Yes, Physical Products make MORE money than Digital Products & Printable Products…
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VIDEO CHAPTERS:
0:00 Why I Stopped Selling Digital Products
0:52 Physical Products Make More Money
2:39 Digital Products Make Less Money Per Sale
4:50 Physical Products Are Easier To Make
6:10 Physical Products Are Passive
8:11 Physical Products Earn Free Credit Card Rewards
9:25 Digital Products Are Easier To Steal
10:07 Digital Product Profit Opportunity
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGZA3vI_XBM
Why not profit from both. Run two etsy stores one that sells digital and one that sells physical products
thats my plan
You absolutely could, but for me, I’d honestly rather spend the minutes involved in adding in a digital version, to instead add in more physical products! For me, every minute spent adding in a digital product feels like a lost opportunity to instead have added in a physical product with more earning potential. Especially since it’s a lot more than a few minutes since creating a digital product with a high perceived value to try to come close to matching a physical product requires a lot more work 4:50
@Wholesale Ted you do have a point, but I guess one would also have to take into account their target audience and the overall purpose for the store. With the cost of things increasing, many are finding it difficult to afford physical products, ie T-shirts, mugs and such. Where ask some are more willing to purchase digital products and create stuff to decorate their surroundings. I guess I am trying to see it from the perspective of catering to both crowds
@Andrea Remyabsolutely there is a target audience for both. I am interested in the most profitable audience, but that is why at 10:07 there is still a digital product opportunity. There are still customers to serve, even if they make less money.
That’s good idea but not every product is possible to sell in digital form.
I’ve loved this channel for a long time, but I highly disagree. There’s way more risk and cost in producing physical and also the common returns and more room for angry customers. I sell both, digital does way better for me. I think it can’t be a blanket statement, but changes from person to person.
I do understand that unlike with digital products, you’re more likely to get customer issues with physical products. But it’s so easy to handle and a tiny minority of orders that to me, the massive profit difference outweighs it by far. Especially because more money = more money for staff, who can handle a lot of that for you.
I guess that caveat is that you need to be careful with what print providers you use. A lot of people use bad or inconsistent providers, which will be the cause of most of their issues. I am very careful, both in the products I sell AND what products I sell which is why I made this video here: https://youtu.be/JA1orXh5GNw?si=V5ioJa6LNGLFJtSG
I also don’t think it is a blanket statement. It is why *I* stopped selling them, but I do think for some people, their needs will be different to mine – which is why I did add in 10:07 😉
🙏 Just a quick New Zealand accent translation for those of you who are new here 🗣
Itsy = Etsy
Dimand = Demand
Disigns = Designs
What other words did I miss? 😉
Ka nui te aroha 🥰
Ha Ha.
Ivent = Event
🤣
Good to hear your opinion on preferring physical products over digital products whilst selling digital products teaching selling physical products – definitely the best of both worlds 😜
LOL. To be fair, this is about selling products in an ecommerce store. If it were to be an educational business, then yes, I would argue digital products are superior!
It depends on what digital products you’t selling I think, you make online banners etc for like etsy, fb, twitter, discord, twitch, etc, they need to be digital, I’m going to be selling custom designs not sure how much I’d price them but it does take time, and you can have a hidden trademark which only the designer would know about… so therefore it wouldn’t be so easy for scammers to get away with reselling your design
1) Yes, that is the sort of product that can only be sold digitally. Therefore, I wouldn’t bother making them myself, for the reasons I outlined there, I would choose to sell a different physical product instead of selling twitch banners – but that is my choice, for many people reasons other than profits drive them: they might be passionate about it and want to make & sell them anyway, and I understand, in which case, they can only be sold viably as digital products, which is why I agree at 10:07 that my arguments won’t apply to everyone.
2) My argument is that it is easier to copy & steal a digital product, than a physical one. You don’t need a watermark to prove that someone copied your design, so including it as a hidden one won’t help identify stolen products – just seeing your banners reuploaded, watermark or not, is enough! And I absolutely think it is much easier to just reupload banner images, than it is to take my t-shirt design and to redraw it from scratch. That was my point, if that makes sense, not that my t-shirt can’t be stolen, but that the barrier to doing so is higher.
You had to upload this video as I am prepping my first batch of Etsy downloadables, lol…👀Very good info- Thank you!
Haha thank you! And there is no harm in selling them anyway now that you’ve made them, but in the future, if you have time to invest into creating products, I would argue that using future time to create more digital products would have a big opportunity cost, compared to using it to create physical products.
