u/New_Tip5259

Hi! For digital product sellers, especially digital wall art, I'm curious... what are you highest sales/revenue months typically on Etsy?

I assumed that maybe it would be October - December, since that's the holiday rush, but I had one of my best months in January of this year, and now I'm seeing a huge increase in sales this month (August). I also had a lot of sales in July.

I'm very curious to hear about others' experiences, so I can try and understand the typical seasonal fluctuations in the digital space.

Hi friends. 💛 This is my first post in this sub, and it already feels so nice to just be in a group of people that get it. 🥺

Something I've noticed that's really difficult for me is when I have confrontations or conversations where the other person is angry. I swear that I can feel their anger in my own body. I don't usually feel angry myself, but I pick up on their energy, and I get so upset that I shake or cry or both. Even if they say they're not mad... they can't hide it from me. I'm very perceptive, and I can feel the anger in their energy, and it makes me feel so upset.

How do you handle situations like this? How do you calm yourself down?

I just got in an argument with my mom because she accused me of something I didn't do. She claimed it wasn't an accusation and it was just a question, but it was clearly an accusation. With her tone, body language, etc. it was so obvious to see that she assumed I had done what she was accusing me of. I feel like you can't fool HSPs. We always read between the lines. She accused me of something very morally wrong that I would never do, and that in and of itself was so upsetting as well that she would think that poorly of me. I've hardly been able to stop crying for the past hour.

In general, it feels like any form of aggression is so intense and hard for me to handle. Sometimes I do get angry back too. It feels like my mirror neurons just start firing off like crazy. I always end up crying and a complete mess. The best way I can describe it is that I feel their aggressive energy in my body, but I'm not a naturally angry person at all, so it's a foreign feeling for me, and it feels so bad and unnatural that it shakes me up and causes me to cry and shake and be so upset. 🥺

Just wanted to vent and would love any advice or to know if anyone has experienced anything similar. 💛

Hi everyone! I'm really glad I found this sub.

The remote work location issue has been an ongoing battle for me for a long time. I am someone who has an absolutely massive desire to travel and live abroad. I'm 32, and I started my career at 23 teaching English abroad in South America (not specifying the country for privacy purposes). I taught at a university there for 3 years.

When COVID hit, I wasn't able to get my work visa renewed, and I ended up looking for full-time work. I got a job at a startup that didn't understand the legal implications of having employees work from abroad—I also did not understand anything about these issues. So I was able to work fully remote from abroad for years while being a W2 employee for this company and paying taxes in my home state. (I used my parents' address, which I still consider my permanent US address.)

I got laid off from that job almost two years ago. I started my own small business that is completely online and will allow me to work from anywhere, but it's not paying all my bills yet. I started applying for full-time jobs, and I am anticipating a job offer coming this week. The company is also a startup, but they're a bit more advanced than my last company, so I anticipate they will be up-to-date on labor laws.

I've been living with my parents in the US for almost 2 years now and have been doing long distance with my partner of many years who lives outside of the US for that entire time. Literally I haven't seen my partner in 16 months. I do not have a lease I'm locked into or many belongings. I have intentionally not tied myself down anywhere, so I can pack up and live from abroad at any moment if I want to. Obviously, at this point, I'm pretty desperate to be able to go back to being in-person with my partner, or even just move to another country outside of the US. I'm open to anywhere.

What bothers me about the (outdated, in my opinion) labor laws is that I'm going to be doing the exact same work from a laptop, whether I'm sitting on my parents' couch in my home state or in an apartment by myself in Japan or the UK or Argentina, for example. I will obviously pay all my US taxes, and I'm happy to pay taxes to the country I'm in as well.

I know that this company is going to extend me a W2 offer. Do you think I should consider asking this company if they would bring me on as an independent contractor instead? So I can work and live abroad? Or do you think that this looks bad to an employer? Obviously I do not want to hurt my chances of getting this job in any way, shape, or form. After being unemployed for so long, I'm unbelievably desperate for an income.

I could also sign the W2 contract, prove to them that I'm a star employee for a few months, and then ask a few months down the line once we've built rapport if they would be willing to switch my contract over.

Should I just accept the W2 contract and work from abroad anyway and not tell them? Has anyone had any luck working from abroad on a W2 contract? How risky is it?

Side note: Do W2 contracts typically have an allotted amount of time you can work from abroad or outside your state? When my last company was acquired, the contract laid out that you had something like 60 days to work from anywhere. Also curious if that might be outlined in the contract.

