Experimentation and Niching Down

• Started with budgeting templates (her natural expertise), but faced high competition and seasonality.
• Pivoted to wall art, then landed on business templates (e.g., COVID forms for therapists/doctors/dentists), which proved more lucrative and less crowded.
• “I started with budgeting products and it did okay...but there was a lot of competition. Eventually I landed on providing things for businesses specifically.” — Rachel Jones [07:15]

4. Product Creation & Tools

• Common file types: PDF, JPEG, PNG. Canva templates are growing in popularity for business customers.
• “If I’m designing something, it’s definitely Canva.” — Rachel Jones [16:05]
• Design skills: Largely self-taught, supported by feedback from design-mentors.

5. Digital vs. Physical Products

• Opts for digital only: minimal overhead, no shipping logistics, near-infinite scale.
• “No, on purpose. Don’t want to touch it.” — Rachel Jones, on physical products [17:58]

6. Standing Out in a Competitive Market

• Avoid price wars: Focus on value-adds, customer service, and bundle extras (e.g., relevant e-books, bonus templates).
• Marketing and Image Optimization: Professional listing images and videos are crucial.
  • “...really invest the time to make really beautiful listing images...listing images look better...Try to create that emotion with your images.” — Rachel Jones [25:40]
• Transparency Pays Off: Show most of your actual product in listing images to boost conversions, rather than holding back out of fear of copying.
  • “I would say give more away. And yes, competitors can come in, but...you’re looking at it from your point of view. Not everybody has your tech abilities.” — Rachel Jones [28:20-29:23]

7. Listing and SEO Optimization

• Title Strategy: Use key descriptors in the first 3–5 words; avoid repeating keywords.
• Tags: Use all 13; don’t waste space with plural/singular repeats.
• Descriptions: Useful for Google search; anticipate buyer questions.
  • “The biggest thing is the keywords and the tags...don’t repeat keywords...be as specific as possible.” — Rachel Jones [33:27]

8. Marketing Beyond Etsy Organic

• Etsy Ads: Start once your listings are well-optimized; don’t advertise $1 items, $5+ is ideal.
• External Channels: Pinterest, blogs, possibly Facebook or Instagram ads for direct-to-store traffic.
• “I would never advertise a listing that I am only charging a dollar for...$5 or more is that sweet spot.” — Rachel Jones [36:00]
• Target ROAS: 4–5x is industry standard; Rachel is satisfied with 3.3x if net positive.
  • “If I could give somebody a dollar and they’d give me three, I’ll still do that all day long.” — Rachel Jones [37:21]

9. Scaling and Time Management

• Built the business with small pockets of time: “...maybe 15 minutes...waiting in line to pick up the kids...” — Rachel Jones [39:06]
• Portfolio size at time of interview: 114 products, aiming to grow further.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Research:
  "You can spend a bunch of time making a product that never sells, or you can do all the research up front...and I feel like you’re much more likely to be successful." — Rachel Jones [12:02]
• On Passive Income:
  "The payoff is it’s time consuming once and then it pays for itself forever." — Rachel Jones [39:30]
• Top Tip:
  "Go where the demand is. You can try to match it with your passion and your knowledge...but once I finally flipped it...that’s where the magic really started happening." — Rachel Jones [42:46]
• On DIY vs. Buying:
  “You’re looking at it from your point of view…Not everybody has your tech abilities…some people just want the easy button.” — Rachel Jones [29:21]
• On Scaling:
  “My goal, I’ll put it out there: I want to make a thousand dollars a day.” — Rachel Jones [40:15]

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Time Travel Segment — Rachel’s 2026 Update (Five Years Later)

Key Takeaways:

• Rachel left her job in 2021, now has 400+ listings (some products retired/off-season).
• Still profitable; the business replaced her full-time income and achieved her "coast FIRE" (financial independence, retire early) number.
• Market Trends:
  • Competition is up, but there are still new trends and plenty of opportunities if you adapt.
  • “People complain Etsy is dead...I do not think that’s the case. I think those people haven’t changed or pivoted.” — Rachel Jones [48:28]
• AI’s Role:
  • AI now helps with product images (mockups), bonus content (e-books/courses), and even product creation.
  • Demand for “easy button” solutions persists; many buyers lack time, skill, or technical comfort to DIY.
  • “AI is still so new...if you can just make it easy for people, and it’s five bucks or $10, time is valuable too.” — Rachel Jones [56:03]
• Favorite Niches:
  • Weddings, entertainment, games, and seasonal products remain strong.
  • Community/connection (e.g., group games, party printables) is a promising growing segment.
• Life Balance:
  • Rachel teaches part-time, maintains the shop, keeps family and self-care & travel as priorities.
  • “Trying to enjoy life while I’m at it and help other people as much as I can.” — Rachel Jones [61:54]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:37] — Rachel’s research process and finding bestseller clues on Etsy
• [07:15] — First niches (budgeting), pivoting to templates for businesses
• [10:43] — Using Erank for product research
• [15:09] — File types and creation tools (Canva, Word)
• [17:58] — Choosing not to sell physical products
• [25:40] — Listing optimization tips: images, videos, honesty
• [33:27] — Titles, tags, descriptions, and Etsy SEO
• [34:08] — Etsy ads (best practices, ROAS, marketing channels)
• [39:05] — Time investment and side hustle management
• [42:46] — Rachel's #1 tip: Go where the demand is
• [47:10] — Rachel’s five-year update (2026): market changes, new strategies, and the enduring appeal of Etsy printables
• [56:03] — Impact of AI on product creation and customer behavior
• [59:57] — New niches, trends, community-focused printables, and future plans

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Final Thoughts

Theme:
Rachel’s journey illustrates the power of research, adaptability, and systematization in the Etsy printables space. While competition grows and technology changes, there’s enduring demand for simple, helpful digital products—if you spend the time up front to identify what buyers truly want.

Core Lesson:
Go where the demand is, keep improving, and don’t be afraid to pivot or leverage new tools (like AI) to stay ahead.

Find Rachel:
MoneyHackingMama.com

Resource Links:
All tools, courses, and further reading mentioned are listed in the episode’s show notes at SideHustleNation.com/RachelJ.

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Transcript

[Nick Loper]

If you're selling online or out of a storefront, you already know the challenge. You're hoping people find your listing, or

[Cody Berman]

you're waiting for them to walk in. Whatnot lipsthat this is the live shopping

[Nick Loper]

platform that's exploding right now on Whatnot. You go live and you sell directly to real people in real time.

[Interviewer/Host]

They see what you've got, they ask

[Nick Loper]

questions, and they buy. And what's crazy is Whatnot buyers spend more than an hour a day in the app.

[Cody Berman]

So whether it's beauty products, collectibles, thrift

[Nick Loper]

store finds, electronics, even cookies, sellers are building real thriving businesses on Whatnot.

[Cody Berman]

I've seen the rankings, I've seen the

[Nick Loper]

revenue numbers, and the number of sellers making over a million dollars on Whatnot

[Cody Berman]

has doubled in the last year.

[Nick Loper]

Now's the time to give it a try for yourself. For a limited time, Whatnot will match your first $150 sold in the first month. Visit whatnot.com sell to start selling.

[Cody Berman]

That's W H a t n o

[Nick Loper]

t.com sell whatnot.com sell here's an oldie

[Cody Berman]

but a goodie from the archives from the Side Hustle Show Greatest Hits collection.

[Nick Loper]

Plus stick around for the time travel segment at the end to learn where Rachel's business is at today and what's changed in the digital product game since our original recording.

[Interviewer/Host]

What's up, what's up?

