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Digital Design Passive Income

Best Platforms to Sell Digital Downloads - Create and Sell Digital Downloads to Sell Online

by Tanya McCarthy 14 May 2022

If you're tired of all of the hullabaloo on Etsy and are looking to sell your digital downloads on other platforms than look no further. In the video below I will walk you through where you can sell your digital downloads online and even outside of Etsy. You can also scroll down to read all about it if you prefer. 

If you haven't already go ahead and join the Facebook Group where we are creating a community of like minded individuals looking to grow their semi-passive income with digital downloads. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel to get the most up to date information as it comes out! 

Etsy got you down for selling digital downloads? Don't worry there are other fish in the sea to help you broaden your digital passive income streams outside of Etsy. If you're looking for other places to sell your digital downloads besides Etsy then you have certainly come to the right place. 

I really wanted to discuss different platforms to sell on because I know in 2018 when I first started out I only was aware of Etsy and my own website for selling digital products. Then as I got more in depth into the business I realized there are a ton of other avenues to sell my work - without feeling like I'm giving up my soul. 

I specifically wanted to talk about the best places to sell your printables, the best places to sell your SVGs, the best places to sell your digital products, that is not Etsy because everybody's pissed off at Etsy right now. Let's be real. We're all mad because they just are hiking their fees again.

Also, there's all this Copyright and trademark stuff on Etsy and we're just plain tired of it. One of the people I know that runs an SVG shop, a very successful SVG shop, has a copyrighted image that she has created. I'm not going to say what it is because I don't need people flooding her or anything like that and again it is freaking copyrighted.

Somebody filed a take down on her copyrighted image. 

How is that even freaking possible? I mean, people are that bold. She is going to get a lawyer because this is the stuff that we're dealing with on Etsy. It is so exhausting. Hence why I want to share these other avenues with you. 

You have people out there making thousands and thousands of dollars on stuff they shouldn't be selling and Etsy is allowing it. You want to know why? Because they're making money too. So why do they care? Ok, I promise off my soapbox/rant for now. 

We're going to talk about all the places to sell your digital downloads. 


Etsy

I'm going to show you Etsy first because it's an option, but it's just not one time I'm heavily recommending anymore. It's a good place to start, but not a place that I would spend all of my time.

I've seen a lot of well established shops get shut down, not have any backup, (Website, other platforms that they sell on) and their entire income that they have generated comes crashing down overnight. You do not want to be in that position. You want to be in control of what you're doing.

Here's a screenshot of my current shop below:



I don't really add much to this shop any longer, but it's still doing really well, so I can't complain. This particular shop, I do not add very many new products to, but I'm still making a good amount of money every month. My second shop is doing much better than this one, but that's because I'm regularly uploading to the platform. Again, Etsy is a good place to start off with until you can build something up and move on. Now, once you have a good thing going and a good portfolio built up, I highly recommend Designbundles.

Design Bundles

Always the best second move for most starting with Etsy. I've been with Design Bundles since May of 2019 and I am so happy for the opportunity because it is just, I don't know, there's something about Design Bundles and the family community that I really appreciate. They really do a stand up job. Their marketing is great and it's geared towards people who are looking to craft.

Etsy is not geared towards that. Etsy is not geared for people looking for digital products - Design Bundles certainly is. Here's a lovely screenshot of my shop:

ShootingStarSVG Shop on Design Bundles

Design Bundles has a ton of items you can niche down into. They have SVGs, cross stitch, sublimation, paper cutting, craft, mock up, stickers, monograms, laser cutting, planner templates, 3D designs, scrapbooking templates, papers, embellishments, lettering, printables, fabric, crafts, embroidery. Then they have graphics. We have clip art, illustrations, patterns, logos, backgrounds, characters, vectors, add ons for illustrator and procreate. Different templates, fonts, and plus products. And they also have a ton of free designs. Every month they have their $1 deals, which is really cool. Get in on one of those and you'll make a killing (I know I did when I was chosen!)

They also have Bundles that you can purchase, which is a ton of stuff deeply discounted. They always have an ultimate $1 event right around Black Friday where everybody makes a killer amount of money right before the holidays. So it's just a spectacular website.

Their customer service is on point. They regularly take down any infringing trademark or Copyright issues.I woke up one morning and had like four or five of my products taken down and  I wasn't mad. I was happy. Normally I would be mad if I woke up and saw that on Etsy, right? Because it's probably just somebody looking to shut me down or whatever. On Design Bundles though, I really appreciate the time and effort and care that they take into making sure that their marketplace is clean, that their marketplace has the right products on it, and that there's nothing infringing anywhere where we can be liable. So I do appreciate that

Now, there's no fees to list your products on Design Bundles. If you're selling from your links, you will get 75% Commission. However, if an affiliate is selling your stuff, you will only see 50%. However, they drive so much traffic to their website that it kind of outweighs it. I make really good money on Design Bundles for only getting 50% to 75% of the profits.

I'm not scoffing at it, okay? And when I'm a part of these bundles or these $1 events, it offsets that as well. You also have the ability to get your items into the free Designs. You can set it up, so you can do that, and that will bring additional traffic to your store as well. Okay, so Design Bundles is a very good place to start.

SoFontsy

Now there is SoFontsy. I've kind of moved a bit away from SoFontsy. See, I do have a shop on here. 

