Yet another great Christmas Side Hustle: Sell Hot Chocolate Stations right?
Want to learn a new way of making money online just in time for Christmas? well, we got the perfect idea just for you guys.
It was so easy, I thought I would give it a go, and therefore, as an experiment, I started my own. (all results may be different depending on the work you put into them).
So armed with just a wee little idea and some Christmas-related stuff I found and bought in Home Bargains, all I needed was a plan so I set out to smash the roof of Etsy.
Here’s how things went for me over a 2 week period in November 2022 with my hot chocolate station idea that I rolled out on Etsy to show the world anything can be sold there.
Now as with most side hustles around the Christmas holiday season here in the UK, everything is either sold out if it’s popular or simply just rubbish so I knew I had to get this idea right.
As I have children, I knew there would be demand for Christmas Eve type of products so I did a little digging and decided to use a great little method to find sought-after stuff on Etsy.
I just gave up after looking for so long and whilst having a break from doing some research on the type of HOT items i wanted to find my wife had finished her Hot chocolate station. WOW!
It was just amazing! I was blown away by it and the kids all had smiles from ear to ear after seeing my darling wife’s awesome hot choccy station. Then the penny just dropped! Vwallaa!
That’s it! I yelled with excitement at her bemused and yet somewhat confused face. I told her the rest and then I got to work on the idea that same night.
Doing Research On My Christmas Side Hustle: Sell Hot Chocolate Stations
When it comes to Etsy and research, like most people I used to just list my items and hope for the best. WRONG! Talk about truly pissing in the wind. I soon found that a waste of time.
You first have to download some tools and Chrome Extensions and everything is good to go right? Well not really, you can still do some hardcore research as I did by using your wife’s idea.
Here are a few other ways to do research on finding the right products for Etsy.
- Ask friends or family for wisdom
- See what’s trending on social media
- Use Google Trends to find trending things
- Check what’s people searching for on TikTok
- Do the alphabet search query attack where you type into the search bar keyword followed by all letters of the alphabet. A lot of people find this method effective.
If you can’t find the right seasonal idea, just message me and I will see if I can help you.
Setting Up Your Etsy Store The Right Way
So you want to get started on Etsy and make sure your buyers like what they see with your shop right? Not many people or beginners understand this when starting out.
All you have to do when starting out is to do these things:
- Make sure you choose the RIGHT shop name which kind of is related to what you sell. You don’t want to leave a bad impression.
- Choose the best color scheme that matches your goods and makes your products stand out.
- Use Canva.com to help design a great colorful cover banner for your shop and a great-looking logo for your shop.
- Don’t forget to add great SEO-optimised descriptions on every product you sell as the buyer always comes first.
- Always write a cool about us description about your shop as customers love this sort of thing.
- Put the customers first at all times and even offer them refunds when first starting out until you are fully established then maybe choose otherwise.
- Lastly, make your shop well known on social media and get your shop name on everyone’s lips. If all else fails, use Google Ads for your shop.
My Best Selling Tips For Making It On Etsy
I will give you 3 of my best-selling tips on how to turn any idea into a great selling idea that can work on anything, not just Etsy.
Just remember to do this prior to setting up any Etsy shop, take your ego out of your ass and make sure it’s all about the customer, not YOU.
Here are my 3 best tips on how to smash it on Etsy in 2022 and beyond
- Sell to friends and family first to get some feedback on your shop.
- Use Etsy ads as they are a cheap way of reaching lots more customers.
- Pick free shipping (if you can) and watch your numbers fly up indeed.
Where Did I Source Of Hot Choc Station Stuff From?
All the stuff I used to build the hot chocolate stations was bought from Home Bargains at such a low cost. You could try somewhere else such as B and M?
It’s best to find the cheapest supplier of the materials that helps you turn an idea into a business for next to nothing so you can maximize the profits of course.
You can try other shops such as Poundland or Walmart, I am sure you will be able to find a good deal on supplies. Just shop around until you are happy.
My Hot Chocolate Station Idea RESULTS
Week one:
Sold 21 hot chocolate stations
Week two:
Sold 52 stations so far.
Combined total gross sales
£1460
Combined net sales
£1200
Final Thoughts
Firstly, thanks for reading my Christmas Side Hustle: Sell Hot Chocolate Stations article.
As with every online business in this day and age, you just have to persevere if your want to see any great results or a good ROI (return on investment).
Now if it had been a DIGITAL product, you only have to create it once and you don’t have to touch a thing afterward, it is sort of very passive once you go down that road.
The only advice I can give to anyone wishing to start an Etsy biz is just to TRY IT and work at it until you make it but don’t forget to run ads and not rely on word of mouth alone.
Good luck and don’t forget to buy one of my hot choccy stations from me 🙂
Merry Crimbo!
Note: If you want to find out more ways to make money this Christmas? try my 11 best side hustles that anyone can do in Wales and beyond.
Welsh finance blogger who has been blogging since 2008 and finding the best ways to make money online and from blogs in almost every niche.