[Nick Loper]

Nick Loper here. Welcome to the Side Hustle show because nobody else is is going to do it for you. Awesome episode for you today on creating assets you can sell over and over again. Today's guest has done an excellent job of that in the world of Etsy printables, averaging over ten grand a month in sales so far this year while

[Interviewer/Host]

balancing a full time job and two young kids.

[Nick Loper]

You can find Rachel Jones at moneyhackingmama.com and stick around in this one to learn how to find profitable niches to

[Interviewer/Host]

sell digital products in. On Etsy, some of the product categories

[Nick Loper]

she likes and the tools and technology

[Interviewer/Host]

that she's using to get it all done. This is a dream business in a lot of ways because there's almost no

[Nick Loper]

overhead and the platform Etsy in this case is handling and automating your order fulfillment and giving you some powerful marketing

[Interviewer/Host]

tools to drive more sales. I like it. I'm excited about this one.

[Nick Loper]

Notes and links to all the resources mentioned are@side hustlenation.com Rachel J now because there's a lot of copycatting in this space, Rachel asked that her shop remain Private.

[Interviewer/Host]

Which is why you won't hear it mentioned by name in this episode. Still, she's got me fired up about the possibilities here.

[Nick Loper]

Big thanks to Cody from Gold City Ventures and the FI show for the intro. Ready?

[Cody Berman]

Let's do it.

[Rachel Jones]

I like the quote. Success leaves clues. So my biggest recommendation is to go on Etsy and just explore. I mean you can go as simple as just type in the word printables or digital download and see what pops up. And then one key thing you're going to look for is bestseller tags. So Etsy gives this information away, which I love for doing research. But if you're looking at listings, you can just kind of zoom out and glaze your eyes so you're not paying attention and distracted by the pretty pictures. But just look for that bestsellers tag and then once you find that, you can dig a little deeper and that will give you clues as to things that are selling. Because there's, you know, I'm sure millions of products on Etsy and there's. It's hard to tell which ones are selling and which aren't. But you know, if they're a bestseller that they are getting sales, people are purchasing those and so there's a reason why those are popular. And then it just, you can use your intuition and you know, around Mother's Day, Mother's Day printables are probably going to be popular. So that's another thing is trends and follow the seasons. Right now we're getting close to graduation season. Father's Day is coming up. You know, Christmas is a huge holiday where people are buying things to make the season special, looking for the best seller tags but then also thinking in a macro level of what's going on in the world. Yeah, that's really, really helpful.

[Interviewer/Host]

I'm not obviously the target customer for buying this type of stuff. What would be an example of like a Mother's Day printable? Like did I miss the boat on something that I should have ordered?

[Rachel Jones]

I mean you can download cards so people printable cards, you know, you go to Walmart and you can get a physical card. But some people, maybe they're so last minute or Covid they don't want to go to the store, so. So they just buy one and print it at home. Or they want something really unique, funny cat thing that you can't find on the Hallmark aisle and so you can just download it at home. The other thing too, if you have, let's say you had, people are trying to save money. You can buy it once and you could give it to your mom every year, which that would be kind of silly, but maybe you have your mother, you know, your in laws, you know, there's now there's step parents and things like that. You could have four moms that you want to give to and so you could give them all the same card because you bought it once and you can print it multiple times.

[Interviewer/Host]

Oh, interesting. So I searched Printables following your advice and there are several results. I mean there's hundreds of results, but a lot of them do have this bestseller tag on them. One of them is this daily habit tracker printable.

[Nick Loper]

It looks almost identical to this one

[Interviewer/Host]

that I created for free and gave away as a lead magnet. Except I mean it's much prettier than the version that I made at Google Docs. Like it's got a nice font, it's got like this nice flower picture on it. But this thing is selling for $4.14. It's got the best seller tag. It has 1600 five star reviews as far as I can tell. Are those reviews for the shop itself or for that specific product?

[Rachel Jones]

The shop itself.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay, so it's not necessarily that this one thing has been sold 1600 times, but it's safe to say something is moving from this shop and it seems.

[Rachel Jones]

What's the name of that shop?

[Interviewer/Host]

It is Design Studio 2 Teti.

[Rachel Jones]

Okay, okay.

[Interviewer/Host]

T E T I. Are there a few that are like, oh, that's like a conglomerate or something? Like they're well known in the printable space?

[Rachel Jones]

Yeah, there's one called Phoenix Printables and they have low cost planners and they just sell a ton of them. And so I was wondering if it was that one, but it's not so. But it's good for the listeners because they can go, that's a good example if for some reason they didn't find one to look at that one specifically.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay, I do see Phoenix Printable lower on the page. Yeah. 69 cents for order form, template type of thing. Okay. So some people are going higher end. I shouldn't mention pricing on this page. You know, there's as high as 20 bucks. What looks like for a huge bundle of party planner templates, you know, to under a dollar for some of these. So I guess as long as it's a net positive for you because it doesn't once you create it, Etsy handles the delivery and after their fees I guess you still make a little bit. So that's okay. Here's 30 bucks for another type of change your life bundle. There's some pricing power here if it's something that people really are after.

[Rachel Jones]

Yeah. And with pricing, I definitely think it's better if you're going to make a product. So if you're looking at this, if you're brand new to this and you're looking at printables, if you see a bunch that are bestsellers and you're like, ooh, should I make the 69 cent one or the $30 one? I would say $5 or more. Try to. You're going to just make more profit.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay, now, did you start in the personal finance niche? I'm just thinking the broad world of printables is huge. Is there a subsegment where you started or where you would recommend somebody start?

[Rachel Jones]

So I'm part of the fire community, financial independence, retire early. And I've always been an avid budgeter. So I was like, well, I saw other people were making budgeting items and since that was where my expertise was, I was like, well, let me try to match those two passions and something for people. And so I started with budgeting products and it did okay. It's definitely has some seasonality. I think people make New Year's resolutions in January, December, January. And so that is when sales picked up for me. But there was a lot of competition in that space. And quite frankly, I was new, so my products weren't that great looking.

In hindsight.

I was like, okay, you know, I could have made better ones. And so I then pivoted and did a little bit of wall art. And I had some success with that. I had people purchasing items for weddings. So, you know, if you're at a wedding party and you at the cocktail table, you might have a cute little sign, either wall art or a sign that says something cute about drinking or something like that. So I did some of those and I had some custom orders which were fairly profitable. And so that was nice. But again, there's a lot of competition in that space as well. So eventually I started thinking about what,

you know, what am I good at?

What, where does my expertise lie? Where do I see a market need on Etsy? And then I landed on providing things for businesses specifically. So then I went the route of templates. I actually, it started because my sister, she's a speech therapist and she paid a lawyer $250 for a Covid form. And I was like, wow, that's expensive. And then I was like, huh, a Covid form? I wonder. And this was right when Covid started about a year ago. It's like, I wonder if that would sell on Etsy. And so I looked it up and there were just a handful and they were selling from anywhere from like 10 to $50 even.

But I was like, well, 50 is

a good deal compared to 250. And so I made a Covid form and started selling that. And that's where I was like, oh, okay. Business people need products, and maybe there's a niche there that I can help with.

[Interviewer/Host]

This is interesting. So this is just kind of a sign they would hang on their door of like, you know, do not enter if you've had any of these symptoms type of thing.

[Rachel Jones]

So anywhere from that, like the mask wearing sign, now you see them everywhere, right?

At restaurants.

It's kind of like the no shirt, no shoes, no service, no mask. You can't please don't come in without wearing your mask. So things like that. But also just like a liability waiver for now.

