On May 7th of 2020 I decided to go all in on e-commerce and print-on-demand drop shipping which ended up being one of the best decisions that I’ve ever made now despite many failures I was able to find a way to beat the odds and grow a few successful online businesses
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Since growing those businesses I’ve learned that Etsy is by far the easiest platform for beginners to get started on for multiple reasons and it can be quite profitable as well just from my Etsy shops I’ve done over 2 million and Counting and that continues to be consistent and fairly passive income Ladies and gentlemen great businesses have to be built with great Reliable Tools and systems and so today I want to share with you three tools that helped me turn my vision of becoming a digital Nomad drop shipper into reality now this first tool is designed specifically for Etsy and it’s called Allura There’s a lot of functionality that’s hidden behind a monthly subscription but there’s also a lot of really good free Futures that I use and used before I could afford the Premium plan the first of these features is the best selling analyzer this is a one-of-a-kind tool that allows you to view top selling Shops across the entire Etsy Marketplace I can filter them out by category to view the top shops in the niche that I’m selling in and then from here I can see all different kinds of information like how much revenue the shop has done how long they’ve been selling for how many Listings they have up and how many monthly sales they’re getting and so on I can also see the top trending shops which are the top shops with the most amount of monthly sales which is a super easy way to see the up and coming shops that aren’t already at the very top of The ranking but that’s not all I can switch over to the listing mode to see the best selling products and these are the top trending products by sales this month and then once again I can filter them out by category to find the top products in my Niche now just that Feature is honestly plenty if you’re just getting started but if you do want more functionality for just 20 or 30 a month you can have access to all of the features so when I find a shop or a listing that looks promising maybe like this one that Has done a lot of Revenue I can click on it to see more information about that shop this gives me a full report on their estimated Revenue their shop stats and their top listings which again I could filter if I wanted to so I could filter these by the top listings for This month now I can click on one of those listings and it’ll show me this little pop-up card on the left with the title at the top and then the tags at the bottom now if I click to view this on Etsy I can view the real listing Which means I can check out their info cards and see more stuff like the fact that this listing was made with artificial intelligence then when you’re already on Etsy you can use the Allura Google Chrome plugin to check out the listing that you’re currently viewing by clicking on this little button at the Bottom right corner of the listing and this will bring up kind of an info sheet at the bottom which is useful for grabbing the tags for that listing if you’re posting similar products for sale now just paying for the shop analyzer in the Chrome plugin might not be worth it But what could make it worth it is using the email marketing since Alora connects with your shop directly they can read out all of the orders that you get and see the emails associated with those orders then in their email sender section of the Allura tool you can Choose to set up an order shipments or delivery confirmation or a review request email campaign that will automatically send to your customers when orders are moving around this also allows you to build out an email list of your Pal’s customers which you may or may not be able to use to run targeted Ads once you graduate to Shopify high-end email marketers can make 30 to 42 dollars per one dollar spent on an email marketing campaign like I said I didn’t have any money when I started out so I just used the free version until I was able to afford it but now that I can It’s totally worth it Allura is not a sponsor of this channel but I am an affiliate so if you use the link from down below and use the code Alec you’ll get an extra 30 off now the tool that’s made me hands down the most amount of money is a completely free program Called figma it’s one of the most essential programs that I use for e-commerce and all of my other businesses it’s like a design software whiteboard with all the important functionality of Photoshop or illustrator in a program that’s almost as easy to use as canva now specifically For the design aspect of print on demand there’s a ton of functionality first when I find a good idea like a winning product on Etsy I can take a screenshot of it and drag it right into an empty figma board and if I do this enough time I’ll have a huge list of successful listings now as I mentioned in a recent video I can take those listings and reduce them down into their core elements something like this then I can take one element from each of those listings and make my own original listing I can handle all of the Designing in figma which is what I teach in my design tutorial and I can even learn more advanced design skills when I’m ready so I can install plugins from the top corner like this warp tools plugin that allows me to bend and warp text or I can use the iconify plugin to Quickly grab hundreds of icons to use in designs once you’re ready to do Advanced designs and Graphics you can use a platform like free pick to find all different kinds of vector graphics and you can copy the SVG file directly from your browser and paste it right into Figma without any downloads or any kind of headache I can make all kinds of masks and shapes and all kinds of different Advanced designs all in one sheet where everything I need is all right next to each other since the designing software is more robust by learning figma you’re adding to your Skill set as a designer and a marketer you’re not just learning some complex software figma also makes custom order is extremely easy to fulfill what I do is import a blank mock-up like this for the product that I’m selling and then when someone comes along and buys it I Can just make their design right on top of the mock-up and this lets me take a screenshot and send it over to the customer to get confirmation before I go and fulfill their order now if you’re doing print on demand and selling text designs I’ve also learned a new method For using figma to do the mock-ups instead of Photoshop so I can create a design template on one page and then modify it however I want and Export it for sale so that I can upload that design to the product I’m selling then I can have a second page that holds all of My product mock-ups that I’m going to use in the listing and you can link that design template to Auto populate the design on the mock-up so that you don’t have to run any scripts or use Photoshop or anything like that these mock-ups are ready for you to select and Export to be Uploaded if that sounds interesting I’ll make a new video covering exactly how to do it pretty soon it’s basically like a Photoshop replacement completely for free you can have unlimited boards pages and designs and everything is stored in the cloud meaning you can access it from any computer with your login and a Browser so you’ll never lose your work there’s no subscriptions one-time