Someone in a Print on Demand group I am a member of was bragging they have made 11,669 sales on Etsy over the last two years, and according to eRank that puts them in the top 1% of all Etsy stores.
Sounds great until you realize what these numbers mean.
This is an average of 16 sales per day.
Assuming $5 profit per sale – I don’t know what they are selling so this might be generous – that is $80 per day or $2400 per month or $28,800 per year.
In other words – poverty income. Being in the top 1% of Etsy sellers means you are still in poverty when selling POD products.
No surprise this person’s Facebook profile indicates they also have a “real” job.
If you had a full-time job in California at McDonalds making $20 per hour you would be $160 per day plus benefits.
More income with potentially fewer hours because being in business yourself can be incredibly time consuming, although with POD much of the sales process is supposed to be hands-off. (However the customer support can be brutal).
POD to Etsy is heavily promoted on places like YouTube as a great way to make money. But for more than 99% of sellers, probably 99.9%, it is just a dream and another impossible get rich scheme.
No wonder there has been recent consolidation in the print on demand industry.
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