You go to the doctor's office or

the dentist, and they're all pretty much the same. You know, it says like, have you been in contact with somebody? Have you traveled out of the state? Things like that. And the person just has to check that, you know, they have don't have symptoms, they haven't been in near somebody with symptoms, they haven't traveled, and then sign that their name attesting that they, you know, waive liability if they do happen to come in contact at your place of business with COVID Interesting.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, I had to just sign one of those the other day at the dentist, so maybe they're a customer of yours. Okay. Planners, wall art trackers, templates, Covid forms. Okay, we're getting the creative juices flowing here. I'm. I'm like, shoot, my. My habit tracker. Maybe I should put that up there and, and sell that. I've got some other templates and stuff that I've been using targeting a business to business customer. I like that because there's generally less price sensitivity and hopefully a greater volume of sale or maybe less competition in that space would be a better way to phrase it than just this is for every mom like saying no, this is something specific even for this type. You get niche down by the business type. Anything else on this product research front that I should be looking for?

[Rachel Jones]

So now that you have a bestseller, Erank is a tool that I highly recommend.

There's a few different.

There's alluro always new one ones coming out, but Erank is my favorite. And I recommend that people get the paid subscription at least you know, you can get it for a month and just try to do as much research as possible. And then you can pause it and move on. But that really lets you track your competition. So that shop that you said, you can go in there and look kind of behind the scenes and you can at least take a better guess at

what their best selling items are.

You can look at their keywords and, you know, again, success leaves clues. So they might have done something right in the keyword realm. And so you can go in and see, like, which of the keywords did they use? Which one seems to be the most popular. Take a guess at how many items they're selling of that specific item, where they're getting traffic from, things like that. And they also, Erank just has a keyword tool. So there's, you can go on Etsy and look for bestsellers, but you can also go and E rank and look at their keywords. And they have, based on the month, they have things that are like, oh, this is a rising keyword, this is a hot keyword, this is trending. And so that's really helpful to just have the right data. And I think that for me, that was a huge turning point when I got Erank and upgraded and really paid attention to my site and really did the research first. Because you do spend time making products, but you can spend a bunch of

time making a product that never sells,

or you can do all the research up front and kind of decide based on your research whether or not a product is worth taking a chance on. And then I feel like you're much more likely to be successful because you have better data informing your decision of which products to make right.

[Interviewer/Host]

You're doing a lot of upfront, somewhat speculative work in creating this thing, only to have it drowned out by competition or find out, well, there's really no search volume around that keyword. So, yeah, trying to do this homework upfront may lead you to a slightly different idea than what you thought. And so I'm trying to think of what an example would be. Like maybe if I wanted to do business plan templates for kids, like, oh, you want to start a lemonade stand, you want to start a lawn mowing business? Here's kind of the template. Like, what's your marketing plan? I don't know if any parents would

[Cody Berman]

be interested in this, but maybe going

[Interviewer/Host]

through it's like, oh, well, maybe that's not what they're looking for, but really what they're looking for is like an allowance spreadsheet or, I don't know, some budgeting Tool for kids. I don't know. But you go down that rabbit hole and see what might happen. Is there a metric that you're looking for in terms of search volume or sales volume to say like, this sounds interesting, I think I could compete here.

[Rachel Jones]

It's kind of a unicorn. But you want a high search volume in a perfect world and low competition. Right. So you're looking for that blue ocean, which is hard to come by, but I think Erank will put for competition. If it's 50,000 or more, it'll be in red. And it's like this bar is full basically. And it's like there's a lot of competition there.

[Cody Berman]

Do not enter.

[Rachel Jones]

Exactly. Yeah. So I look for the opposite of that. So it's usually in green. And honestly if it's. I really like to see like there's a hundred competition or a couple hundred, but not in the thousands. But I think it's still green even if it's thousands of people of competition. But I try to find those smaller ones and honestly with the search volume, I'm not looking for 10,000 or something crazy with search volume. I try to find those long tail keywords. So something that is very specific doesn't have a ton of competition for that very specific keyword. And it probably doesn't have a ton of search volume, but it's enough that my products will get seen because there's some people searching for it and I'm going to easily come to the top of the search because there's not that much competition.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay. Yeah. Lawn care business for kids planning template, like really long tail type of stuff.

[Nick Loper]

If somebody is searching for that and

[Interviewer/Host]

they find you and they say, well, shoot, this is the thing that I need. This is exactly what I'm looking for.

[Rachel Jones]

Exactly.

[Interviewer/Host]

Versus business plan template. Like, oh my gosh, I imagine that's got to be crazy competitive.

[Rachel Jones]

And just like wall art. Right? Like you can get downloadable wall art, but I think that's so broad that people. There's going to be goth stuff on there and then there's going to be cute baby shower type things or stuff for a baby's room. And so there's no way that you're going to get like your target market with something so vague. You really have to get detailed in the keywords to make them worth your while.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah. What's interesting is I guess there's an opportunity for somebody to. This is all like, you know, PDF file, printed at home type of stuff. Actually, I should. Maybe we should pause there. Like what is the File format for the stuff that you're selling.

[Rachel Jones]

So PDF is very common, but you can do jpeg, png.

I mean, for example, I do Instagram templates.

So some like Canva, I don't know if you've heard of that, but that's a really popular like edit, edit, free or low cost editing software that a lot of people use. So Canva templates are starting to become popular and I think even like there's people like you, right? People that have blogs that want a template that they can sell as a freebie for their site. So you can like an ebook template. It's not even an ebook, it's just something that's designed and laid out in a pretty way. In Canva, those things like that are starting to sell from a business to business standpoint.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay, interesting. I love Canva as a relatively new user, like probably in the last year or so I've kind of become more engaged with like, it's crazy powerful. I'm just on the free version of it right now. It's like, man, this is impressive. What you can do is that primarily what you're using when you go to create something new is Canva.

[Rachel Jones]

Yeah. So I Canva, sometimes I do Word and do like convert a Microsoft Word document into like for a form. Right. If it's a basic form, like the COVID form, it's just a Microsoft template. And then I put it into a PDF. But a lot of the things, if I'm designing something, it's definitely Canva.

[Interviewer/Host]

Did you have any sort of background in design or creating cute fonts or anything like that? I'll just learn as I go.

[Rachel Jones]

Just learn as I go.

But I have been doing, I think,

all of my like working life. I've either been in charge of email newsletters or creating flyers or things like that. And I've had some great mentors who are graphic designers. So I would get it started and a lot of times create them in Canva and then we'd have a graphic designer. But it was so much easier, less expensive for them to just give me five minutes of a critique and, you know, make it better than for them to spend an hour of their time designing it from scratch. So that has been helpful throughout my career to get, you know, I've never taken a graphic design course, but I do, I think I have. I like interior design, I like decorating, and I think I have an eye for it. So, so kind of a natural knack for it. And I have had some mentors that have helped. But in general, it's just all been self taught.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah. And imagine in some niches it matters more than others. Probably less so in the COVID forms, but probably more so in the canva templates and other things. Wall art especially where it's like, well, it's gotta look good. And the reason I was asking about the PDFs and the file formats was like, I'm thinking of wall art, like poster size type of stuff. Like we ordered one of the Etsy orders that we did was a kind of a watercolor world map which was I imagine a print on demand type of thing or maybe she had in house printing. But it came in a giant cardboard tube. It wasn't something that I printed at home just because it was like, well it's bigger than an eight and a half by eleven type of thing. Have you ventured into the world of physical product shipping in any way?