However, there was an instant last year where their cloud got hacked into and so we basically lost all of our data and had to go back in and re upload everything. It was very painful.

Their upload platform is not the best. I make maybe $50 a month on SoFontsy, if that. I only have a handful of products. I mean, if you're looking for another platform, SoFontsy is one. Just keep in mind, they're not as good as Design Bundles.

You will make more money off of Design Bundles than you will on SoFontsy hands down. I know that from experience, though I will admit I haven't put much effort into it. SoFontsy does have the ability for you to be in their Bundles. They have Fonts, they have featured Mini Bundles and they show their new releases.

You can go up here and you can look at monograms, mini set, seasonal foil, Quill signs, mockups paper, embroidery, laser files, sublimation, all these things. So it's really cool. You can click on these, you can drill down by category. So I mean it helps. It really just depends on what you're looking for.

So you can click on Staff Picks and see what they have. They actually don't have any in the Staff Picks you can look at Freebies as well. They do have free SVGs that are available every month as well.

You're not going to make killer money on SoFontsy, but it is an additional passive income stream. So I always highly suggest if you have time to manage another shop, this is a good one to do. 

Creative Market

Then there's Creative Market. Creative Market is a little bit of a different flavor than the other sites that I've shown you.

However, they do have all sorts of stuff. You can browse by category, icons, illustrations, objects, patterns, textures, web elements, they have fonts, templates, add ons photos, web themes, 3D stuff. And then of course, you can scroll through and find specific ones. They do have good mockups here, social media templates, presentations, email, websites. I mean, there's all sorts of stuff.

If you're not necessarily creating SVGs and you're more in the printable business, Creative Market could be a really good platform for you. You can also become an affiliate with Creative Market and get a kickback as you're selling. So it's kind of like doubling down.

But Creative Market really is not a bad place to go. 

Creative Fabrica

Creative Fabrica is very similar to Creative Market in my mind. They have fonts, they have different types of graphics, they have different types of craft, embroidery, different types of tools, they have print on demand stuff. So if you click on this, you can actually see graphics that are made specifically for POD. 

If you go to graphics, you can go ahead and click on that and you'll see all sorts of like sublimation and SVG designs.

I mean, I have considered coming on here and selling. I do not currently have a shop, but they have approached me a few times. I think that was just a general issue with the license, with their subscription and how much money people would be making off of that because people can basically get all of the graphics for $19. And how does that work? Okay, how does it work money wise?

That's what I hesitated signing up for Creative Fabrica. But if it will satisfy the itch, go ahead and create a shop. It doesn't hurt, right? 

The Hungry JPEG

The Hungry JPEG was something that people sold a lot on.

I have a shop on here, but I've never uploaded a thing. I will be honest with you all, never uploaded a Dang thing on the Hungry JPEG. However, they do have a bunch of different things on here, as you can see, very similar field to Creative Market and Creative Fabrica. If you click on each category, they'll show different types of things here and they have gone on the sublimation train.

If you notice, it's a lot of the same sellers that are on this platform now. I think there was an issue with this particular website, basically with the licensing as well and how they were utilizing people's files. When I first got on design bundles, a lot of people were pulling away from the Hungry JPEG

I personally don't have enough time in my day to manage two Etsy shops, the design bundle shop, two websites, and SoFontsy and try to add something else on. So I just don't even deal with it. But I'm trying to give you all of the different avenues for selling printables and the Hungry JPEG may work for you. Go ahead and check it out. It doesn't hurt. 


Personal Website

And then of course there is the elusive website. So if you are savvy, you can create your website.

Well, honestly, now these days, if you're not savvy, you can still create your website. I've been creating websites since I was like 15 years old, so I'm going to be 35 this month. So depressing. I've been creating websites for 20 years. Y'all, that makes me feel so old and it's fun for me. I'm more than happy to help you set up a website, but I also have a course out there to help you get going on Shopify. One of the things I'm doing this year is I'm also going to migrate my second SVG store from Shopify, I'm going to remove it from Shopify and I'm going to migrate it over to WordPress/Woocommerce. 

The nice thing about the website is you have full control over what you want to do. I have a lot of revamping to do for this particular website. But I have a blog post on here. I have email marketing on here. Free SVGs. If you go to digital products, I have a ton of stuff that's nested. I do have some physical products. Free SVGs. Naturally, my courses can be linked on here, my blogs directly to my YouTube, different services that I provide social media for me as well. And then of course about US section which talks about me and how I got started. So you can create a website.

It's not that difficult to do. The nice thing about Shopify is you pay a small transaction fee and that's it. When you're selling things, depending on your level of subscription, it's $30 a month, plus your domain name, which is generally anywhere between $12 to $14 depending on where you get it through. And you're ready to rock and roll. 

That should be a good jumping off point for you to start at. If you're brand spanking new start on Etsy and build up a reputable brand. You'll have to deal with all of the heartache and pain of someone else controlling everything, but once you get up and running you have a solid portfolio to be able to branh out to some of the other marketplaces. 

Now, those marketplaces that I just went through, you have no control. They have control. If you want control, the website is the way to go. Don't be scared to just jump in because it takes time for a website to gain authority. You want to be able to get it in as soon as possible so Google can start bringing your stuff up and search, don't be afraid to just start and then start driving that traffic but we're going to work on that together this year so definitely get over the Facebook group if you can.

As always if you need anything at all don't hesitate to reach out!!

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