Starting a Planner or Stationary Business on Etsy

How to Start a Stationery Business or Digital Planner Business on Etsy by The Pink Ink. Looking for business plan for small business to start a stationery business or to create & sell digital planners on Etsy? Check out this guide for a great pa…

Are you getting ready to launch your digital planner business? Congratulations! This is so exciting and will be even more rewarding for you.

As a graphic designer, having my own digital product business is a dream come true for me. There are truly so many benefits to being a digital product designer. First, having creative freedom, you won’t have to take direction from a boss or clients but rather design your own vision.

And second, all the passive income that goes along with creating digital products. The flexibility allows me to travel and spend more time with my family, all while getting paid.

If you’re selling digital products, Etsy is a truly great place to set up shop. First of all, you have no start-up fees or upfront costs whatsoever. All you need to be Etsy-ready is your digital product, finished and waiting to be sold to customers.

Etsy’s set-up is seriously a no-brainer. You could set up shop on Etsy in your sleep. It takes you through things step by step and there’s no way to go wrong!

Also, it’s super easy to scale your business on Etsy. Whether you sell one digital planner or a thousand, Etsy will offer you the same straightforward services that will let you grow along with customer demand without any extra muss or fuss.

Maybe one of the greatest benefits of all is that Etsy is so popular that it brings in its own traffic. You don’t need to advertise for people to see your Etsy shop with your digital products. Etsy shoppers will swing by on their own. With your own shop or website, the burden is on you to do the advertising to bring in traffic to your digital stationery shop. Not so with Etsy.

But let’s talk about what you’re going to sell on Etsy!

You may be wondering what exactly the benefits are of creating a digital planner instead of a regular old paper one. Well, there are lots of pluses, actually. Think of a digital planner like making a plan in pencil and a paper planner like making a plan in pen. You can easily erase and make corrections to your plan with a pencil, but a pen is permanent. That’s the same concept as digital vs. paper. With a digital planner, you can test and adjust the product and design based on your customer feedback so that it just gets better and better. With a paper planner, if you made any mistakes or aren’t fully satisfied, you have to wait until next year to course correct and offer a new product.

Not only that, but, with a digital planner business, you’re able to design and sell your planner in less than 3 days! Compare that to formatting and ordering copies of your physical planner at least a year in advance.

And finally, there’s a little thing called passive income with potentially big results. When you start your digital planner business, you’ll be generating passive income, which means that once you put in the work to create your awesome, original digital planner, you can sit back and sell your planners on Etsy without having to do any more work. It’s brilliant.

You may be asking yourself, “How do I even start a home stationery business?”.

Luckily, I have created the ultimate guide to starting your very own digital planner business or stationery business on Etsy… and I’m sharing the business plan below!

Step 1 - Pick a niche

Your digital planner niche should be a mix of two essential factors. Factor 1 is you. What is your style? What types of things spark your interest and creativity most? What are you passionate about? And then Factor 2 has to do with your clients. What do they want? What are they most interested in? Find the place where Factor 1 and Factor 2 meet, and there’s your niche!

Do some research and see the niches out there, or better yet, think of a problem you want to solve and create your own niche! By choosing the perfect niche for you, you’ll learn how to create an in-demand, unique product that is specifically tailored to your audience.

If you want more information on deciding on your niche, read my recent blog on how to pick your digital planner niche.

Step 2 - Research

I don’t know about you, but to me, researching is the fun part of the planning process. It’s where I gather information about my niche, market, and audience. I like to sit down with a cup of tea and take my time planning out the details. Why don’t you try it? Here’s a starter list for you:

Themes
Keywords
Style
Price

Step 3 - Map out your collection

Wondering how to get started creating a Six-Figure Stationery Business? Check out the business guide by the Pink Ink: How to Start a Stationery Business or Digital Planner Business on Etsy - here’s your ultimate business guide!

Now the details of making your digital planner are starting to get more concrete. In this step, you’ll decide exactly what type of products you would like to create in your first digital planner collection.

To be successful, you need to have an effective plan in place. You will need to figure out exactly what products you want to create and sell and at what price you want to sell them at.

I’ve found the best way to start is by creating an outline first:

Create a brain dump list of everything you could teach or all the problems you could solve. Then select the ideas that you feel most passionate about, once you have that, organize them in a flow that will make sense to the user.

How many planners, notebook, stickers will you offer?
What type of products in each categories?

Step 4 - Create your first collection

Start with a mood board of the vision you’re looking for, be creative and don’t hold back!
Review the list of products that you mapped out in Step 3 and decide which ones you want to include.
Get to designing with sketching each page and product. Creating this visual representation of your digital planner can really help you decide what goes where and which ideas are fire vs. which need to be reincarnated.

Not sure what program to use to create your digital planner? This post breaks down the different programs so you can easily choose which one is best for you. OR, watch this free workshop 6 Steps to Design a Digital Planner for expert guidance and inspiration.

Step 5 – Set up your Etsy shop

Shop digital planners on The Pink Ink Etsy shop.

We’re so close to selling! But first, you need to set up your shop - click here to get 40 free listings.

I personally think Etsy is a great platform to start out on. First things first, you need to get everything ready to upload to sell. Once you have your products ready, you can create your Etsy shop.

You need to do the obvious steps, like create your shop name, and upload beautiful product photos. But think bigger, you also need to consider keywords. Think like a customer to determine the keywords that they will be searching to find your items.

Start with creating your Etsy seller account – super easy, just fill in a few details and you’re set! For digital planners, you’ll be setting up a Digital listing so be sure to choose Digital from the listing type.
Set-up your shop with your banner, bio, rules, FAQ, and your story- make your digital Etsy shop your own, choose a unique style that sets you apart from other digital stationery shops.
Add your first product - at this stage you’ll be uploading your files so that customers can access them when they make a purchase. Use stunning images to represent your product and optimized descriptions to grab shopper’s attention and bring in sales.

Step 6 – Share and promote

Don’t stop now, promoting your products should be top priority next. After all, having a digital product business doesn’t mean you sit and relax. It means you create and then you sell!

You’ve just created a beautiful digital planner, now is the time to shine! You need to learn the ins and outs of promoting digital products, like SEO, Pinterest, email marketing, and of course, Instagram. Make a plan to be present on social media, showcase your product with examples and don’t forget to post on Pinterest, it should be your business’ best friend.

Setting up a successful digital planner and digital stationery business is not easy and you need to be patient, motivated and committed. That’s why picking a niche that brings you joy every time you open your laptop is important and should be part of your digital planner journey.

Love digital planners? Wanna sell them and make passive income?

Check out my Digital Planner Academy® where I dive further into creating a profitable digital planner business and selling them on Etsy. If you’re completely inspired and ready to get started creating your own digital planner, then you will love my Digital Planner Academy® program, it is a step by step program to help build and scale a digital planner business with done for you systems, products, templates, and marketing strategies.