[Rachel Jones]

No, on purpose. Don't want to touch it. I think it's funny because on Etsy it was like a year ago, I think they started doing free shipping and they highly recommended all the shops do free shipping because if you look at Amazon and the models like that's what consumers want. But you know, if you're shipping a mug that you created from hand one, the time to create that mug is a lot. And then because you know it's that handmade thing and then you have to literally take that one mug to the post office and ship it. So it just becomes time consuming and it's expensive because it's heavy and so it just again it dips into your margin so much. And there's definitely ways to make profit and I think for tangible items on Etsy, because it's handmade, people are willing sometimes to pay more. But then you can get into the, you know, there's competition out there and one way to beat the competition is to lower the price. And so sometimes they, you know, you can see price wars or people you can sort in Etsy by lowest price. And a lot of times if there's a best selling product, there's more than one person making something similar and the consumer might just buy the least expensive thing. And you hope that that business owner is smart enough to make sure they have a margin but sometimes the margins can start getting thin. So yeah, I've just stayed away from physical products.

[Nick Loper]

We're talking how to differentiate yourself from the competition, how to market your listings and Rachel's goal of growing to a thousand bucks a day. Right after this, in the next 60

[Cody Berman]

seconds, 23 entrepreneurs are going to find

[Nick Loper]

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[Interviewer/Host]

Is there anything you can do on the digital side to build a virtual moat or some sort of competitive defense around a niche that you find or a product that you found to be profitable? And because it probably doesn't take long before somebody else punches it into Erank and finds like, oh, maybe I should build something similar or rip off what she's already done.

[Rachel Jones]

I mean, I think again, that pricing strategy, which can get scary because if you start, like, let's say another competitor comes in and matches your price or undercuts it, if you're keeping an eye on the competition, you can go and undercut them. But again, it can get back into a price war where you just keep undercutting each other. So, you know, that's one manipulation you can try. You can try to offer obviously better customer service. You can provide extras or freebies, so you can keep the same price or have a more expensive price than your competitors, but offer something that's better. Maybe you have a free ebook. Or if, you know, if you're selling a form, you offer a, you know, something else that a business owner would want, right? So like, if it's that template for an ebook, you sell them that. But then maybe you, if you've sold a bunch of ebooks and were super profitable, you can offer a free thing that tells them all your secrets about how you, you know, made a million dollars with your ebooks, right? And so you can offer other things that's like, okay, I can pay $5 for this template or I can pay $6 for this template plus this really hopefully powerful ebook that will help me make a million dollars. So you can try manipulations like that. But I do think customer service, like reviews, listing images, because sometimes people will come in and say they're new and if you already have been around for a while, or maybe you just have strengths or skills that are better than some of the other stores. Like, if you are better at graphic design, you can make your listing images look better. You can have better description. So you're really telling people what they get. If you read and start with why, you can have a really interesting about section and tell people, like what your mission is and why you're doing this business. And is that going to work for everybody? No. But will it work for some? Possibly. And I think your marketing methods, too. Like, some people go directly to Etsy and it's just like, okay, what is

the thing I need?

What's the cheapest? I'm going to buy that thing. But then other people find it on Pinterest or on Instagram or some, you know, Facebook some other way, and they go directly to your store and they're never looking at the competition, competition because they just found yours and it's what they need. So there are ways you can do it. And I think Etsy now even allows you to create your own. Like it looks like your own store, but it's still run through Etsy. But then you're not seeing all the other competitors because rather than like Etsy.com your store, they're just going to your store.com and then they just see your products. And so if you can, you know, send your marketing to your own page and it just happens to be run on the Etsy platform, then you don't have to worry about the competition because they're not seeing it.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay, gotcha. Have you ventured off to create the store tab on moneyhackingmama.com? do you see yourself going down that path?

[Rachel Jones]

Yeah, that's on my list of things to do. So I think I'll always keep the Etsy platform because just organically, with keywords, they're bringing traffic to my store, which is nice. But then, you know, they're. There are competition. And I do want to like test out not Etsy ads, but Facebook ads and see how that works. But I would hate to send them to Etsy and then where all my competitors are, as opposed to if I'm paying directly for the ad, then I'd want them to send them to my own storefront and, you know, at least get. Offer them a freebie and get their email address so that I can retarget them later.

[Cody Berman]

Right, yeah, that'd be awful.

[Interviewer/Host]

Like, oh, but to pay for this

[Cody Berman]

traffic and then, oh, you know what,

[Interviewer/Host]

your stuff looks nice, but I'm going to go buy the competitors thing because it's a dollar cheaper. Too frustrating. Tell me about the listing optimization process. So after you've gone through the keyword research, you created this thing in Canva or wherever, put it up there, you're really excited about it. What kind of best practices are you seeing for giving this listing the best chance for visibility and success?

[Rachel Jones]

So definitely looking at the. Just making sure that it looks pretty. I think some people and I did this when I first. You spend so much time making the product, so let's call it a budget planner, you spend hours making that and making it perfect and then you just want to list it. And so you go really quick, you do the keyword research quickly, you come up with a name quickly, and then you just throw up some random images that kind of describe what it is just to get it up there. But I think you kind of need to flip it is what I've learned. And really, like maybe take a day off, take some time off and then really invest the time to make really beautiful listing images because that's really what needs to shine. Yes, you want your, the thing that they're buying to be really good. But really the thing that's going to sell them is the pictures of that thing that they're going to buy and they need to feel like, oh, that is exactly what I need. And it looks so beautiful and I want that thing so like create that emotion, which can be hard and 10 images, especially for a digital type product. But it's really good to try. Now the cool thing too is they let you do videos and so it definitely takes more time and it can be more of a headache if you don't know how to do it. But I would highly recommend that you invest the time to figure out how to do a video that you know can show somebody. For example, like you can record it on your, your phone shows, if it's a planner, is it printed out and somebody filling it in and using it physically, or like even if it's a PDF and there's multiple pages, like scrolling through the multiple pages because I think you have 15 seconds of the video. But you can even do a preview of like a canva template, for example, there's a link and then you have to like click a few buttons to get to it. So you have 15 seconds. You can show somebody how are they going to open this file, what does it look like when they actually receive it and almost do a little demo so that once they've purchased the product, they know how they're going to end up using it.

[Interviewer/Host]

Do you strike a balance between showing what the product is and what's inside it versus trying to keep some of it a secret on some of these. And I'm on a weekly chore chart for kids and it's a simple like one page type of thing. Instant download. It looks like I could create this, you know, in just a couple minutes in Excel or something. And they're giving it away. I mean they're not giving it away, but like they're showing you exactly what it is and selling it for 397. So I don't know, is there a best practice that you see, this store has over 5,000 sales and it's got the best seller tag. So like people are buying it. But I would be wary of like showing too much upfront. Is that, is that a thing?

[Rachel Jones]

That's a thing. And I. It's a great question, but I think it's always better to just be honest. And you'd be surprised.

I think it's it's easy to think

like, oh, a competitor can come in and copy me. And yes, they can. I mean, for $4, though, the competitor could buy it, right? They could buy it. And, I mean, you would hope somebody wouldn't do this, but they could purchase it, tweak it slightly, and then sell the same thing. Now, that's illegal, and they're not supposed to do it. But if they tweaked it enough, you know, how. How is anyone going to say, like you just said, you can look at it and recreate it, and if somebody did create it from scratch, then it's not illegal anymore. So I would say just more is better because people are looking for these types of things and they want to know what they're buying. And so if you try to hold back, you're probably going to not get as many cells, quite frankly. And, I mean, you only have 10 images. So if it's a huge product that has a lot of things, sometimes you can't show everything off.

But I would.

I would say give more away. And yes, competitors can come in, but I think that's where you have to shine in other areas.

