It took me over a year to get my first sale. I definitely learned a lot over the years. I get at least 2 sales a week now and I only have 190 designs available. (I audited my shop and took down designs that I didn’t think were up to par) my words of encouragement are to keep going. And be original.
That's fantastic, congratulations on growing your store! It's great that you now have solid data to work with, you can use that data to double down on what is working & grow 🌞
@@WholesaleTed Sarah!! You’re the reason I got into POD in 2020. Thank you for your response. I hope you know how many people you inspire because it is a lot and it is far reaching. I live in Houston, quite a ways away from Australia. I’m such a fan girl lol.
@@alienesse " ONLY 190 " 😗 holy heck - I'm struggling to actually 'DO THE THING' and create ANY - I have quite a few IDEAS, but I get caught up in the creative process and lose myself along the way..... ughhh QUICK QUESTION though - do you run any ads???
Great video. I honestly have no sympathy for copycat stores. I can't tell you how many of my original designs I've had copied over the years. Even stealing and using my watermarked listing photos. The copycats see that a design is popular, but they don't understand how much work, social media promoting, and AD MONEY went into making that design popular. Sellers who steal designs deserve to fail.
Thank you! It looks like this will be one of my least popular videos of all time LOL, but I genuinely poured a lot of love into this video, and so it is genuinely nice to know that it has helped someone 🙏
@@WholesaleTed Thats probably because most people dont even click on videos with titles like "X Tips BEFORE You Start Print On Demand (Watch First)" anymore, because most of those videos are just clickbait without real advice, and the POD community is tired of that. You video was actually good, thank you for the work you put into making it!
Best video! Long time follower, also Etsy seller here and my best sales on items in Etsy in both digital and POD with the multiple stores as well as selling on Merch by Amazon my best selling designs are from creating and selling products that resonated with me either personally or aesthetically in which I had a passion or knowledge or experience in. This has been my same expeience selling kdp books. The books I sell the most of were eiher passion projects or experienced based. Yet this goes against a lot of other Etsy UA-camrs who suggest a general store with multiple crossed niched designs which cab work but having you create thousands of designs hoping for a sale based on what is selling. I think that method would work best if you hire out the designs as It is boring for me and impossible to know what resonates with areas I have no interest in like you, for example sports! But for me the joy is in the creating and this video should be a prequel to online selling 101. Thanks Sarah!
Sigh. If only all of this would work!! I started in April buidling a POD store. I picked a very original niche I am very invested in myself. I did extensive research and came up with my own ideas around current trends. I'm a graphic designer, and regularly friends and friends of friends show themselves seriously impressed about the quality of my designs. My prices are not on the cheap, nor are they on the expensive side of things. Started out on Etsy, did not see any results, built my own store with Woocommerce, tested out potential winnig designs by running engagement ads on Facebook and now switched to running conversion ads for the winners (which are more expensive). Since April I have made a total of 9 sales, 2 of which were friends and family. My last string of hope is the snowball effect you are talking about. Other than that I have to agree with all of the people who say it doesn't work. It just doesn't.
Great points, and if you're doing it in an already crowded niche you CAN make profit, but you have to do significant marketing yourself, like I see some Instagram accounts do where they make fun videos featuring their ridiculous shirt designs.
That has not been my experience tbh - I compete in crowded niches all the time with no external marketing, just internal Etsy traffic, but I do what I discuss at 0:48 which is I fill a gap in the market by introducing fresh product ideas. In saying that though, it's definitely harder to do that in a crowded niche. More people are focusing on it, and they're using their creative energy to come up with fresh product ideas. So if you focus on less crowded niches, it's usually faster & easier to come up with new ideas, simply because less ideas in the niche exist 😉🙏
Great insights! These common mistakes are so easy to overlook, especially when starting out in print on demand. I appreciate the clear examples and tips on how to avoid them.
Interesting points #4 & 5. It can become so overwhelming watching all these different videos on the Tube. Sometimes I have to stop and go outside, lol. Thanks for the video!
Fair enough! And you know, a lot of this is information I learned over time. Despite not knowing it initially, I still made money, largely because I have always focused heavily on creating great products. I then over time learned more things which helped me tweak and optimize my stores (such as learning better pricing strategies). In my personal opinion, if you focus on great products first, then you can tweak everything else later.
