36-year-old's Etsy side hustle brings in up to $54,000 a month, takes 10 hours a week--it paid off her student loan debt

[bucolic_frolic]

36-year-old’s Etsy side hustle brings in up to $54,000 a month, takes 10 hours a week—it paid off her student loan debt

Amid her “doomscrolling,” Odio-Sutton found a series of YouTube videos about print-on-demand — an e-commerce method where sellers create designs for products like T-shirts, tote bags and mugs, and list them on online marketplaces like Etsy or Amazon. When a customer places an order, a third-party manufacturer prints the design onto the product and ships it out.

Odio-Sutton decided to give it a try. Her shop, which specializes in gifts for people with hyper-specific jobs or hobbies, has brought in at least $236,000 in revenue so far in 2024 — more than $26,200 per month, on average — according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. She’s already outpaced her sales for the entirety of last year.

In her best month so far, the side hustle — which takes roughly 10 hours per week, she says — brought in $54,900. About a third of her shop’s revenue is profit, she estimates.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/30/etsy-seller-how-i-built-my-side-hustle-paid-off-student-loan-debt.html

Niche products are the key, reduces competition.

[buzzycrumbhunger]

1. Hmmm.

My son’s a web developer (the field went to crap after 9/11 because everyone went to DIY web “design” and never recovered because people prefer cheap over GOOD…) He’s been thinking of what he could do instead…Will pass it on. Thanks.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Replies always surprise, but hey hope it helps

The CNBC site that hosts the article has a range of side gig topics and articles. A broad survey of the landscape anyways.

[EarthAbides]

2. Horrible

These are the type of shops on Etsy that people who actually create handmade items HATE!!! This is not handmade. Very sad that this person is making money off a website that is designed for truly creative people. She should be ashamed.

[Brainstormy]

3. EXACTLY!

and why I gave up on Etsy, which sucks!

[Woodwizard]

6. Yes, I do juried art shows.

And at some I see questionable products marketed as handmade they get weeded of our list, it is hard to find really good shows, and I hate to see some loosen the rules for selling spots.

[highplainsdem]

5. She's using generative AI trained on stolen intellectual property for those designs, profiting from that

theft. She uses ChatGPT and Canva, and although she just names Google, it's likely she's using Google's AI tools as well.

She says she doesn't want to name her shop "to avoid copycats" but you can bet she's already being copied by other AI users who have ruined Etsy as a platform that used to promote real creativity and talent.

She won't name her shop because it's likely real artists who see the article would be able to see whose original work and IP is being ripped off most often.