Using AI to Build an Etsy Shop

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Cost, Set-up and Tips

AI has emerged as a powerful tool for creating realistic photos. There are many other uses for AI, but we will focus on the above for this article. With AI as our focal point, creating our content with Midjourney and Leonardo AI, editing with Canva, we can use Print on Demand with Etsy and stock photo sales to create a passive income.

The content created will be related to the Print on Demand products and services. The choices are either Printful or Printify, as they integrate with Etsy seamlessly. For my purposes I will create products such as posters, wall art, stickers, mugs, and T-shirts among other accessories. Some of the content can and will be used for stock photo sales. Otherwise, we will create content for a specific niche on Adobe Stock, Creative Market and Shutterstock.

As far as costs go, starting an Etsy shop is relatively cheap. The listing fee is the only cost you’ll incur and it runs around $0.20 per listing.

For the AI Tools, I will need to invest in at least the basic plan for both to obtain commercial rights to the photos. Midjourney costs $8 per month at $96 per year and Leonardo AI costs $10 per month at $120 per year.

For Canva, I will need the Pro plan, which costs $12.50 per month or $150 for the year.

In total, doing 15 listings a month at $0.20 cents or $6, I will need $72 for the year give or take.

At $96 for Midjourney, $120 for Leonardo AI, and $150 for Canva, I will need $366 for the year.

To start, Midjourney and Leonardo AI are useful and will cost $216. Canva adds another $150. Other than that I have a listing fee on Etsy that will cost around $6 per month. In total, having $372 to start and with Print on Demand, you only purchase the product once it has been ordered by a customer, having another $500 is reasonable, making that $872 to start.

Next is the content, creating and setting up the shop and purchasing the AI tools was easy but next is the content creation.

Midjourney and Leonardo AI are powerful text-to-image based generators and will provide you with a photo with a simple text prompt.

With these tools, I plan to create designs for posters, wall art, T-shirts, mugs, and stickers.

For the posters and wall art it will be simple, I will create a text prompt such as,

“Create a digital photo of a mountain scenery with a sunset. Include wolves and other animals in the distance.”

For the T-Shirts and stickers, I will be taking a more graphic style approach and generate my images with prompts such as,

“Create a graphic of a monkey eating a banana in the jungle. Have the monkey be sitting on a tree branch and trying to keep the banana away from the other monkeys.”

For the mugs, I will use a graphic approach but will also include text in my images.

“Create a graphic based on this quote “include quote here” With the quote, include “add any images or graphics you want displayed” and finish with any colours or features you can think of”

With these prompts I will have a basic outline for my design and any editing needed, will be done in Canva. The stock photo sales on platforms like Creative Market, Adobe Stock, and Shutterstock will all include similar text prompts to be created. Things like graphic design packages, and wall art will be monetized on these platforms.

Now that we have created some graphics and art for our products, its time to start listing on Etsy. I will first start selling posters and wall art and after a month or so I will branch out into mugs, T-Shirts, and stickers. We will use SEO (Free) and Etsy ads (Paid) to increase our reach to a broader audience. For this, I will have around $50–100 per month in advertising.

In order to start an Etsy Store with AI, Midjourney and Leonardo AI, cost $216. Canva is another $150. That’s $366 plus another $500 in purchasing power or $866 to start and another $110 per month for ads and listing fees. That is a small price to pay for the potential upside.