Haha, yeah. They probably did have good intentions, paid ads probably worked well for them and they want to share what did work well for them, but they are probably in a position where they have a lot of extra money to throw around/lose. I know most people aren't and so I personally think that taking a free approach to marketing/advertising is more sustainable for most new store owners 🙏
What happened when your sales started to increase? Did you finally add new designs that suddenly became popular and the older ones started to sell as well? Or have you started promoting some designs? Or could it be another reason? Because you can add hundreds of designs with no sales and then you can add one or two with lot of sales.
You can add hundreds of designs with no sales, or 1 design that gets lots of sales, absolutely, because if your 200 designs were bad/not what the market wanted, people won't buy them. But if the 1 design is what people want, they will buy it. That is the key. It isn't about adding in hundreds of designs. It is purposefully, mindfully trying to add in designs that you think customers want to buy. And the way I do that is discussed in this video: 0:48 - I come up with product ideas that fill gaps in the market 5:18 - I find those ideas by using myself as a yardstick By combining these 2 together, while not all of my designs have hit, as I discussed in 12:38 - by purposefully & mindfully adding in designs that met these 2 qualities, I was able to have several product hits. Therefore, I guess the answer is: it was a slow burn. The store slowly grew over time, like a snowball, and regularly added in new hits. It wasn't that I added in 200 items, then had 1 hit. It's that, for maybe every 10 products I add, every 1-4 products I add will go on to become sellers overtime, some will be big sellers, some will be small sellers, but either way, they add up.
I just started selling vintage dresses, but I'm only making like 1 to 4 sales per month (60.00 to 200.00 bucks per month). Gonna try POD shirts instead.
Unfortunately vintage dresses have a limited market size, so there are only so many that you can sell, and also, you have a limited supply to source making them tricky to earn a full-time income off of!
Kia ora, I have gone down a rabbit hole since finding your videos. I'm tired of scraping by, so I'm here. Hopefully I can dive into my niche, but it's good to see another kiwi doing it good. And lemme know if you ever need a coffee buddy if you're in the CBD in Tamaki (:
I aimed at goat themed designs because a, I own goats and are passionate about them, b, can use my own photos for designs or inspiration and c, felt the niche wasn’t as saturated as dog, cat and horse niches. I get people saying they like or love the end results, but not really enough to buy. I will see other (to my way of thinking) very generic style goat designs selling so what I like to see in the genre must be different to what others like to purchase. Which then leaves me at the point of either not designing according to my ‘perceived ideals’ of the genre even though they potentially fill a gap in the niche, or accepting I simply suck at it haha. I haven’t given up trying and learning though so maybe one day I’ll get the right combo.
It sounds like you're selling photos. For better or for worse, photos have a much lower perceived value these days and so I'd consider branching out beyond photos, and instead look into creating designs 🙏
@@WholesaleTed oh no the photos are sometimes incorporated into a design (like a head shot or silhouette shape) and sometimes rendered into painting styled artwork. Very few photos are used as the sole image. And some designs are text with canva graphic
Thanks for the advice. Almost 5 month in my t-shirt Etsy shop, using monster digital and I haven’t made any of these mistakes and still I haven’t made any sales, if you can help me out by any means I would really appreciate it.
Honestly... This is going to sound harsh but usually, when people are not making any sales, yet say they are not making any mistakes, they usually are - they just don't realize it! Especially mistake #1, 2 & 3. But it can be hard to look in at our own creations unbiasedly. So what I would say is that it might be helpful to: 1) Find a store that is thriving in your niche 2) Find a brutally honest family friend or member 3) Ask them to compare your store with the thriving store. Ask them to note what they think that the store is doing that yours might not be 🙏
I’ve heard many successful POD UA-camrs say it’s important to research what’s already selling well on platforms and then create your own version, but better. They advise against making designs that haven’t been tested in the market. I’m confused!