And it can be scary, but I

found that, you know, you're looking at it from your point of view. We're like, what? I could make this in five minutes. But not everybody has your tech abilities. I made some, like I was talking about before when I first started some digital art for a wedding. And I think a woman paid me a hundred dollars to make a bunch of them custom for her niece's wedding.

And literally, I went into Canva and

typed in, like phrases like drink and be merry.

And I changed the font and I

saved it, and it took me 10 seconds. And I did, like, 10 of those for her. And I was just like, this is so easy. Like, lady, why aren't you just using Canva? But she was probably just not tech savvy, didn't know what Canva was, or couldn't be bothered. Like some people, you know, if you're making. If you're a lawyer or somebody that makes a high income, like, yes, you could do it, but do you have the time and the energy to do it? Like, you might just be willing to pay somebody five or ten bucks, do it for you.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, there's a bunch of cool ideas on here. Now I'm on the 75 hard challenge. Have you heard about this? This is like a workout program.

[Rachel Jones]

Okay?

[Interviewer/Host]

I've seen people, like, posting their. Because that's part of the challenge is posting, like, Progress photos for doing this. It's like where you like, you know, are super strict on your diet and you do these like really intense workouts, I think two times a day. So. But this, this shop is selling the 75 hard challenge tracker printable. And it's got a place to do your before and after measurements. It's got this daily kind of checkbox thing. It's very well designed, it's just a couple bucks, but it seems like they have been selling a lot of these. So lots of different ideas to go down there. So that's kind of the image optimization side of things, like making it visually appealing. Anything on the titles, descriptions, like keyword. I mean, I see that on this 75hard example.

[Nick Loper]

It's like borderline keyword stuffing, but it's

[Interviewer/Host]

like 75hard challenge tracker printable habit tracker bundle hashtag 75hard. 75hard challenge Andy Frisella Challenge Weekly Meal Planner Health. Like they're trying to jam a lot of keywords into the title, but is that. That's just what you do. That's what you got to do to get noticed here.

[Rachel Jones]

They don't share what their algorithm is, but they do want highly relevant keywords. So describe exactly what that thing is. And from what I've read and heard, it's the first few words they're going to give the most weight to, which makes sense. So those first three, three or four or five words, that's really what you need to use to describe the item.

And then the other stuff, I'm sure

they kind of use it, but probably not. They don't give it as much weight as those first few words. I did read somewhere that don't repeat the words. So if you use Challenge once, you don't need to use it multiple times. It's not going to help you any. And it is just going to, you know, take some of those characters away.

Description.

I don't know that I've heard that Etsy doesn't really use the description that much, but Google does. So and Etsy items do show up in Google search, especially if you do shopping. So you definitely want to do your description. The thing with Etsy for your description is you really want to describe what that is because people are going to. They'll see the picture, they'll see what it says it is.

They'll look at the pictures and then

they still might have questions. And so if you answer some of those questions and anticipate those in the description, that's really helpful. And then Google, if they're describing the product, that's helpful as well. But I do think the biggest thing is the keywords and the tags and you get 13 of those. And so I would use every single one. Again, don't repeat keywords like they don't care about plural or not plural. So like don't put, you know, form and forms because Etsy sees those ads the same. You want to use, you want to keep as many keywords as you can and use unique ones and then again just long tail keywords. Use those as much as you can. Again, if you put wall art in there, yes, you might be selling wall art but there's so much competition and there's people like people are going to look at that and the odds of you selling something through that keyword are so low that it's kind of a wasted keyword. I would get much more specific, as specific as possible to really find your ideal customer who wants the thing that you're selling.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, wall art for baby shower, second child or something, I don't know, very, very detailed. Okay, that's helpful especially on the, don't bother repeating keywords. You're just wasting space. Come up with something else, a different variation that somebody might be looking for. What else works for you on the marketing strategy? So there's this element of Etsy organic discovery which is I imagine like winning the lottery, like selling a digital product that somebody found you for free and now it was completely hands off to deliver it. It's like living the passive income dream. But I imagine it takes a little bit of effort to get there and curious what other marketing strategies are working well these days.

[Rachel Jones]

So I really like Etsy ads. They make it pretty simple and so I have a freebie on my website that goes into depth but I can highlight some of the best practices here. You have to make sure that it's optimized for keywords because you don't want to start, you know, turn ads on but you have all these really vague keywords because you'll get, you know, shown at the top of wall art. But when you're selling, you know, the second child baby wall art and somebody just is looking for wall art for their new mansion.

Right.

Like it's, it's not going to be helpful for you and they might click on your thing just because they're curious and you just wasted your 25 cents or 15 cents or something like that.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay. So they charge you per click. It's on the listing level as where you turn the ad on.

[Rachel Jones]

You can turn it on the listing level or within Etsy there's another section that just like under marketing, under ads and you can manage it both way

[Interviewer/Host]

versus like at the whole shop level. I mean right.

[Rachel Jones]

So you, you can't just, you don't

just turn your whole shop on. Correct. You could like that there's a way to do that but it's pretty much every single listing you go and turn it on or off.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay. And so making sure that that listing is really targeted to and descriptive to what it is so you don't end up on these irrelevant search terms or maybe like super bright in adwords it used to be called broad match where you could rack up your budget in a hurry on some of these broad match terms if you weren't careful. My understanding was you couldn't it like it was all automated. Like you couldn't target specific keywords or something. It was all like just hands off. Well don't just, just trust us, trust us with your budget. We'll, we'll get you to the relevant audience.

[Rachel Jones]

And it's the same way with Etsy but you get to manage the keywords first.

And so that's why you need to

be very careful with your keywords.

And I think like going back to

some of my other advice of the price point. So I would never advertise a listing that I am only charging a dollar for.

I think $5 or more again is

that sweet spot because you know you're

paying for ads so that is going

to eat away at some of your profit. It is very contingent on you as an individual, you as a shop, your click through rate, your order rate because you can spend a bunch of money and you can have a 30 item if nobody ever buys it. You know even the, if you're like

okay, that one person that buys it,

it's okay if I spend $20 on ads and that one person that buy I'll have a little bit of profit. But what if you spent 35 on ads? Well it's not profitable anymore. So you just have to be careful with that.

[Interviewer/Host]

Is there a target return on ad spend that you like to see?

[Rachel Jones]

I mean anything that's profitable but for I think market like I did research

on just like what do marketing people

want on their just you know what does Apple computers want on their marketing spend? It's usually just industry average is 4 to 5x what you spend. So if you put $20 in, you want to get a hundred dollars of revenue in.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay, well that's probably higher than maybe I expected but I Guess there's. I mean, in their case, they're selling physical product with admittedly good margins, but not as good as a digital immediate download type of product.

[Rachel Jones]

Yeah. And that being said, so that's the

kind of industry average, so I shoot for that. But I've had some go to 3.3x and I'm okay with that because. And I'll debate, should I turn this off? Should I not? And then I'm like, well, if I

could give somebody a dollar and they'd

give me three, I'll still do that all day long. So as long as I see it's profitable, I'll leave it on.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, I mean, if you can get that money machine flowing. I can see why you're interested in Facebook ads and other marketing channels too at this point. Because that's where things really start to scale and get interesting.

[Rachel Jones]

Exactly.

[Interviewer/Host]

You mentioned Pinterest. You've got the blog, you've got potentially this Facebook thing going down the road. Anything else on the marketing front outside of these Etsy ads?

[Rachel Jones]

I've seen people do Instagram and even build following.

So there's a woman that I follow

and she does Digital Planners. And so depending on the product that you're using, if it's something that you can, can show off you using it and like get people excited.

My products don't really do that.

And because I'm working full time, I haven't had the time to do that.