The idea of getting this new job, and then still being stuck working from my parents' couch away from my partner, or even just having to work from somewhere in my home state, is crushing my soul. I'm young, I'm a hard worker, I'm extremely ambitious, and I want to be out in the world. I really don't see why I can't do my work from a café in Ireland for three months if I wanted to.

My #1 priority is not losing the job offer. I need money right now. (Would they think about rescinding the offer if I asked about the independent contractor contract?)

My #2 priority is being able to work from anywhere. I don't really care about benefits or how much money I make at this point in my life. Obviously I would love the benefits, but if I have to, I'll pay for my own insurance. Who cares. I just want to work from abroad or from wherever I want, without restrictions.

This has been something that has genuinely been weighing on me for years, and I feel like I have never found a group of people who truly understand the situation that I can discuss it with. I would be so grateful for anyone who is able to share their experience, wisdom, opinions, etc. Thank you so much in advance!

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Update: Thank you so much for all of the different perspectives! Each person's comment is helpful and helping me consider things I may not have considered before.

For additional context: This is a global company. Their HQ is in another country. I know they have an established office in one other additional country at least as well. I believe there may be 7-9 other countries where they have either employees or an office, but I'm not sure what their exact business operations are like in those countries. I just know there are at least two other countries where they have established offices, and they have people working from at least 5 different US states that I know of.

Does that mean it would be possible to work from those countries or states, where they have established offices or other employees? I'm curious if contracts are typically written in a way that locks you in to one state or allows for movement within their established locations.

For example: Let's say they have another employee in Illinois. Can I go work from Chicago for a month? Or say they have an office in Ireland (random example country for privacy). Can I go work from Ireland for 3 months?

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Lastly, and I commented this down below: Why are people so pro-company on this issue?

It's interesting to me that people aren't agreeing that it's kind of an outdated practice for the globalized world we live in. It's pretty obvious that company regulations simply haven't caught up with the times. We've seen exponential breakthroughs in technology over the past 10 years and a huge spike in remote work since COVID. In 10 years, work from anywhere could be standard practice.

The "no, you can't just do whatever you want" attitude feels a bit boomer-esque to me. Genuinely curious: Why is wanting... freedom... a bad thing?

As I stated, I am an extremely ambitious and hard-working individual. I have a master's degree. I own my own business. I am bilingual and have a lot of international experience—having studied, lived and worked from 3 different countries outside of the US, and have held esteemed positions in my community. Why is it a such a horrible thing to want to work from abroad and see the world in the evenings and on the weekends when I'm not working?

Hi everyone! I'm just curious, for those willing to share... what are your profit margins?

When I started on Etsy, I failed to realize just how much revenue goes back into the operating expenses of the business. It's totally fine—just a surprise for me as a new business owner! I sell digital wall art (no AI), and my profit margins right now are approximately 40% after all of the Etsy platform fees, advertising, and design software costs, etc.

Here's a detailed breakdown of my costs from the previous month, in case anyone is interested:
~6.5% - transaction fees
~3.5% - listing fees
~6% - processing fees
~33% - advertising (Etsy ads)
~10% - COGS/off-platform expenses: design software, marketing materials, etc.

(It's definitely a bit of a sticker shock when you have $1,300 in revenue in a month, but only bring home $520 of that, for example! 😂)

I'm just curious to hear what's normal for people. 🙂

Hi everyone! I'm a digital wall art seller (no AI).

I'm curious how other sellers approach making variations of their listings that do well. I have a handful of listings that do fairly well, and from what I understand, the general advice is to make multiple variations of your top-performing listings.

The thing is... will doing that not drive traffic away from the listing that's already doing well, since I will be using similar tags for the variations of it?

For example, if I have a listing that sells well in the color red... should I actually make it in green, blue, and beige, and in multiple orientations, for example? Do you just try to vary your tags to make them as different as possible for each color or something?

I feel like this is probably an easy way to increase my revenue, but I just have some hesitations that it will make the original listing less successful or have some sort of negative impact. I would love to hear any and all advice of people's experience doing this.

Thank you so much!

Hi everyone! I sell digital wall art (no AI).

I'm just curious... when do your Halloween sales peak, in your experience? I'm posting Halloween and fall wall art now. Am I too late? Should I just jump straight to Christmas? Lol.

Hi! Does anyone know if there is a "touch up appearance" feature on Google Meet? I can not figure it out for the life of me.

I also am unable to save my background image/apparently my background image does not automatically populate when I go to join a meeting.

I prefer Zoom and absolutely hateeee Google Meet, but I have to use it because I am interviewing for jobs, and apparently there are many companies that use it.