Well, that is not entirely against my approach either. I have a video that discusses a formula I use to create original ideas that I call The Cross Idea Formula. You take a popular idea, but apply it to something new it hasn't been applied to before. Nothing is new under the sun, all "original" ideas are actually inspired from something else. But you can apply them in new ways: ua-cam.com/video/M9ZOiqxuMsg/v-deo.html
Any advice on how to do the non-designy parts of a product listing well? I'm able to make lots of (thought out) designs very quickly. But I find the actual process of writing out descriptions for them all, adding relevant tags, setting the right categories, (and so on), really hard. My dyslexia really doesn't help. So the thing that puts me off creating more designs is the effort of all the "boring stuff". I know it's the boring stuff that brings in customers, but I end up being stuck in my own head trying to get something written down for each listing.
It is too hard unfortunately to explain but, something I actually have a whole video semi-dedicated to inside my course The Ecomm Clubhouse is my personal approach to listing optimization and believe it or not, these days, I don't really care much at all about it. The only things I care about are: * A great design - most important of all * A great photo - second most important thing of all * A listing that clearly outlines to the customer expectations in a professional manner That's it. Because these days, algorithms (including Etsy & Google's) are much more based on user activity, and user activity/conversions. And users won't convert based on the right tags etc, they convert based on design + photo + professionalism. But yes: that is why I focus so much on design, because that is actually, IMHO, the best form of SEO/optimization there is. For Etsy, I have a video that discusses what I've observed with the algorithm, it is a little-watched video on this channel but it is one I would love more people to watch, honestly: ua-cam.com/video/v3jE2qNt3I8/v-deo.html
would you say it is bad to join a niche and make my product fully customable ,that this niche is know to be 60% scam ? for example i work with flowers and i want to preserve them with a box and sell, people will think that this preserved flower are not real and are made of plastic,etc like this.
I don't think that in itself makes it a bad niche at all. It might impact how you have to market yourself though. You may have to emphasis you are using real flowers, which explains the price difference. I sell more premium products and it is just about positioning yourself as a premium product 🌞
Great info, thank you! What about if we are just starting POD and we have Christmas political themed designs with very limited time left to sell them. Would it make sense to buy an ad in this case?
I think that it would if you knew you would make money from it, but if your store is new that is pretty risky because you don't have data yet to get an idea of what any expected ROI you could get. It is up to you and your own personal judgement!
Heya! Can I ask a quick question please. With listing products on Etsy in a store, would you recommend sticking to one type or product per shop? For example one shop solely for mugs. Then another shop solely for wall art. Or is it ok to list a wide range of products in one store ?
It is a balance. Selling designs onto multiple products is great, but if you just list it for sale on any product under the sun, then you lose integrity because a brand that is high-quality will only focus on selling the best products that suit it's brand, not just any product. Having a solid brand will let you charge higher prices than Muggy McMuggins, lol! Their price had to be rock-bottom because they had no brand. If you present yourself as a brand, then you can charge higher prices. So, as vague as this may sound, it's honestly the truth: think about what your brand is, what it stands for - and then think about which products fit your brand, and then list those products in your store 🌞
Getting ready to launch on Etsy although I would rather go Shopify (shoestring budget unfortunately). I looked at a Halloween shirt on Etsy I thought looked good and down below it showed something like eight other shops with the EXACT same graphics and wording on the shirt! Somebody copied someone and then you have to compete with the lookalike that is cheaper. If you post your original graphics there someone is going to steal yours. Bums me right out.
Honestly: I wouldn't be so worried about copying you. People will only start copying you once your products are a proven success. By that point, you will have established credibility with algorithms in whatever website you're advertising with. I get it is frustrating but copying is part of business: businesses with established credibility copy each other all the time and for good reason. But in the beginning, in my experience, it has always been important to focus on originality to give customers a reason to trust you when you don't yet have established credibility.
If you'd like to print something at the very bottom of the t-shirt, the only way to do that currently with POD would be to get an All Over Print t-shirt. You can print pretty much wherever you like - but the t-shirts themselves feel nothing like a standard t-shirt so it is probably not what you're after unfortunately! The POD apps focus on the most popular printing areas.
Thank you, sir, for your progress. We want you to explain the registration on the society6 website in the new speech, and how can we win an opportunity, and thank you, sir.
Thank you for watching! And unfortunately I don't sell on Society6 so I'm probably not the best person to make a video on that, but there are other UA-camrs that do 🌞
How do you know there's a gap in the market if there's no search volume and no competitor sold that product before? I guess you just have to take the risk when you want to introduce something new to the market. It may or may not end up a flop. Tho this mug is as basic I doubt the seller even cares.
