Selling On Etsy: How I Made $4,516 This Month!

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February was the first month in a while that Kaitlin was back selling on Etsy in full force. And wow, does it show in the numbers!

No records were set this month in terms of traffic or revenue, but she came very close. I was actually surprised at how busy Kaitlin had been in February when I started going over the numbers.

The quick stats:

Traffic: 13,270 unique visitors; -15.5% m/m

Gross Revenue: $6,186.38; +82.3% m/m

Net Revenue: $4,516.28; +83.7% m/m

The Chart Porn:

You’ll immediately notice the big increase in revenue this month compared to the last couple months. It’s hard to tell from the chart, but it was actually Kaitlin’s second best revenue month ever. Time to get into the details!

Miss Bizi Bee Traffic Breakdown

January saw a big increase in traffic and I was hopeful that we’d at least see Kaitlin’s traffic maintain in February. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. And that wasn’t all that surprising to me given the huge increase in social traffic last month. Social traffic, at least to me, is less predictable and smooth than other channels. So I wasn’t sold we’d see the same level in February.

Here’s a look at the different traffic channels compared to December:

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Organic traffic was back on top this month after losing the top spot to social in January. Unfortunately, there was a slight decrease in organic traffic month over month. But it wasn’t large, so it’s nothing to get concerned about.

Regular readers know by now that I’m a big fan of organic traffic. Now that Kaitlin is back to blogging more regularly, I’m hoping we really see this channel growing over the next six months.

Social traffic took a 24% hit this month when compared to January. Sure, February is slightly shorter month but that can’t count for most of that drop. To be honest, I’m not sure we need to worry about what accounted for the drop because I’m still of the belief that the large influx of social traffic in January was more of an outlier. So a correction here this month makes sense to me.

Direct traffic also decreased this month by a hefty 20%. I’m not sure why that’d be the case but perhaps there’s some seasonality at play here. It’s hard to compare year over year traffic stats because Kaitlin’s blog was still in its infancy at this time last year.

But overall, traffic was still in the five digits and higher than any other month except January. So I think it’s safe to say we’re now seeing a higher traffic base on the blog. That’s great, because as I mentioned last month, the more traffic the blog sees the more Amazon affiliate revenue its able to generate.

Miss Bizi Bee Revenue Breakdown

Not only was Kaitlin busy with her Etsy shop this month, but she was also busy with a fair amount of direct orders. We had some close friends get married in the first week of March and Kaitlin was honored to be able to contribute to their special day.

Of the $6,186.38 in revenue here’s how it broke out by channel: Etsy (83.89%), Amazon affiliate links (6.25%), Direct orders (9.62%), Digital revenue (0.24%):

Selling on Etsy Revenue

No surprises here, Etsy revenue blew all other channels out of the water. Kaitlin’s shop was open all month and cranking away, and this really showed in the revenue numbers this month.

Amazon Affiliate Revenue

Amazon affiliate revenue posted its second best month. That makes sense given that Kaitlin’s blog traffic was also the second best historically.

I mentioned last month that Amazon affiliate revenue should start becoming much more predictable now that the blog is seeing significant traffic. Here’s a little chart I’ve been keeping in my back pocket:

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Simply put, this chart shows how much Kaitlin’s blog generates in Amazon affiliate income for every 1,000 unique visitors. It goes back to the very first month Kaitlin began blogging when she generated zero dollars in affiliate income.

After that, you see a rather erratic period of time. During this time, Kaitlin’s blog traffic was growing but it was still very tiny. Some months she’d get lucky and make some decent affiliate income while some months weren’t as good. In short, her sample size (blog traffic) wasn’t large enough to generate consistent affiliate income.

But things have changed. Notice that since about November the chart has been hovering right around the $30 mark. This means that for every 1,000 people that visit MissBiziBee, we can predict with some confidence that Kaitlin will make about $30 in Amazon affiliate income.

That’s pretty cool because it gives us an idea of how big the blog needs to be to generate $X in revenue. For example, if Kaitlin wants to generate $1,500 in Amazon affiliate income she now knows the blog would need to receive about 50,000 visitors ($1,500/$30)*1,000 visitors).

It’s a pretty neat way to start looking at the blog traffic and awesome to have a better understanding and some metrics behind its performance. And of course, Amazon affiliate links aren’t the only way to monetize the blog (more on that at the end).

Selling on Etsy Expenses

Kaitlin’s expenses also seem increasingly predictable. This month her expenses represented 27% of her revenue, about a half percentage point lower than January:

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Barring any bulk purchases or other unforeseen expenses, I imagine this number will stay about the same. That being said, if/when Amazon and other non-physical product related revenue begin to make up a larger portion of the pie, we will see this ratio creep increasingly lower. The more revenue that is generated from high-margin channels, the lower this ratio will go.

Looking Toward March

March is going to be an interesting month. Kaitlin and I are delighted to have added a new member to our small family in the tail end of February. Meet Pippa the puppy:

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Pippa’s first selfie!

We’ve waited a long time for Pippa, mostly to make sure the timing was right and that Kaitlin would be able to work from home full-time to give Pippa the attention she needs.

And while it’s not clear how Pippa will affect Kaitlin’s ability to be productive, it is clear that she needs a lot of attention. There’s definitely going to be an adjustment period and most likely a hit to Kaitlin’s productivity and ability to be on Etsy all month. But we’ll see how things go and report back in next month’s update.

Kaitlin was also accepted as part of Silhoutte’s creative team. It’s a pretty cool program that Silhoutte does to help promote their products. Since Kaitlin absolutely loves her Silhoutte Cameo, uses it daily, and blogs about all of her amazing crafts here, I’m not surprised she made the cut this year.

So what does being part of the Silhoutte creative team mean exactly? The short version is Kaitlin receives two blog assignments every month where she has to create a crafting tutorial using Silhoutte materials. The great news is that she’s able to repost this content to her own blog once it is published to Silhoutte’s blog.

Oh yeah, and she also gets a bunch of awesome perks like monthly credit to purchase Silhoutte supplies, new machines to play with and write about, and other cool stuff. It’s a great way to force herself to blog more, but it will likely cut into the amount of time she’s able to sell on Etsy.

Beyond that, you’ll notice there are some ads now on the blog. Kaitlin was off on a bachelorette party and naturally, I took the time to implement some AdSense. I’ve also started experimenting with Amazon’s CPM ads. This is something that’s long been on my to-do list but hadn’t had the time. I’ll be adding it to the mix in next month’s report.

 

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