I LIKE YOUR ENTHUSIASM SARAH,AND TGERE IS A VIDEO WHEN THE INTERVIEWER ASK JEFF BEZOS ABOUT TGE DIFFERENCE BEETWEEN TANGIBLE BOOKS AND DIGITAL ONES,AND HE SAID THAT WITH TANGIBLE BOOKS(REAL BOOKS),YOU CAN FEEL AND SMELL THE BOOK AND THAT GGIVES YOU AN UNIQUE SENSE OF HAVING IT,I AGREE,BUT DIGITAL BOOKS ARE GREAT AS WELL;IN MY POINT OF VIEW WITH TANGIBLE BOOKS YOU DON’T NEED TO GENERATE ENERGY TO HAVE IT ALWAYS,AND WITH DIGITAL BOOKS YOU CAN STORE A LOT OF THEM IN A LITTLE MEMORY CARD OR HARD DISC,ETC;WELL I THINK “EVERYTHING IS RELATIVE AND NOTHING IS ABSOLUTE”!!👍👍👍👍
As an admirer of your success and knowledge your point is well taken. There are digital products that sell for $1000 and more and some have recurring membership fees. Harder to sell of course but not impossible.
Thank you! That is true, although that also applies to physical products too. This is for ecommerce stores, rather than an educational business. For educational businesses, then absolutely people can and do sell $1,000+ digital courses, but they also wouldn’t sell them in an ecommerce store or on Etsy, if that makes sense 🙏
But Sarah, I’m obsessed with digital products
As a small shop starting out, I have to pay up front for those POD orders to go out and when you start with zero dollars, this is difficult to do!
I strongly suggest looking into credit cards! Even the most basic credit cards work great. There are some people whose credit scores will stop this and I understand, they may prefer digital products even if they make less money.
Thank you for all the great info! And your hilarious!
I agree with You. I have actually 2 funcional etsy shops. On physical shop I’m able to gain 1000$ / month selling 40 items monthly having 20 products. Digital product shop has 306 items and sells 15 items/month for maybe 10 $ overall income 😳 unless you invent something revolutionary You’ll finish selling dozens of items with 0,1$ profit
You always break down the details and reasons so well. TFS
Dear Sarah,
I hope you are doing well. I don’t mean to go off topic, but I have a question please. I have stopped selling digital products for now and trying to get into affiliate marketing on Pinterest. Do you have advice on how to make it successful? If you have a moment, any response would be much appreciated. Thank you! 😊
Your Printify t-shirt cost doesn’t include shipping so either you’re ranking lower on Etsy because you don’t offer free shipping or your profit margin decreases significantly when you add the shipping in. People can present numbers and charts to support the exact opposite argument so I think we all just need to go with what works for us as individuals. For me it’s reselling physical goods, print on demand and digital. Thanks for what you do!
Thank you! And just a note, I never include shipping in my profit calculations because it changes depending on the customer location and the customer pays it as a separate charge, and so they negate it, making it irrelevant. That is not done to change or twist the argument to my perspective, I want to clarify, it is done because the shipping is not relevant 🙏
I think that sure, you’ll have better rankings on Etsy if you offer free shipping, but very few people do – myself included, I don’t do free shipping, and this t-shirt also doesn’t offer free shipping either and sells/ranks great. I’m sure that digital poster set would also sell better if it was $1 instead of $4.50 – which would increase it’s rankings, but just because you can rank higher, doesn’t mean you need to, or should. If that makes sense. So I don’t think it changes the points I made.
But I do agree, it’s about what works for you. This video is about why *I* stopped selling them, but as I said at 10:07 – everyone is different and I do understand that 🙏
I have modified my video title, to clarify I referring to digital products on Etsy. I have had many comments pointing out that in the media industry, such as music or videos, that digital products are better. I agree! This video was not referring to those industries, as this, is an ecommerce channel. Most other videos on digital products for ecommerce did not clarify in their titles that this is what they were referring to, and so I didn’t either. I now realize that was a mistake, and have now clarified the topic of this video 🙏
I appreciate your perspective on the value of physical products over digital ones. It’s an interesting point about physical products being just as passive if done right, something I hadn’t considered before.
Well, you nailed it again. BUT. For people like me who can’t open an Etsy shop this doesn’t really mean much because at the end of the day, all we want is a platform where we don’t have to do much to drive traffic to. It’s taking me a long time to make digital products (before opening a store) and I agree, physical is best because with digital one has to offer a lot of designs and make lots of changes to each design. But with the exchange rate of our country’s currency to the dollar, any sale of a digital product is worth a lot. If one can make a sale. Because it’s so easy in my country to make physical products POD or not. Just thankful my home country has Etsy pay.
The secret with digital products is to make a small series of similar products. I find it is better to make each product about $5-$10 (low as possible) and this attracts the customer in, but once they start to place the order they can see other similar items in the series and also get a discount on a multiple order. I quite often find that they will order the whole series (say 6) in one go just because they will only need to go through the ordering process once. I also email them with a discount offer after their first purchase which often results in them coming back and buying the rest in the series if they didn’t already purchase them.
That is a good strategy, and it’s what I aim to do as well (albeit with physical products, haha)