Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Anne CLERY-MELIN. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Anne, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Hello! My name is Anne Clery-Melin and I am the founder of “Down Printable Lane” in reference to the expression “down memory lane”. I am French and I run a digital shop on Etsy selling AI cliparts or images as most people would call them. Before starting out, I was a jewelry designer and had my own website. Having your own website is harder because it means that you have to drive your own traffic. It was my first experience as a business owner and doing everything by myself became physically impossible. From creating, to photographing, to posting, to marketing etc.. it was becoming more a burden than something I loved doing. I lost the motivation and slowly started drifting away from it. I discovered digital products in July 2023 while surfing on Youtube, my favorite learning tool. I had no idea that it could be a source of income and that it was trending. I self-taught by watching Youtube videos and going on forums asking questions. I knew that it would be easier to sell faster because the digital world at this time had already started to skyrock since the 2020 pandemic and it was still ongoing. Moreover, I didn’t have to investissement much in tools and that the return on investment would soon be recovered by the sales I would make. I knew it wouldn’t take years but only months. I was excited about starting this new business too because it was on Etsy and knowing that Etsy would be driving the traffic really helped me to focus on on learning and creating.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

As mentioned in the previous question, my name is Anne and am the founder of Down Printable Lane. I come from France and I had no idea at the time that selling digital products was a thing. I fell on it randomly one day on July 2023 while looking at videos on Youtube. It got me inspired and excited and that’s how it all started. I spent endless hours self-teaching how designing through AI works. I have also learned so much vocabulary words since I started. Even though I’m bilingual, I have reached a new level :-) I sell digital images for crafts such as for card making, invitations or for sublimation design (putting a design on a shirt or a mug for example). My images cover all areas, from animals (pet lovers), to flowers (for wedding invitations) and also seasons such as Halloween, Christmas, Easter etc… I need to broaden my images to a wide target audience in order to sell constantly. I, of course, have some best sellers that sell all year long like quirky cats for example. Selling digital products requires work and dedication because you need to be on the lookout of what is trending and selling. I recently launched a new product trend with low competition that enables the buyer to create its own toy box for its pet. It’s a custom service I offer.
I love creating AI images. They are meant for people who love crafting and who love to make things with their own hands. They want uniqueness and high quality in the designs they buy and I love knowing that my designs travel all over the world even though that 90% of my customers are based in the USA. People from all over the world are also buying but it’s less of a thing now to buy AI but it is taking a turn.
Sometimes I feel that creating through AI seems easy for people who buy digital products because AI makes the images but what people don’t know is the work that is behind all of it. You have to train how to use the softwares, how to make the prompts (phrases) that will enable to create one-of-a-kind images. You have to clean the images, scale them etc, list them… Designing just a pack of 12 images for example can take me up to 3hrs.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When I started my first small business in 2019, it’s because I could not see myself go back to a 9 to 5 job after my MS diagnosis in 2017. I had a severe first flare-up that left me very shaken and it had me reconsider what I wanted my life to be. I needed to take my life into my own hands and feel accomplished. I just wanted to be able to do what I liked. Today, I am not making a living from my business just yet but it’s my goal and I am very motivated to reach it.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

My shop is on Etsy. I chose this platform because Etsy drives the traffic to my shop and it enables me to focus on the creation process. I used to have my own website on Shopify when I had my jewelry business but it was expensive to make and keep. I also had to drive my own traffic which was very difficult. Etsy is a good way to start out with barely any cost.
Moreover, Etsy is evolving and offering many marketing tools to connect your shop to. It’s taking a new turn.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://downprintablelane.etsy.com