I'm always scrambling at the last minute to add my background in and try to figure out if there is a touch up appearance setting. It would be so much more convenient if you could save your background and have it always populate instead of having to upload your background photo every single time you join a meeting.

Is there any way to do this that maybe I'm just missing? Help!

Hi! Does anyone know if there is a way to use the "touch up appearance" feature when joining a Teams meeting? I can not figure it out for the life of me.

I also am unable to save my background image/apparently my background image does not automatically populate when I go to join someone else's meeting.

I prefer Zoom and absolutely hateeee Teams, but I have to use it because I am interviewing for jobs, and apparently there are many companies that use Teams.

I'm always scrambling at the last minute to add my background in and try to figure out how to use the touch up my appearance setting. It would be so much more convenient if your settings were saved not only for your own meetings but also when you join someone else's meeting.

Is there any way to do this that maybe I'm just missing? Help!

I'm working on a design right now (I design wall art), and I'm working on a print that I created in a horizontal orientation.

I want to make a vertical version of my design as well and keep the print EXACTLY the same as the horizontal version, just rotated 90 degrees. However, it looks like Canva does not have an option to rotate my design. I can do a "resize," but when you resize the design, everything goes out of place and gets smaller, therefore not keeping it exactly the same as before.

I've tried grouping all of the elements together before resizing the design, but it still doesn't work. It still makes all of my elements smaller. My design would be exactly the same dimensions in each version, just rotated (so 36x28.8" in the horizontal version and 28.8x36" in the vertical version).

Does anyone know how to do this or if there is some sort of workaround? It's mind-blowing to me that Canva doesn't have this extremely basic feature. 🥲

Thank you so much in advance!

Hi everyone! I'm a fairly new Etsy seller. I sell digital wall art (no AI).

I've considered selling physical prints in my store, which I would do via dropshipping—uploading the designs to a site like Printify and having them take care of the production, packaging, shipping, etc.

I'm a little confused though as to why so many people in this thread and/or all over Reddit seem to absolutely hate dropshipping and act like people who do dropshipping are the scum of the earth or something. 😂

It seems to me like dropshipping is a good way for a small business that doesn't have the capital and ability to create their own manufacturing plant to earn an income. They have to pay a huge chunk of their profit to the manufacturer, so they're paying their fair share to be able to have a service like that; it's not like they are cheating the system somehow.

In my case, I would be uploading my own designs to blank products, so art designs on paper, or art designs on t-shirts or mugs eventually maybe.

Are people just hating on the type of dropshipping that doesn't include any type of personal touch like making a design? Like where people are ordering items from Alibaba? Is it because it requires little creativity to partake in that business model? Is it because of the unethical conditions of a lot of overseas manufacturing?

Is the same hate there for dropshipping where the seller is making non-AI designs and selling prints or t-shirts, for example?

If the reason for hating on the Alibaba-style dropshipping is because it requires little creativity, I mean... why do other people have a huge problem with that? I don't think I personally would want a business model that requires reselling cheap stuff from China, for example, but that's just because I personally try not to partake in/contribute to the culture of overconsumption as much as possible. But if other people are selling cheap jewelry, for example, and people are buying it... I mean, the demand is there unfortunately. Can you really blame people?

Is there something unethical about the Printify-upload-your-own-design-on-a-blank style of dropshipping that I'm missing? I'm genuinely curious why there's so much hate.

I have an interview tomorrow with a recruiter and obviously went to their LinkedIn profile to look them up. Would it be weird or good to send them a LinkedIn connect request with a message like "Looking forward to meeting you tomorrow!"? Should I wait until after the interview?

I appreciate any and all advice!

Hi everyone! I'm a fairly new seller on Etsy. I started in August of 2025 and sell digital wall art (no AI).

My understanding is that the best way to be successful on the platform in a super competitive niche is basically by posting as many high-quality listings as possible/taking as many shots as you can.

Ok—got it. Make as many high-quality, in-demand listings as possible. But now here comes the tricky part... how do I avoid using similar keywords and having Etsy suppress some of my listings?

I can try to vary them, of course. But at the end of the day... if you're making 10 variations of one design, there are only so many ways to vary the keywords. I'm going to have to use some repeat keywords. If it's a vintage-style print, for example, I'm going to want to use the word vintage in at least 3/10 of them. Maybe I can use retro. Maybe I can use cottagecore. But there are only so many synonyms for something that is a core attribute of the product. 😭

I want to be producing more listings. But when I've uploaded in batches in the past, I feel like Etsy has majorly suppressed the majority of the listings in the batch. In general, I get likes and traffic on most of my listings... but those ones? Completely dead. No traffic. No likes. Nothing.

