No graphic design experience but want to sell digital products on Etsy? WATCH THIS before you start

if you're thinking about starting an Etsy shop selling digital products but you're wondering do I actually need graphic design experience or can I learn it this is the video for you so in this past year I've made almost $5,000 with my Etsy shop selling digital products and before this I had no formal training in graphic design I mean I did use canva for making social media things and for making other things but I had no formal training and I just learned things as I went along so if if you're answering the question my answer to you is basically I don't have a straight answer so this entire video is going to be about what you should do if you don't have graphic design experience what should you do if you do have some graphic design experience and what if you do have formal graphic design experience that doesn't mean you're automatically going to be successful with your Etsy shop I'm also going to share things that you should know about graphic design and about designing things before you actually start your Etsy shop so make sure you stay until the end of the video so you don't miss out so first if you have no graphic design experience at all if you literally haven't used canva or photoshop or illustrator or any kind of graphic design software before I would actually ask you why you want to start an Etsy shop in the first place like I think a lot of people think that starting a Etsy Shop is an easy way to build passive income so then the question isn't even about if you have graphic design experience or or not the question is about why you want to start an Etsy shop in the first place and why you think that you can be successful at an Etsy shop I'm not saying you can't be successful if you don't have any graphic design experience it's going to take time for you to learn you can definitely be successful but I also think you should consider other things as well if you don't have graphic design experience what skills do you have can you monetize those skills instead I do have a way more in-depth video about the alternatives to starting an Etsy shop so I would definitely watch that one after you watch this one at the end of the day it's up to you to decide if you want to build an Etsy shop or not and if you really really want to do this then go ahead like I think you should try it out and see you will never know unless you try so I would definitely encourage you if you really really want to try this out then do it do it for 2 to 3 months and see how you feel now if you have some or a little bit of graphic design experience here are the things I want you to know before you start your Etsy shop at the beginning I would say it's it's going to take you a really really long time to design products and to make listing photos so this is what happened to me like I was using canva for years designing just simple things like social media posts making info PDFs to promote my calligraphy business things like that posters for my calligraphy workshops thumbnails for my YouTube channel and so I was you know I was a user of canva but I wouldn't say I was like a graphic designer like a graphic graphic designer like I knew how to put elements together to create the thing that I wanted but for me when I was making my first product it was something completely different that I had like I I knew the niche but I had never designed anything like that and it was multiple pages and with listing photos as well like it took me so freaking long to make listing photos probably like 10 hours to make my first set of listing photos it took forever so it's going to take a lot of time and even though it's going to take you a lot of time that doesn't mean you're going to do some good designs when I look back at the first listing photos that I made and the first products that I made they all look like crap like one year later I can make products that are so much better so give yourself some slack it is going to take a lot of time and in the end after all of this time designing your products might just be so so or average and that's okay you're going to keep designing you're going to keep improving and your products and your listing photos will get better by the way if you're feeling really lost with the designing and especially with listing photos I do have a listing photos course that is on pre-sale right now and the part that I think you'll really find valuable is that I'm going to have 50 pages of canva templates that you can use to build your own listing photos so I have all the details on this website here and I'll put the link in the video description and you can check it out graphic design isn't everything you need a good Niche okay so even if you are somewhat okay at graphic design it's way easier if in the niche that you're in there is high demand low competition and you know what even if you design a so so product but it's a good Niche that like people are really looking for this kind of product you will get away with just an average product because there's nothing else that people can buy oh and by the way if you are still deciding on your Niche I have this reart your Etsy checklist that you can use it's multiple Pages it has some guidelines on how you can do research how you can figure figure out what your Niche is so you can download this it's free once you finish your first product I would definitely recommend sending it to a friend and just getting some feedback on it I did this when I first started my Etsy shop and it was so useful just getting another pair of eyes on my product because a lot of the times when we make a product or let's say you know when you're writing an essay when you're writing working on some project and you've been looking at it for hours and hours and hours you're going to miss some stuff or you're not going to be able to see The Wider picture that's why writers have editors they have proof readers and that's why for you when you design your first couple of products it is really helpful for you to get another person's feedback get some new fresh eyes to look at it if you're wondering should you hire somebody to do the graphic design for you if you suck at graphic design I would say it really depends I think obviously you can just Outsource the entire thing if you have great ideas you know the niche but you either don't have time or you don't want to spend the energy to do all the designing you can hire it out and I do have a guide on how to hire Freelancers and contractors so check that one out if you are interested in hiring but I would say for me the fun part was designing things and creating things from scratch so at the beginning I made everything myself even though it took a really really long time and earlier this year I actually hired a canva designer assistant to help me with my listing photos and also coming up with new designs for new products but I think what my gut wants to share with you is with an Etsy Shop the designs are really important the products are