But maybe when I have more time,

I might dabble in that because it's interesting. And then like TikTok. Right. I think one, it might be like Digital Planners is the name of her shop or something like that. But she does, she has a TikTok and an Instagram and has quite a few followers. And I think just Digital Planners is a whole and planner. Physical Planners, there's a whole community around that and people like their little stickers and it's like there's YouTube channels of like, plan with me and do this, we'll do this together. So I think if there's a community and you can tap into that community and get people excited about your product that way, like more power to you. It just again, it goes back to time, right?

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah. Where is your time best spent? And for you, it sounds like it's either building new products or turning on ads to the ones that are already proven sellers.

[Rachel Jones]

Exactly.

[Interviewer/Host]

What kind of time are you investing into the Etsy shop these days with all the other commitments that you've got going on?

[Rachel Jones]

Yeah, it varies.

I asked my husband that last night

I was like, how much time do you think I'm putting into this? I think some days it's like literally no time, maybe 15 minutes. I'll get a couple of questions from a customer. They'll say they had trouble downloading it so I need to send them an email and I'll pop on my computer and send it to them. But other days I'll like, I've been

blessed because I have two small children

with maternity leave and so I've used a lot of that to build my products.

And I do like building your shop.

Creating products, it can be time consuming. The payoff is it's time consuming once and then it pays for itself forever. Right. So you just have to like get that little bit of time away. And so I have good vacation and paid time off and things like that. So I would take days off and spend just a couple hours or eight hours and just try to get as many products done as possible. But I think, to answer your question, I am planning on quitting my job soon. And I think full time for me will probably be 20 to 30 hours a week. But that will be like hardcore into product creation and again, like learning more about Facebook ads and like going deep down that path to really grow my shop and see if I can. I mean my goal, I'll put it out there is I want to make a thousand dollars a day. Which I know is like, that seems

kind of crazy when I say it,

but I think it's, it's possible and

so that if I'm putting full time

time into it, I think I can make that happen. But I think what I've been doing with all my other stuff is maybe 10 hours a week, like an hour or two a day, and a lot of it is in 15 minute increments waiting in line to pick up the kids or like at line in the grocery store or something like that.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, I'm, I'm with you. Trying to, it's like it could be very fleeting. Trying to get an actual block of time to concentrate and get something done. It's like, like, okay, if I've got these little pebbles and sand type of tasks that I can do in these little 15 minute cracks, then that's okay. But it's hard to chip away at some of these bigger projects. I was going to ask, do you have a sense of the size of the portfolio in terms of the number of listings or number of products that you have now? Since it sounds like growing that is a priority?

[Rachel Jones]

Yeah, right now I have I think

114 last time I checked.

But I really want to get that up and I.

It hasn't been growing a lot. I actually hired a graphic designer to help me with some product development and so that's been helpful. But now the funny thing is I can give him the products that I want to make, but I still am the one that researches them and lists them and even just that takes time. And so I have a ton of products that I need to list that I just haven't had time to put up yet.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, this sounds like a very cool empire in the making. I'm excited for you. What a cool creative outlet. Like if you're into this sort of thing and maybe you already have created these for your own family, your own households. Well, could I create a prettier version of this and throw this up on the shop? I don't know. It's a very interesting one. Very exciting Side Hustle Rachel. Really appreciate you taking the time to share with that. So that sounds like kind of what's on the horizon for you, maybe taking this thing full time. Anything else you're excited about for the rest of 2021?

[Rachel Jones]

Yeah. Vacation the world opening up.

Yeah, we're going to Seattle in a couple of weeks.

So I'm excited for that and being able to travel and have my Side

Hustle making money for me while I'm traveling.

[Interviewer/Host]

Living the dream. Well, very good. You can find her at moneyhackingmama.com m a m a dot com grab your free guide to Etsy ads over there again. Moneyhackingmama.com Rachel, thanks so much for joining me and let's wrap this thing up with a number one tip for side Hustle Nation. This doesn't have to be Etsy related, just whatever entrepreneurial wisdom that you'd like to impart.

[Rachel Jones]

Sure. And this took me forever to learn, but I think I finally learned it with Etsy and I think it applies to all businesses. But go where the demand is, go

where the money is, the demand is. You can try to match it.

And I think it's definitely good if you match it with your passion and your knowledge and what you're interested in. But I think I spent so much of my life just being like, I like this thing, so I'm going to try to make money at it and never looking at whether or not there was a market for that or demand. And so once I finally flipped it and said like, what's their demand for and what do I also have somewhat of an interest and skills in. That's where the magic really started happening for me. So please don't learn the hard way like I did.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, thanks so much for sharing that. Go where the demand is. Very true.

[Nick Loper]

Rachel.

[Interviewer/Host]

Thanks so much for joining me and we'll catch up soon.

[Rachel Jones]

Thanks so much.

[Interviewer/Host]

Go where the demand is.

[Nick Loper]

Go where the cash is already flowing. Definitely a common theme here on the side Hustle Show. In fact, I wrote a whole book

[Interviewer/Host]

on the topic called Buy Buttons which

[Nick Loper]

you can [e-mail], but this is definitely

[Interviewer/Host]

a side hustle that appeals to me, creating helpful products that you can sell

[Nick Loper]

over and over again in at least a semi automated fashion.

[Interviewer/Host]

And I know it's a bit of a volume game, especially given the low

[Nick Loper]

price points, but Etsy's growing like crazy

[Interviewer/Host]

and there seems to be a big upside potential here.

[Nick Loper]

I mean, Rachel started about two years ago, very part time and has turned

[Interviewer/Host]

it into this full time income stream.

[Nick Loper]

One thing we didn't mention was the

[Interviewer/Host]

course that helped her get started and

[Nick Loper]

that's the E Printables Side Hustle course

[Interviewer/Host]

by Julie Bereninger and Cody Berman.

[Nick Loper]

I do have an affiliate link for the course if you're interested, but actually

[Cody Berman]

what you should do is instead go

[Interviewer/Host]

to Rachel's site, read her review of the course and join through her link instead.

[Nick Loper]

I'll link up that post of hers in the show Notes for this episode,

[Interviewer/Host]

which you can [e-mail] Rachel J or

[Nick Loper]

through the link in the episode description

[Interviewer/Host]

of your podcast player app there.

[Nick Loper]

You'll also find the full text summary

[Interviewer/Host]

of this episode along with links to all the other resources mentioned.

[Nick Loper]

Give me a couple minutes to get the time machine fired up and we'll be right back with Rachel to see how her business is doing five years later. The thing that wears me out as a business owner is rarely the work itself. It's the decision fatigue that surrounds the work. How to reply to this message? Is this person going to make a good guess? What's the right tool for the job now? If you want to sell products online, let me take some of the decision fatigue off your plate. There's a reason why millions of businesses, including dozens of side Hustle show guests, all choose our partner Shopify. This is the one decision that makes all future decisions easier, right? For example, you no longer have to start from scratch in designing your storefront. You can just pick from one of the proven templates and customize it to match your brand's style. You can quickly generate product descriptions. Use their built in AI to enhance your product photography and even fire up email and social media campaigns to drive traffic and sales. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify shopify.com Sidehustle go to shopify.com SidehustlE that's shopify.com SidehustLe look, payday is awesome, but when you're the

[Cody Berman]

one running the payroll, like calculating the taxes and the deductions, trying to stay

[Nick Loper]

compliant, it's not always as simple as it was when you're just on the receiving end. Unless of course, you have our sponsor, Gusto. Gusto is the online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses like yours. It's all in one. It's remote friendly and it's incredibly easy to use so you can pay, hire onboard and support your team from anywhere. Recommended by many a side hustle show guest, Gusto automatically handles your payroll tax filing, direct deposits, health benefits, 401 s and more. You're going to love the simple, intuitive interface, all with no hidden fees and no surprises. And if you run into any trouble, you've got direct access to Gusto's certified HR experts. Now's the time to get out of admin mode and into growth mode. Try gusto [e-mail] Sidehustle and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free [e-mail] SideHustle One more time, it's gusto.com Sidehustle

[Rachel Jones]

all

[Nick Loper]

right, we're fresh out of the time machine. Back with Rachel here in 2026. Catch us up. It's been almost five years since the

[Cody Berman]

original Etsy Printables episode. At that time, I believe you were

[Nick Loper]

around 200 products uploaded, making a great income and still doing it all as a side project.