I've been trying to batch work and be smart about making several variations of one design to optimize my output. But my past experience of batch uploading has obviously discouraged me from uploading many similar-themed listings at once (and therefore posting more in general). For example, if dog art is trending, I can make 10 different designs with different dogs. But some of the main keywords will still be about dogs for all of them. There's really no way to avoid describing it that way.

My question is... how do you avoid keyword cannibalization if you make many variations of one design? Do you literally just have to drip them out over weeks or months? So like make 10 variations of a design, but straight up only post 1 per week or per month?

Do you just absolutely drastically vary the keywords? If so, how do you come up with such different keywords? There are only so many angles you can come from.

SEO is my biggest roadblock right now, and I'm trying to find a way to be better at it. Any help or advice is so appreciated! Thank you!

Hi! I am a fairly new shop that started on Etsy in August of 2025. I sell digital wall art and have approx. 200 listings and 1 bestseller.

I feel that the title I gave the section that my bestseller is in is outdated, and I want to change/update it. However, I've been told that once you get a bestseller, you don't want to touch it. I haven't touched the listing at ALL for fear that I could cause it to reindex/cause the views to tank, etc. I've heard horror stories from people saying they tweaked their bestseller listing and it never went back to selling well again.

So my question is... is changing the title of the section the listing enough to negatively affect the ranking/success of the listing?

Any and all advice is much appreciated. Thank you!

Hi! I'm about 11 months in to my Etsy journey, and I'm just wondering what other digital product sellers are making on average per month in profit. (In profit, not revenue!)

If you could also specify some things like what you sell, how many listings you have, how long you've been on the platform, and if you use Etsy ads or other forms of advertising, that would be helpful as well. 🙂

I'll go first! I sell digital wall art, I have 219 listings, I've been on Etsy for 11 months (have never sold on Etsy prior to this), and do use Etsy ads. I had my best month ever last month and made $438.71 from the Etsy platform in profit. (But in full transparency, I had other costs that I paid—like year-long subscriptions—last month, so I technically made $0 in profit. 😂) Prior to that, I've averaged around $200/month in profit from the Etsy platform. (Doesn't include subtracting my other expenses outside of the platform though.)

Would love to know what others are making if you're open to sharing!

Does anyone know if it's possible to stop receiving all email notifications from Etsy, including the emails from when you make a sale? I get all of the notifications on my phone, so I don't need them sent to my email as well. Thank you!

I'm trying to decide if it's worth my time to start posting on TikTok and Instagram for my small digital wall art business.

If you've been advertising on social media, did you see a significant change in your traffic? Do you see a bump in traffic whenever you post?

Thank you!

I feel like SO many pattern graphics on Canva have this issue and it makes them unusable. I found one I really like that I thought didn't have that issue, but alas... there is a faint line running through the middle of the design where the two graphic blocks meet.

What is the best solution for fixing this? I tried to do generative fix in Photoshop, and it didn't give me a great result unfortunately.

Thank you in advance!

Is it true that Etsy gives your shop a "quality score" and pushes visibility respectively?

What things contribute to this quality score? (A certain number of sales, etc.?)

I'm wondering if having some listings from 9-10 months ago that never sold or only sold once is hurting my shop's quality score and if I should remove them. (I sell digital wall art.)

Thank you!

Right now I sell digital wall art but would like to start selling physical wall art.

I'm curious if anyone would be open to sharing which option on Printify you prefer and why. What options get the best reviews and rating from customers?

Both of these options look like they might be popular?

https://printify.com/app/products/282/generic-brand/matte-vertical-posters

https://printify.com/app/products/804/generic-brand/fine-art-posters

I need to order samples, so I'm trying to narrow it down.

Thank you so much!

Hi! I'm wanting to essentially A/B test my bestseller. Right now I have 215 listings and one bestseller. (I sell digital wall art.)

I'm wanting to list my bestseller as a physical item as well, to see how it performs.

Obviously the best way to A/B test is to change one variable only, so you can properly attribute the differences to the one variable that was changed.

My question is... if I copy my bestseller and list it with all the exact same keywords, title, everything (minus maybe one or two keyword changes to remove "printable" or "digital download")... will the algorithm then start suppressing my original listing of my bestseller that's the digital download?

Obviously the last thing I want to do is mess up the algorithm for my only bestseller. 🥲

But I think if it performs well as a digital download, it would probably perform well as a physical print too.

Does anyone have any experience with this or advice? Thank you so much in advance!