33!
Just kidding. There is no magic number.
But this question comes up so often in my Etsy Digital Seller Reddit community that I thought a blog post was in order.
When people ask this question, most experienced sellers will say that you need a lot of listings to succeed selling digital products on Etsy. But why is that? And can we define “a lot”?
Each listing gives you one chance
Someone in my community described it like putting fishing hooks into a lake. Each hook gives you a chance to catch a fish. But if you could put in multiple hooks, at different locations and depths, with different bait, then you would have many more opportunities to catch different types of fish.
Now I have never been fishing, but I still really like this analogy.
Each listing gives you one chance to capture the attention and hearts of potential customers.
Competition
Going back to our fishing analogy, now imagine that the lake is a popular fishing spot and that other people have put many, many other hooks in the water. I think you can see how in this situation you would be better off having more hooks in the water yourself. On the other hand, in an quiet lake where you are fishing alone, maybe one or two hooks is enough.
Ok, enough about fishing.
What it comes down to is competition. If there is not a lot of competition in your niche, then your shop with only a few products will be fine. Your products will probably show on the first few pages of search results.
If there is a lot of competition, your products could very well be buried in the search results. Each listing will be given a brief boost to test it, but if it doesn’t perform well, Etsy will not prioritise it after that.
Complexity
Complex products that take a long time to make typically have less competition on Etsy. Not as many people can or want to make that product, and those that do make it only have time to make a small number of them.
So if your digital product is very complex and time consuming to make, you will not need as many of them in your shop.
On the other hand, if your product is relatively quick and easy to make, then other people will also be willing and able to make many of them, so you will need more products to compete.
Practice makes perfect
An underrated reason why more listings usually works better than fewer listings is that you will improve with practice. Your products will get better as you improve your craft and as you learn what is resonating with your customers over time.
The more products you create, the better your products will become.
Thinking back to my earliest products, many of them weren’t that great, to be honest. I didn’t know that at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight I can now see that I have grown a lot and my products have improved to the point where I consistently get bestsellers, not just as a random fluke.
Ok, but what’s a ballpark number to aim for?
You are very insistent aren’t you? Well, as you can understand from what I’ve written above, it depends.
Is your digital product quick and easy to make with many, many competitors?
Then you might need 100–1000 products. Don’t freak out when you see 1000. You could build this up over years, not all at once! Remember what I said above about the importance of time and practice.
Is your digital product difficult and time consuming to make with not many competitors?
Then you might only need 10–50 products.
These are very rough numbers, as you can tell by the large ranges.
And I repeat from above, there is no magic number. Your products do actually have to be good, not just numerous.
So is quantity more important than quality?
You’re not going to like this answer, but they are both important.
There is no point cranking out 1000 poor quality products that no one wants.
Your products need to consistently be high quality, and carefully aimed at meeting customer needs (not just your own preferences).
However, the fact that you generally do need to make a lot of listings means that you should have some perspective about the time you’re taking with each.
Are you making a simple product but spending hours tweaking a tiny thing that probably no one will ever notice? Be aware of your perfectionism and try to let rationality prevail.
Look, I am guilty of this. Sometimes I just want to fix some tiny thing even when it takes me longer than it should. But I know it is a waste of time and that I am going too far down a perfectionism spiral.
So it might happen to you too. Just try to reign it in and find a good balance between quality and quantity.
If you’re still unsure, check your competitors
I sound like a broken record, but it’s a good idea to check competitor shops with the same product type and niche. How many listings do they have?
Just two things to keep in mind:
- If they are old shops, they have had a lot more time to create listings, so don’t stress about hitting the same number, but use it as a general guide to eventually aim for.
- If they are old shops, they could have less listings than you need as they might have entered the market when there was less competition, and might be surviving based on their repeat customers and good reputation.
So if you can find newer successful shops in your niche, that is a better comparison.
Final thoughts
While there is no magic number of listings, for digital products it is usually best to have a lot of listings. There are exceptions to this in the cases of very complex products which are difficult to make, and/or products with very low competition. If you press me to give you absolute numbers, which I don’t like to do, perhaps 100–1000 for quick, simple products in competitive niches, or 10–50 products for complex, time-consuming products in less competitive niches.
At the end of the day you can only make so many products with the amount of time and energy you have, so make sure you work at a sustainable pace and don’t burn yourself out. In spite of all this talk about quantity, consistency and quality are still essential.