Introduction
A simple digital download is one of the easiest products to create and sell, mostly because there’s very little upfront cost or investment, with loads of potential for scaling up. If the product does well, it’s possible to make lots of money without increasing any effort. With many of the digital selling platforms, everything is automated, so you just need to upload the file, set up the listing, and then the platform takes care of collecting payment and delivering files. I’ve had tons of experience selling digital files (from the OG brush lettering guides to crochet patterns), so it’s pretty quick and easy for me to whip one up.
In this case, I was creating a product that I needed or wanted to use for myself and I was hoping that other people would have the same problem. It stemmed from being a TikTok Shop affiliate with tons of markers and pens to try to promote. I wanted to be able to color a swatch page with cute graphics, firstly to catch people’s attention, and secondly to show that I’m making original content even though I’m literally showing the same set of pens as markers as before. I was trying to find an existing printable swatch sheet online, but they didn’t quite fit what I wanted, so I made one myself on Canva. At first, it really was just going to be for my own personal use, but I figured I’d try to sell it and see what happens.
Keep reading to find out how I researched whether this would even be a sellable product online and how I designed it in Canva. I’ll also give you a link to the Canvas template file, so you can modify it yourself and create your own swatch sheets.
Market Research
A quick Etsy search for “coloring swatch page” yielded tons of results. This is usually a good sign because it means that other people are looking for or are creating a similar product. If it didn’t sell, there wouldn’t be so many listings and variety.
This screenshot was taken on April 6, 2026. My own listing shows up on second row.
How to Design
The quickest way to design a simple one-page printable is inside Canva. Really, all you need to do is open a new project in the size you want (in my case, a letter sized page, 8.5 × 11 inches) and start adding elements.
- Text elements: I put a title on the top to say how many colors you can swatch, plus added my username/handle at the bottom as a designer credit.
- Box: I added a box where the user could write in the name of the product they are swatching.
- Icons: I originally just wanted a simple heart. I searched in the Elements section of Canva until I found a heart that I liked, and then added it to the page. Canva has built-in tools for duplicating and aligning icons, which is super helpful. I copied my heart icon over to make a row of ten icons, grouped them together, then resized it to fit the width of the design. Then I duplicated each row ten more times so that I ended up with 100 hearts.
- After I was happy with the 100 hearts page, I tried it with other icons I thought would be eye-catching. Honestly, I picked the peach, eggplant, and poop emoji as engagement bait for TikTok.
- After I was done designing the swatch pages, I downloaded them as PDF files (to provide as instant download to anyone who purchases, you can have them for free, linked below in the Appendix) and as PNG files (to use in a mockup for the product listing photo).
- Product listing graphics were also created in Canva in a different project, with different dimensions. Save as PNG to upload as the cover image for your e-commerce platform.
- Iterating in real-time: I started using the 100 color swatch pages with pens, but found the icons to be too small to color with larger markers, so I went back to Canva and made a set of sheets with bigger icons. Five to each row, and then duplicated as many times as would fit on the page.
Pricing and Where to Sell
My plan here was to make this printable a no-brainer price of $0.99. It was originally a one-page PDF (that turned into being two pages of PDFs), so I kept the price low. I figured that if I could sell hundreds of them, that would be totally awesome.
I also wanted to keep it simple in regards to where to list online to sell. There are so many different platforms available for selling digital products and there’s a wide variety of fees and pricing structures for everything. Plus, the prices/fees change all the time. If you want me to create a spreadsheet calculator to do comparisons, let me know, I can can do that in the future. For this simple product, considering how low it was priced, I put it on two platforms that had zero fees, and then also added one of my variations to Etsy to see if it would sell within the open marketplace.
Beacons
I use Beacons as my link in profile on all my social media platforms and recently learned that they have an digital product section where you can list your items for sale. Since I planned on people wanting to buy these pages straight from my social media accounts, this seemed like the logical first place to list them. There’s no setup fees and you get paid when the product sells (minus whatever payment processing and transaction fees).
Left: Digital listings collection at the link in bio; Right: Individual product page
Click here to sign up for a free Beacons account.
Payhip
So Payhip is another storefront platform you can use with no startup costs or fees. I already had an account here, so I decided to list the swatch sheets for sale here too. If I were driving traffic to a specific website, this is where I would point them to because their transaction fees are less than Beacons. (current pricing and fees) I also like using the pay-what-you-want feature because some people will pay more than the listed price if they think it’s worth it. Or if they feel like being generous.
Click here to sign up for a free Payhip account.
Etsy
With Etsy, there’s the possibility of buyers finding your item through the search function without you having to send traffic there yourself. However, that audience of buyers comes with a cost. If you don’t already have an Etsy shop, there’s a setup fee. And for every listing you post to sell, there’s a $0.20 listing fee. Then add transaction and payment processing fees. (current fees description) That means that even if you don’t sell anything, you’re out the setup and the listing fee. For a $0.99 digital product with no proven sales anywhere else, this is not ideal. So even though I have four different swatch sheet designs, I only listed one of them online, just to see if it would find a buyer. It has not.
Etsy Referral Link. If you use my link to open a new shop, both of us will get 40 free listings.
Marketing and Results
My plan here was not really a plan. I was going to actively use the swatch sheets to showcase the pens and markers that I’m promoting on TikTok shop, repost the videos on Instagram, and hope that someone would say “ooh, that’s cute, where do I get a coloring page?”. And one person did. I sold one download via my Beacons shop. That’s it.
I shared in my weekly email newsletter that new coloring swatch sheets were available in my shop, but no conversions. My email list is kind of a mess right now anyway, so it’s not an effective marketing tool. I’ll have to think of ways to optimize that another day.
I took a break from making coloring videos for awhile because I wasn’t seeing sales of the pens and markers, so then I wasn’t making any content with the coloring pages. So there’s kind of the death of the product. No content, no eyeballs, no sales.
I started posting a few coloring page videos here and there in recent months, again, trying to sell pens as a TikTok Shop affiliate. No sales on pens, but when I re-posted the video onto Instagram and Facebook, I get thousands of views. So my next plan is to try more coloring page videos, ditch the TikTok Shop link, and add text to the screen telling people that can buy the swatch page in my Payhip shop. We’ll see how that goes.
Conclusion
This product was not a hit for me. I still think it has potential. I even think that someone else could market this better than I could. Considering how many similar listings exist on Etsy, I believe that there are potential buyers. The process of creating the digital product and listing it for sale is always going to be the easiest part. The marketing and attracting buyers is the hardest part. I’m not quite ready to give up on it yet, so I’ll keep experimenting with posting on different platforms. Maybe it’ll hit someday in the future.
Also, if you want to promote these as an affiliate, sign up here and you’ll earn 50% commission.
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