Selling Downloadable Art: Printable Wisdom

Ashley Gardner started selling downloadable art on Etsy in 2012 while she was still in medical school (yes, you read that right!). Printable Wisdom quickly grew into a full-fledged shop that needed more flexible ecommerce options because customers were having difficulties navigating her site. Problem, meet solution.

Ashley was initially nervous about investing in a design team for her business. Having transitioned from an Etsy shop to a WordPress site, she was now in need of an ecommerce shop that gave her more control. Functionality and ease of purchasing were some of her biggest concerns:

“I feel like I can’t add my shipped and printed items to my current ecommerce store without it being confusing for the customer – I need a clear distinction there since each design can be a digital OR a printed item.”

Design the right ecommerce solutions: get a team of experts together

Our first step was to group huddle (like we do) to discuss the new Printable Wisdom site. This is the part at the beginning of each project where we put our heads together and brainstorm goals, best approaches, and specific solutions for each client.

Designer Margot and developer Jon decided that the best way for Printable Wisdom to distinguish between digital items and printed items was with a navigation menu that would give customers the option to shop Ashley’s “Digital Shop” or “Print Shop.” When a customer hovers over each category, it expands into a drop-down menu that makes it easy for them to choose between sections like Quotes, Wedding, and Stationery. Two other categories on the primary navigation—”Home & Gifts” and “Collections”—further showcase Printable Wisdom’s diverse offerings. This makes it clear that Ashley is selling downloadable art and physical products.

When Ashley got a first look at the site, she was thrilled with the solution:

“Wow! This is awesome. It is very very clear what to click on depending on what type of item you want. So much better than the way I had it laid out :)”

Design the right ecommerce solutions: guiding & collaborating from start to finish

Jon started the initial site setup early so that Ashley could begin adding her products as we worked. He walked her through the process of creating and saving custom field details, adding wholesale and retail variants, and inputting information that would display on each product’s page.

In both development and design, the process was quite collaborative; Ashley supplied Margot with hand-lettered illustrations that she used for the new site’s titles, which gave the design an added touch of Printable Wisdom!

We checked in with Ashley after the new site launched, and in just a short week or so, she’d already noticed a difference: “The site seems to be doing great! We’ve gotten way more sales than on our old site!”

This made our hearts pitter-patter, because the only thing we love more than beautiful sites are beautiful sites that sell. Ashley made us blush even more when she told us:

Everything about working with the Aeolidia team, from start to finish, was seamlessly well organized and transparent. I was nervous about making such a big investment in my business – the biggest so far! After researching for about six months and reading their expert blog posts on creating a “big little” business I knew that there wasn’t any other web design team that would intrinsically understand my business like Aeolidia did.

Our goals for the new website were to make it very clear which items were digital downloads and which were physical art prints – something that I had no idea how to do! It was great to get everyone’s input about this and I think the final result is spectacularly clear (and something I never could have come up with on my own). The entire site is just like my experience with Aeolidia – clear, easy to understand, and perfect for a creative small business!

Are you looking for help selling downloadable?

Our designers, developers, branding specialists, and artists are solution go-getters. Contact us to help brainstorm and create your next big move. After all, several Aeolidians are better than one!