[Rachel Jones]

So 2021 this summer is when I quit my job. And then I have over 400 products now and I've probably built more than those, but some of them I've turned off because they weren't selling or they're

just not working anymore because the Etsy

[Cody Berman]

charges you still the 20 cent listing fee. And if it's just not getting any views, not getting any interest, it's like, well. And they renew it, I think every three months or something. I see the pings on my own store and it's like, okay, that didn't sell, but it's another 20 cents gone down the drain. Is that why you would just remove the listings.

[Rachel Jones]

Yeah, exactly. And sometimes if something is a Christmas printable, sometimes I take that down and just put it back up in late fall or something like that. And then there's like the COVID form. I mentioned that when we were listening to the old episode, but that doesn't. Nobody really needs that anymore.

[Cody Berman]

Nobody needs that anymore, hopefully.

[Rachel Jones]

Yeah.

Yeah.

[Cody Berman]

Okay. What. What do you see as some of the shifts in Etsy over that time? Obviously, I believe it's probably gotten more competitive, more sellers, but also the marketplace as a whole, the number of buyers has also grown in that time.

[Rachel Jones]

It has changed a lot. It's interesting. I'll go on like the Etsy forums on Reddit or Facebook, and there's people that are complaining that are like, Etsy is dead. This doesn't work anymore. And I do not think that's the case. I think those people haven't change or pivoted. I think you do have to evolve with your ideas. And, you know, sometimes more competitors come into a certain space. And so you need to either make your products better or you have to pivot and go find a different space. That being said, I think there's always new trends. I noticed the other day somebody like six, seven, all the teenagers, not even teenagers like my kids are talking about, that there were six, seven Valentine's that were going viral on Etsy and getting and becoming bestsellers. And so Valentine's Day cards around Valentine's Day are always popular. That's a digital product. People can sell. But then every year, if you're, you know, you can have cat or dog ones and they'll probably sell. But if you think of the trends that happen, there's always things, you know, new movies, new things in entertainment that are coming out, new memes, and so you can jump on those trends. And there's, there's. Yes, the old things become old, and people might not want those anymore, but there's always new opportunities. Culture is constantly evolving.

[Cody Berman]

Are you actively adding new products to the store in a. In a concerted way?

[Rachel Jones]

I've been bad about it lately. I think we'll get to kind of where I am now. But I monitor things and I have ideas. I honestly have a backlog of a ton of products that, honestly, I have them created and I just haven't created listing images. But I'm busy doing other things. We're kind of at a coast fire point right now. And so my kids are busy in sports and things like that. And so I have a backlog. I try to get time to do it. But in some ways I'm just not as motivated because we've gotten to a certain point where, you know, we don't need it. Before that was going to replace my full time income and I had to do it and now it replaced my full time income. We're at a coast fire point and it's kind of like, yeah, if I get to it, I'll get to it. And if not, what it's making right now, that's fine with me too.

[Cody Berman]

Yeah, I think this is really important because at the time of the original courting I think the store was about two years old and it was kind of front loading this effort which is true for so many side hustles like where, look, I'm not getting, nobody's paying me to create these products, I'm throwing a bunch of spaghetti at the Wal. It's going to stick. Some of it's not. But over time, like it really can compound and it starts to generate cash flow on a monthly basis to the point where you can quit your job to the point where you kind of achieve this financial independence number and you

[Nick Loper]

kind of take the foot off the

[Cody Berman]

gas a little bit and start to enjoy life a little bit.

[Rachel Jones]

Absolutely. And one thing. So I was working for myself at home and I thought that was the dream and I loved it. And my husband was working at home, he had a fully remote job for a while and I would call myself an amnivert. So I like being alone, but I also like people, so I'm in between. My husband I think is a full extrovert. So I think he got really bored being at home and just seeing me all day. So he went back to a full time in person job that has some remote options but is more in person. And then I was really lonely at home and so there was like a two year period where one and a half years or so that we would work together and we're like co workers at home. And then he left and he would come home. I remember specifically around Christmas time, the holidays, he had all these holiday work parties and I didn't have any and I have coworkers. I was just like, I'm so sad. Like that was a really enjoyable part of working. And yes, there's a lot of meetings that I didn't like go to but there were some things that I realized I missed. And so now I'm teaching part time adjunct at some of the local colleges near me and it's very low time commitment but I really get that human Interaction that I need and I really enjoy helping other people. So it's like I've achieved a certain level of success, but I don't know if it's guilt or what, but I feel I want to give back to other people. And so I'm doing that through teaching now.

[Interviewer/Host]

Hey, that's really cool.

[Rachel Jones]

Yeah, it's fun too.

[Nick Loper]

Going back to Etsy, what do you

[Cody Berman]

recommend for people to. As the marketplace maybe is a little more crowded and you know, when we talked to Cody last year from Gold City Ventures, he was like, look, if you are an average designer but you know how to do keyword research, like you're going to find these little niches.

[Nick Loper]

He's like, I don't care if it

[Cody Berman]

gets 50 searches a month. If I can get five people to buy my thing and start stacking up product after product, like I build these little mini digital assets, which I thought was like a really cool example. And it's kind of like really powerful. Create something once, sell it over and over again. But you've done some stuff to make your listings kind of stand out, like some value add type of stuff.

[Rachel Jones]

Absolutely. So I 100% agree with Cody. I think that's some of the things I teach just market research in my college classes. Market research is gold and I think it saves so much time. So you have to validate the idea using the etools like Erank and things like that. And if there's some search and no competition, that's a. There's could potentially not a gold mine. But that's a huge opportunity and you should jump on it. And if, yeah, like you said, if you get a bunch of nuggets, maybe

[Nick Loper]

not a full mine, but maybe a

[Cody Berman]

nugget here or there a nugget and

[Rachel Jones]

then if you have a bunch of nuggets, that can create a gold mine. So I think that's really good. That being said, if there is some competition, I think you can, you need. He said, if you're not the best designer, I think the product doesn't necessarily have to be the best design. You still need really good listing images because I think that that is the first impression. It's almost like you're dating all these customers. And so if there's a lot of competition and yours doesn't look great and everybody else's looks great, they're gonna, they're judging a book by a cover or a digital product by the COVID So I think you want to make that look good. You can outsource that. You can use AI There are AI image generators. The other day I wanted a, like, showing my product being printed with somebody's hands. And I was like, I'm not gonna do the product photography. So I went to AI and created a little prompt and just said, here's my product. Here's the image of it. It put it like a beautiful woman's hands in a beautiful office grabbing this. And it created the listing image for me. And it was beautiful.

[Interviewer/Host]

And it gave her the right number

[Cody Berman]

of fingers and everything.

[Rachel Jones]

It did. It looked amazing.

[Cody Berman]

It's come a long way.

