How to start selling stickers online

"Wouldn't it be cool if I made a sticker of myself that I could also use in my YouTube videos?"

"Do it." - my friend, Kennedy.

But I never planned to open up a sticker shop. It just kinda happened out of pure curiosity and experimentation. 

I'm gonna share how this all started to show you just how easy and natural it can be to get your creations out in the wild. 

The day after playing video games with Kennedy I dusted off my iPad, downloaded Procreate for $10, and asked my brother if he knew any good sticker vendors.

A few hours later I had traced and modified a googled grim reaper using an untitled brush and submitted an order for a 111 vinyl, matte, "CHILL" stickers on stickerapp.com for $40.23.

I could've just gotten 60 stickers for $26 but I wanted to see if I could actually sell 100 of these immaculate creations.

The amount of joy I had from slapping a physical version of something I created out of pure joy was a crazy. 

I knew this was only gonna be the first of an entire sticker universe. 

Now I needed to figure out how to sell these things.

At the time or printing these stickers for the first time I had a little less than 2,000 subscribers on my YouTube channel.

Relative to the creators that we enjoy following, my channel was like a pixel of dust on the internet.

But I imagined that if I were in a room with 2000 people and asked if anyone wanted to buy a $5 sticker to support me and my channel, someone would raise their hand.

I also liked this better than a "buy me a coffee" donation – you get a sticker and I get the satisfaction of sharing my creation with you on a more personal level. Plus I don't drink coffee. 

Let me be clear though – You don't need to start a whole dang YouTube channel before you setup a sticker shop.

Just link your shop where you already exist! Instagram, LinkedIn, X,  on Facebook for the aunties etc. There's also a chance your audience will grow because of your shop.

As for picking a place to start selling, Struthless was doing sponsored vids by Shopify. I liked the look and feel of his shop as a customer so I trusted both his vetting and my user experience and went with them.

They also have a pretty sweet trial deal that gives you time to figure stuff out to turn a profit before getting billed for real. You can trust my vetting too (not sponsored).

Now this is where all the admin comes in... but if you want to setup shop it's worth knowing what you're in for so your spirits aren't defeated the second you realize you gotta:

1. Setup a domain name if you don't want your site to be,"myshopifystore.com"
2. Figure out your shipping and packing supplies
3. Setup a PO Box so your return address isn't where you sleep at night
4. Setup how you wanna receive payment through Shopify

There's a handful of other nuances and steps within and beyond these but if I had to think of the bare minimums to just get started – This is pretty much it. 

Kennedy was the first person to purchase a sticker through my shop. Even though I asked him to buy a sticker from me, it still felt SO good to make my first sale, pack it, and mail it out.

That multiplied by 77 when the first purchase came in from an unknown customer. 

There's a bazillion ways you can go about this but this is how I did it. In future posts I'll break down each of the 4 steps in more detail. 

Until then I hope this is enough to get you started!

✌🏾TTYL!✌🏾

Simie