Inkfern — печать по требованию: иллюстрированная одежда и принты (Etsy + Shopify, Великобритания)

Who pays

UK gift buyers (60% of orders are gifts — birthdays, Mother's Day, Christmas) and fans of a specific niche, mostly women 25–45. About 65% of orders come through Etsy, 35% through the Shopify store. In this model one sale is a customer's first order; an active customer is a customer who orders that month, so the active base equals monthly orders.

How it makes money

Product sales. Average basket is £36 including VAT (£30 net, about $38 at $1.27/£): typically one sweatshirt, or a T-shirt plus a print. The business is VAT-registered from the start because it crosses the £90,000 threshold in its first year, so revenue is modeled net of VAT. Repeat buying is gift-driven: 6% of a cohort orders again next month, falling to 3.1% by month 12.

Key assumptions

• Etsy fees on the 65% of orders sold there: 6.5% transaction fee + 4% + £0.20 payment processing + 0.48% UK regulatory operating fee (from June 2026) + the $0.20 listing renewal per sale — about 7.4% of all revenue plus $0.30 per average order.
• Shopify orders pay Shopify Payments at about 2% + 25p; blended over 35% of orders that is 0.7% of revenue plus $0.11 per order.
• Print partner charges (blank + print) about 38% of the net selling price — a Bella+Canvas 3001 tee is roughly £11–12 printed, a sweatshirt £19–21 — and UK tracked postage averages $4.90 (£3.85) per order; reprints and refunds for misprints or wrong size run 3% of revenue.
• Etsy Ads at $0.30 per click with 2.4% click-to-order conversion (Etsy shop conversion is 1–3%) gives about $12.50 per first order; Etsy Offsite Ads (15% of the order when a sale comes from Etsy's own Google/Meta ads) are treated as a cost-per-order channel at $5.10.
• Organic Etsy search is the largest single channel: about 1M search impressions a month for the shop's niches once it ranks (2% click-through, 2.2% of listing views buy) — roughly 440 first orders a month, the level of a strong but not top-1% shop — after a ten-month ramp. Pinterest pins and studio content on Instagram/TikTok drive the Shopify store slowly. Cold Meta ads were tested and dropped: at a $7 CPM and 2% conversion a first order costs about $75 against a lifetime contribution near $29.
• Paid traffic is the other half of first orders: Etsy Ads (~$0.30 a click, 2.4% conversion, $12.50 per order), Etsy Offsite Ads at 15% of the order ($5.10) and Pinterest promoted pins at $0.30 a click with 1.8% conversion (≈ $17 per order). Blended over free and paid channels a first order costs about $6.
• UK salaries: founder-illustrator £3,500 a month, a junior designer at about £2,300, freelance illustrators for new collections (part-time) and a remote customer-service VA; employer NI and pension ≈ 15%. Revenue per FTE is above a typical retailer because printing, packing and shipping are outsourced to the print partner — its labour sits in the 38% production cost. Income tax is not modeled; there is no inventory to finance.
• Because an active customer is an order, acquisition pays back per order: a blended $6 per first order is recovered by the first order's contribution (about $14). Etsy's real acquisition cost is the fee stack, modeled as a variable cost (≈ 8% of revenue plus per-order fees).

Risks

• Platform dependence: two-thirds of revenue sits on Etsy's search algorithm and fee schedule; Etsy raised fees in 2022 and added the regulatory fee increase in 2026.
• Copycats and IP: popular designs are copied within weeks; trademark or fan-art takedowns can delist a bestseller overnight.
• Seasonality is extreme: Q4 is 35–40% of the year in gifting categories, while the model spreads demand evenly by month — cash in Q1–Q3 is tighter than shown.
• Print-partner quality and postage price rises (Royal Mail raises tariffs every April) go straight to margin.

How to adapt this model

• Swap the print partner's price list into the production % and postage: hoodies and framed prints push production above 45%, stickers and digital downloads drop it below 20%.
• Change the channel mix to your platform: an Etsy-only shop removes the Shopify lines and its fees; a Shopify-only brand needs paid social and should expect $15–25 per first order, which POD margins rarely carry.
• Seasonality: the model spreads demand evenly; if your niche is gift-driven, plan Q1–Q3 cash for 60% of the average month.
• Outside the UK, change VAT (EU 19–25%, US sales tax collected by Etsy) and postage; US POD shipping is $4–5 per tee.

Sources

• https://www.elverecommerceaccountants.co.uk/etsy-seller-fees-in-the-uk/ — Etsy UK fees: 6.5% transaction, 4% + £0.20 processing, $0.20 listing
• https://beancount.io/uk/blog/2026/08/22/etsy-regulatory-operating-fee-increase-june-2026-seller-payout-bookkeeping-guide — UK regulatory operating fee 0.32% → 0.48% from 22 June 2026
• https://www.printful.com/blog/how-much-does-etsy-take-per-sale — Etsy fee stack and Offsite Ads 12–15%
• https://podvector.ai/articles/printful/costs-and-charges/printful-bella-canvas-3001-cost-full-breakdown-for-pod-sellers — Bella+Canvas 3001 base cost by Printful plan
• https://www.gov.uk/vat-registration/when-to-register — VAT registration threshold £90,000