[Rachel Jones]

It has come a long way. It took a. I think there, I might have added some text to my image and made it look a little funny. But a few prompts later, I got it right. So that was really cool to be able to see. So I think you can use AI, definitely. And then you can also, like, I added a course or. And you can call something a course, but it could literally be an ebook that you, by the way, can create with AI. So you could say, okay, here's this product that you want to buy. And then it also, I think in our recording from the time machine, you were talking about a chore chart template. So you could say, like, here's a chore chart template. And then, by the way, get a free ebook or get a free course on the top 10 parenting hacks to get your kids to help around the house. Right. Because what are they buying the chore chart for? They obviously have a deeper problem of, like, mom, life is hard, and they're trying to get some tools to make it easier. Well, what if you help them with the psychology or the learning part of it to actually make that tool work better for them. So I think educational resources like that, value add. And that came. I was just thinking about consumer products, like, if you go down the soap aisle and there's two things of soap, and one comes with a free product and they're the same price, which one are you going to get? Or maybe one's a little bit more expensive, but it has that free product. You might lean towards that one. And so that was the mindset when I was coming up with that idea.

[Cody Berman]

Yeah, high perceived value, lowish effort to create just makes yours stand out above the competition.

[Rachel Jones]

Absolutely.

[Cody Berman]

I was going to ask more about the impact of AI on your business. I suppose it makes it easier to create these little bonuses or even create products themselves. But at a certain point, does it impact sales when customers start to be like, I could just create the thing myself using AI?

[Rachel Jones]

I've wondered that. But cells are still there for products that I have used AI to create or could easily be created. I still think AI is still so new. And one of the classes I teach is with. It's an older adult program at a community college. And I just see, like, there's people, literally, they don't know how to turn their phone on or off. And so I think, you know, people that are inside hustles or watch YouTube videos or paid attention to technology, they think like, oh, my gosh, the world is moving so fast. Everybody knows these things. Everybody doesn't know these things. Like, there's still average people that, that have no idea what this is. And even if they learn, like, I'm teaching these senior citizens how to use AI, but it's still a basic prompt. And I don't think they could necessarily turn it into a product. And if they get stuck, they get so frustrated that they just kind of give up and they have to have somebody help them.

Whereas.

And this is not all people. This is just in some of my experience, what I've noticed. So I think the frustration level is high. And if you can just make it easy for people, and it's five bucks or $10, you know, time is valuable too. And so it's just like, ugh, I'll just get someone else that's already done it for me.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, I think that's probably an important distinction. Like, okay, yes, there is a spectrum

[Cody Berman]

ranging from the people who are like,

[Nick Loper]

why would I ever pay for any

[Cody Berman]

software tool again when I could just vibe code it myself all the way to like, I just want it done for me. I'm like, I'm here for the easy button solution. So, no, that's. That's interesting. Even as AI has become more prevalent, like, look, people are still buying the stuff, so don't let that be a discouragement.

[Rachel Jones]

Are there any 10 years from now? We'll see. But we can do it in five to 10 years. We can do another recap and I can travel up. No, everybody just creates their own. They just think about it and a chip in their head makes it pop out, right?

[Cody Berman]

Yeah, Maybe that's where things are going.

[Rachel Jones]

Maybe.

[Cody Berman]

Are there any shifts in the categories that you like as a potential new seller coming in?

[Rachel Jones]

So, like, I before, I did business to business, and I still do that, and I think there's opportunities there. I don't. I don't know if I'm right on this, but my hypothesis, because unemployment is so low, low, I think 20, 20, my business to business things did great and the few years after that, but I think people were working from home so maybe they weren't working as much on the regular job. They could kind of slide by and they had more money because of stimulus and things like that. And so I just think there was a ton of people starting businesses and now I feel like unemployment, the data shows, is super low. And so I think business to business is still good, but it's not as good as it was in the past. That being said, I think there's still amazing niches in like weddings. I just a friend of mine, they do print on demand products but they have blown up in the wedding space. And so I still, that's just something that people are always going to do. I think weddings, entertainment, fun stuff and seasonal stuff is still just amazing. There was one seller that was doing at home, what is it like escape room type digital products. And I saw that and I haven't done that, but I saw that that was really popular. There's like a lonely Apple loneliness epidemic now. And I think people want community and as we get with AI and how fast the world is moving, people are craving kind of the opposite of that. And so if there's games or things that can bring people together from a community perspective, there's opportunities in that space.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, I remember talking with Debbie Gartner,

[Cody Berman]

the flooring girl, and she was talking about her Etsy business, which was up to like a thousand bucks a week. And she was selling these kind of of holiday themed trivia games in a lot of cases. And she gave me this line that stuck with me was like in elementary school they're like, what do you want to be when you grow up? And her answer was, I want to be a game maker. And this idea kind of took pause for 40, 50 years, but it kind of came back to say, what did I love doing as a kid?

[Nick Loper]

Oh, I love making these games.

[Cody Berman]

And now she's making a living making some income online doing just that. So maybe that's a prompt for inspiration. Well, what did you love doing as kids? Maybe it was baseball cards, maybe it was video games. Maybe it was something else that could be turned into a product idea and then plug that into the keyword research tools and look at what the existing products are to might maybe serve that need.

[Rachel Jones]

Absolutely. And I think one thing I would recommend to people is keep it simple. So many people are trying to come up with the next Facebook from a business idea perspective or like something really complex. And even, even I did that like when I first started I was going to create a budget template but I was like, I'm gonna make mine better and super complicated. And I think people just want simple, easy solutions and sometimes we forget about that. Like we think, oh, there's this huge, big scary problem that I have to figure out. And then it's like, oh, but my kid's birthday party is coming up tomorrow and I need decorations for that. It's like there's or I need an invitation for that. I know I have a friend that does invitations for like digital print invitations for kids parties and there's opportunities there and I think there's trends that are changing. Like I just did for my son a Nerf gun party that was super fun and I bought a bunch of Nerf guns on Facebook Marketplace. But I don't know if people did that a few years ago. And so is there an opportunity to put an invitation together with a bunch of Nerf guns or something on there?

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay, yeah.

[Cody Berman]

Trying to find these up and coming trends and that seems to be kind of the name of the game. It's like, yeah, I can create this once and hopefully best case scenario turns into the little passive income stream. But sooner or later there may be diminishing returns or that may involve more competition. And so it's passive, but I gotta be spending my time coming up with the next passive thing because it's like every product has a life cycle.

[Rachel Jones]

Absolutely.

[Nick Loper]

So you've got the adjunct gig, you've

[Cody Berman]

still got the store going strong.

[Nick Loper]

What's next?

[Cody Berman]

Tell me about these coast fire plans or what's got you excited these days.

[Rachel Jones]

Oh man, I'm going to Hawaii in like three weeks. I'm really excited for that.

[Cody Berman]

Nice.

[Rachel Jones]

We bought a house in 2024, the end of 2024. And it was, it is, was a fixer upper. Still is a fixer upper slightly. So we've been working on that. So yeah, just living the life, living the dream, teaching, consulting. I still have my blog and write about passive income and things like that on there. So trying to help my kids, my husband keep everything mom life going and then trying to enjoy life while I'm at it and help other people as much as I can.

[Cody Berman]

That's the name of the game.

[Nick Loper]

Money Hacking Mama is where you can find Rachel. Hit up the show notes for this episode.

[Cody Berman]

Sidehustlenation.com RachelJ for all the links to the resources mentioned there.

[Nick Loper]

Big thanks to Rachel for jumping on sharing her insight.

[Cody Berman]

Once again, thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. Sidehustlenation.com deals is where to go to find all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.

[Nick Loper]

That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in.

[Cody Berman]

Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle show. Hustle on.