3 RedBubble Myths That Are Costing You Earnings

I’ve been a seller on RedBubble for over five years and through trial and error and hours of designing, I’ve created a fairly stable side hustle for myself. I’m not racking millions, but I average $60 a month and it’s only growing.

Below, I’ve compiled a list of popular RedBubble advice that in my experience, isn’t worth taking.

Myth #1 It’s important to create a “niche” store and consider how your designs relate to each other.

During my years on RedBubble and chatting on forums, I’ve seen this suggestion brought up again and again. The theory is that RedBubble accounts run as individual shops with a specific target audience and a limited range of designs will win over shops that don’t have a clear overall “niche” and include designs across many different topics.

Creating a business plan that targets a specific audience is generally good advice, but customers on RedBubble aren’t shopping per store. They are shopping RedBubble as a whole. In fact, RedBubble itself is set up in a way that makes it easier for customers to shift through their entire inventory than zero in on an individual seller. There is no search function for the pages of singular artists, and artists have little ability to customize their storefront or set themselves apart with branding that’s visible to the consumer.

It seems likely that most customers on RedBubble purchase through the site-wide search results with little to no attention to the individual sellers’ pages.

My individual statistics confirm this. On Etsy, where customers can search by keyword inside my shop’s inventory, a higher percentage of my orders include more than one of my sticker designs. On RedBubble, orders that include more than one of my designs are far less frequent. However, these RedBubble customers are purchasing multiple products as evident by the bulk discount prices, they just aren’t all mine.

Ultimately, you should consider your audience and subject matter for the individual designs you create. However, you are better off branching out and catering to the many groups of RedBubble’s audience in search results than focusing your energy on curating the look and feel of your personal page.

Myth #2 Quantity is better than quality.

RedBubble is a highly competitive marketplace with thousands upon thousands of designs. For many new sellers, it may seem like the best option to get ahead is to mass-create designs. The more designs you have the more likely someone will buy one, right?

Not exactly. At the end of the day, you are asking people to part with their money in exchange for something that interests them. It isn’t random chance that causes a sale, it’s unique people with taste and interests. They have to like the way it looks, think it’s clever, or admire the creativity.

This means that focusing on quantity at the cost of quality isn’t a good plan.

The second half of this myth is the idea that RedBubble rewards consistency and is more likely to rank the designs of those who are continually posting content than those who aren’t. There is no evidence of this. In fact, that would be a terrible business model.

RedBubble benefits from people making a purchase. They want to place designs in front of potential customers that those potential customers are likely to buy. How does RedBubble know if a customer is likely to buy a design? If other customers who searched the same keywords bought that design! This means that well-thought-out designs that relate to customers’ interests (and probably took some time to create) win out over stores that rely on pumping out thousands of low-effort pieces.

Myth #3 You can get away with copyrighted materials.

RedBubble is flooded with designs that are clearly stolen and the platform itself seems to not take proactive initiative in removing them. However, RedBubble does take individual copyright claims seriously. Usually, it’s only a matter of time before the copyright holder finds an infringing design and files a takedown notice. RedBubble does honor these notices. This results in the removal of the design and if you are a repeat offender, the potential deletion of your account.

If you are interested in making an income on the site, you don’t want your chance squandered by getting your account shut down. Take the time to acquaint yourself with the basics of copyright and trademark rules. If you really want to make fan art look at RedBubble’s list of partnering brands and follow the instructions listed on the RedBubble page.

Best of luck with your RedBubble endeavor!

This article was originally posted on Medium. https://medium.com/@murialbezanson/3-simple-ways-to-make-more-money-on-redbubble-d35c16ab88f1