How to Sell Your Designs Online... With No Experience! -

I’ll cover 5 surprising ways for how to sell your designs online- even when you have no official design experience!

When I first started looking at ways to make money online, I saw opportunities and ideas on how to sell designs to make money. I decided to try it out. I have absolutely no ‘official’ design experience, but I was surprised by how much I loved designing when I gave it a go!

If you have an interest in this field, you don’t have to wait to be given a job in design- you can get online and sell your own designs! There are so many options for how to do this.

I’ll talk about 5 of the main ones.

Note: Some of the links below are affiliate links, so I may get a small commission at no extra cost to you if you choose to purchase these products. They are all products I know and love. Thanks for supporting Happier With Tea!

HOW TO EASILY CREATE DESIGNS ONLINE

If you are a creative person with some computer skills, figuring out how to sell designs online could be really worth it. There is the potential to have incredible success.

I create all my designs through Canva Pro. This program has some great features to let you easily create and sell designs.

Canva Pro includes:

The ability to choose the image size and easily resize images.
A whole library of great photos, graphics and images, as well as cool fonts.
A handy background remover feature. This means you can choose any image and remove the background with one click.
Download with a ‘transparent background.’ This is how you can download image ready to be placed onto products without a big white square behind it.

I honestly believe that Canva Pro is my most worthwhile investment. I use it to create products for Merch by Amazon, my Etsy Shop, my blog and Pinterest images, as well as for TPT (Teachers Pay Teachers). You can do a free trial of Canva Pro with this link and decide for yourself.

For high-quality photos, Shutterstock has everything you could need. They offer 10 free photos for a new sign-up so you can try it out for free!

If you’re not sure what kind of design or digital product to sell, have a look at Easy Digital Download’s post on the 12 most popular digital products you can sell online.

5 IDEAS FOR SELLING YOUR DESIGNS ONLINE

1. SELL YOUR DESIGNS ON T-SHIRTS

Merch by Amazon have a very easy system enabling you to sell your designs on t-shirts. This is a good option if you have designs that would look good as clothing, or if you are able to come up with designs that people would want to wear- it can be topical, or even commemorative of an event (e.g. 75th anniversary of D-Day).

Although you need to request an invitation, you don’t need to be a designer to be accepted. I was accepted on my first try without any previous design experience at all.

Amazon Merch is a very convenient way to sell designs as once you have uploaded your design and completed your listing details, they take care of everything! You don’t need to worry about printing, packaging or posting. In fact, the whole process is totally free, so if you are keen to give it a shot, you have nothing to lose.

So, how do you get started with Merch by Amazon?

Request an invitation
Design your artwork- I use Canva Pro for this. Click create a design then use ‘custom dimension’ of 4167 x 5000. I use Pixabay or Unsplash to download images totally for free. Download the largest size of the image and tick ‘transparent background’ which is only available on the pro version. This stops your image showing up on a white square.
Resize your image– it needs to be 4500 x 5400 to be able to be uploaded onto Merch. You must make sure you have ticked ‘keep aspect ratio.’
Upload your artwork to Merch- choose the options you want. It will let you know your royalty based on the price. Then write a compelling description with keywords- this is your chance to make people want to buy your shirt!
Market your shirts– use social media to let people know what you have for sale.

2. SELL YOUR DESIGNS AS PRINT ON DEMAND

If you want more control over the process, but love the idea of print-on-demand, there are other ways to sell your designs.

Printify and Printful are two print on demand services that I use. They each offer a selection of blank products that you can put your design onto (items such as clothing, blankets, towels, mugs, pens, jewelry, notebooks and much, much more). I signed up with both to give me a full choice.

For each you are able to create a free account, choose a product, and upload your design. It’s incredibly user-friendly.

You can then sync the site with your own website or shopify store and sell print on demand products directly from your own website! They both also sync with Etsy so you could sell print on demands through an Etsy Shop if you don’t want the hassle of maintaining your own website.

3. SELL YOUR DESIGNS DIGITALLY ON ETSY

Etsy is a really cool flexible platform for selling designs.

You could either sell your digital designs on physical products, or sell digital downloads. If you’re not sure you can easily do a mix of both and see which you prefer.

To sell designs on physical products, I created an account with both Printify and Printful and synced them both with my Etsy Shop. I pick and choose based on their product options and pricing.

However, you could also sell your designs as a digital download. You can upload your design directly to Etsy. The customer is able to download your product once the payment is processed. You could consider designing things such as planners, invitations, diaries, and even wall art.

4. SELL YOUR DESIGNS ON CREATIVE MARKET

Graffiti, Wall, Mural, Painting, Arts, Colorful, Urban

Creative Market is another essential platform for anyone wanting to sell designs online. They will let you get your products in front of 6 million customers so they’re worth considering!

You are able to create products that go live instantly, and to set the price of your own work.

You can sell designs in the following areas: photos, graphics, templates, web themes, fonts, add-ons, and even 3D!

The quality on this site is high so do make sure you produce great quality designs to have a chance at success.

5. SELL YOUR DESIGNS FOR TEACHERS

Teacher, Property, Plant, And Teaching, Teaching

I’m a Speech and Language Therapist and have a lot of experience working in schools and creating my own resources. I was thrilled when I found I could sell my educational designs and resources on Teachers Pay Teachers.

I enjoy creating worksheets and power-points. Some other popular digital products you can make include: calendars, planners, organizers, informational documents, guides and templates.

HOW TO SELL DESIGNS ONLINE SUCCESSFULLY

I’ve heard the internet compared to a desert. It can be so hard to get anyone to even see the products you’ve poured your heart into creating.

That’s why marketing and networking is just as crucial as the product itself. Grab this Simple Social Media Strategy Freebie to help out with networking and social media.

If you have a passion for design or have ever tried out any of these ways to sell your designs online, then drop me a comment and let me know. I’d love to hear from you.

If you loved this post, please share it! Every share makes a huge difference. Don’t forget to bookmark it for yourself for later.

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Thanks for reading!

Freya x

How to Sell Your Designs Online… With No Experience!