fees or anything it’s just completely free and by far my favorite program now figma is how I built the business but to maintain it and keep everything running and managed there isn’t a program that Saved me more time than Vela it’s a paid program but it doesn’t usually break the bank because all of the features that you need only cost five dollars a month in Vela you can make profiles that are basically like listing templates that can autofill your listing info cards Your descriptions the pricing or any other details of that listing that you want to use over and over each time you post something new this is super useful for uploading anything like if you have a digital product to upload you can just use the profile upload a new digital Download change the mock-up the title and tags and you’re done on top of the uploading templates you can also select multiple listings as many as you want and edit aspects of those listings in bulk so if you need to change the shipping profile or apply the same tags to multiple Listings or even change the description of every listing in your shop at once you can do it all with the bulk edit if you wanted to change the sizing chart of every listing that you have all at once you can select them all and then just replace the second or third image of Every listing within a couple of clicks then once your products are uploaded you can use the copy listings feature to copy all of your listings from Etsy to Shopify importing all of your pre-existing settings for five dollars a month this is a no-brainer considering how much time it saves now I couldn’t End this video without talking about a little bonus that I use every single day which is of course artificial intelligence now I don’t need to go into too much depth about how chat GPT and mid-journey make my life substantially easier but they absolutely do chat GPT is basically like having an assistant That can give you never ending ideas and inspiration and you can use mid journey to make those ideas come to life in mid-journey for example I can Q around 40 designs to print all from a single prompt with the correct aspect ratio with all the details that I like this Only takes a few seconds to learn and it’s a massive Time Saver for making products I can make designs that would work as t-shirt graphics or art for mugs Tumblers or pillows I could even do what this shop has done to make some of their money by selling AI digital download Graphics which is even a little more passive than print-on-demand products I’ve talked about these features before in depth so I won’t go on and on about them today but they still deserve to mention you can use all of these tools for free but even if you paid for the Subscriptions it would still only be about 20 to 35 dollars a month with the best plans I hope this video helps hit subscribe down below and as always
And as always… lmao
Yes, the photoshop replacement option sounds much better! I’m looking forward to your next video on the details of using the figma templates to do it all. Where do you get the product mockups like the other top Etsy shops? Or what other video did you explain that part in?
I love your videos, Alek; you are one of the most transparent advocates for POD. I just wish you, and everyone else started talking in terms of actual profit and timeline when you mention how much you make, instead of just revenue. Because, for example, if you made 1 million in revenue in three years, but your profit was 25%, you actually only made $83,333 a year; which is not bad, don't get me wrong, but it's not the same as making 1 million.
Hi Alek,
Could you do please a little comparative between Alura and EverBee.
Thank you
The thing is, it's not 2020 anymore. It seems no longer easy for people to blow up and succeed with POD, or etsy. It's way to plotted mostly because youtubers keep telling people to make 1000 listings, most of which floods the market places with junk. It's hard, and most will not be profitable and it's definatley not 'passive'
Would love to see the Figma mockup automation video from you!
Can one shop copy designs or phrases from another shop? If it's not allowed, what recourse does the originating shop have? Thanks…
Also, it's hard for me to think of Figma without being reminded of the "ligma" meme from a couple of years ago.
Fun fact!! I've been on the lookout for a tutorial like this for two whole weeks, and I started to get really frustrated with the lack of good options out there. Eventually, I decided to purchase Placeit instead. I would absolutely love to check out your Figma mockup automation video.
Alek, how do you get a Midjourney image to be at 300dpi when you upload it to Printify? Every time I upload to Printify after upscaling and saving my Midjourney image it always says my images are around 210dpi (for mugs). Why aren’t they 300dpi?
Curious if we can also use pre-made PNG design files, rather than just text, to do those automated mockups in Figma?
And as always what?! 😁
I barley get views on store I’m been grinding everyday now at like 20 products listed but I guess I’m a beginner
please make a video of it to replace photoshop. Thanks.
I am new to discord and when I follow your link to discord but there was a bunch of Alek in there, how do I know which one is you? Thanks.
Please Figma tutorial to do mockups next! thank you so much
Need help understanding how to get Figma designs exported to Printify.
Yes please new tutorials on figma. I tried using it off last video and I couldn’t figure it out 😂😮 Ty Alek
Please make a video on figma mockups
pls make a complete figma tutorial .
Hi
If I make anything inspired from Marvel comics or movies, do I need a licence for them.
Like tshirt printing
Please reply
hey bro. How can I generate more sales with t-shirt marketing?
Great info as always, Alek. Thank you.
Love this video!!! Please, please, please, make another one to teach how to do the automatic mockup process in Figma. Thanks. 😁🙏
Listing mode is not available in the free version. At least I don't see it. I only see top shops. Plus be also advised that a lot of these top shops are bringing their own traffic plus investing a lot of money in ads. Organic traffic is dropping by half each year. The competition is high and great ideas are stolen very quickly.
Yes please Figma mockup sounds crazy!!
Guys seriously , anyone have an Etsy shop to give it for free ? 😅 I always got suspended cuz my Country doesn't supported on Etsy
DAMN – Please make that indepth Figma video 😩
On a normal trading leverage, I still manage to earn $32,000 weekly from my investment of $3,500, wow I can’t wait for bull run to hit the crypto market so I could make more ..God bless expert Mrs Angela Mae
Thank you so much Alek. I am just getting started and I've watched every one of your videos. Are you going to have videos that talk about sales tax, income tax, estimated tax and withholding? If no, do you recommend a channel to help with the heavy business info? Thanks again!
YES PLEASE! Show us how you're using figma for design mock ups!
So here's my question. HOW are these shops that are killing it paying for the production of the POD items? Like say you sell $10K in a month during Q4, Do these sellers have a credit card with 10K on it? It just seems unlikely. What am I missing?
Excellent content! Can you do a video on AR for various POD items, ie, shirts/sweatshirts, mugs, wall art, etc?
Stock photo wall art goes crazy 😏
"Take elements and make my own ORIGINAL listing". As a graphic designer my eyes bleed when I see the average etsy POD designs