I discuss that very topic at 5:13 when I discuss Mistake #3 - when I launch a store and have no data, I use myself as a yardstick and I create products that I would like to buy that don't yet exist. And yes, it is always a risk. That is why I also discuss Mistake #6 at 11:52 I note that most products do flop. To get data, you need to put out products and yes, it is a "risk" because until you put it out, you don't know if your idea is actually good or not. A lot of people are unwilling to take risks and put out products that flop/fail. Society conditions us to see failure as a bad thing. But failure is important. Large corporations flop & fail products all the time during their market research phase, and they don't mind. It is part of business. Until you put out a product, you don't truly know if it'll flop or succeed. You can guess but it's just a guess.
I'd also recommend watching this video here, which discusses the Etsy algorithm. Most sales these days on Etsy are not made through their search engine. They come from personalized Etsy recommendations. I never look at search volume when coming up with an idea. As long as I know a niche exists, I don't need to see search volume for my exact product idea, because I know my niche already has customers in-general and so if I create a great product, Etsy's personalized recommendations will match it: ua-cam.com/video/v3jE2qNt3I8/v-deo.html It's baffling how little this is discussed on YT. So many videos on Etsy SEO. No videos like mine there discussing Etsy personalized recommendations!
There are lots of ways to start a store for free. I even made a video showing a new method for starting a store for free with Fourth Wall here: ua-cam.com/video/1nwxxRkVbgQ/v-deo.html
Sarah's video was almost 18 minutes long, but she really fills each minute with important info, not wasting time with fluff and filler, so it may seem like the time flys by fast because it's action-packed. 😊 Thank you for another great video!
Usually, if you're getting visits but no conversions that is a sign that people are interested in your products but don't trust you. I'm sure Muggy McMuggins also has a fairly low conversion rate despite what is probably a fairly high CTR, because the store looks untrustworthy. Take a look at people who are thriving in your niche. And then make your store look at least as equally good as theirs.
No I haven't - I have very reliable suppliers now and so I prefer to use what I can now trust, rather than experiment with unknowns. I actually have a video coming out discussing that, working hard on it right now!
Honestly, as harsh as it is, you may want to get a family/friend to give you harsh criticism. It's difficult to know without looking at your store what exactly the problem/s are, but the most common culprits usually are: 1) People's products aren't as good as they think they are, 2) People's products are more boring/copycat than they realize because it is genuinely very easy to accidentally copy. 3) People's stores look uglier/less professional than they realize. Get an honest family member/friend to take a look at your store, and then compare it to a store that is thriving in your niche, and get them to tell you what exactly they think of your store, versus the other store. That comparison might show you what your store is missing 🙏
No... there won't be, haha, that is pretty much exactly what Mistake #1 discusses - why it's important to avoid that because you have no reviews or social proof 🙏 0:48
I hope that Mistake #1 & Mistake #2 can help - these are the most common reasons I see people not get sales or traction with a new Etsy store. I recently started a brand new Etsy store and got my first 2 sales within 1 week, using no paid ads or external advertising, and with a small number of designs, because I filled a gap in the market 0:48 🙏
I sincerely, sincerely disagree with this take. I do not think it comes down to advertising. I think that this might be the biggest mistake that people make, honestly: thinking that it comes down to advertising. It does not - it comes down to designs. Great designs ARE advertising, because great designs sell themselves, thanks to recommendation algorithms. It is the main way I sell products, utilizing recommendation algorithms: ua-cam.com/video/v3jE2qNt3I8/v-deo.htmlsi=rALRzdL5LVT0pxJX Recommendation algorithms will recommend ALL products for you through their test impressions, without you having to do anything. However, they will only keep recommending products that actually convert. If your product doesn't convert, it will stop recommending it. If it converts however, it will keep showing it - and you don't have to do anything. I create high converting products and then let recommendation algorithms do the traffic for me. That is why I focus so heavily on this channel on design. Because I believe through my experience that a great design IS the advertising/traffic 🌞
Ah, sorry - I thought from memory that you sold on Etsy, not exclusively through your own store. My bad! You have been in the comments a lot, I recognize you but misremembered your store. In that case, unless you prefer SEO traffic like me - yes you will need more of a plan if you want to skip over an external 3rd party platform like Etsy. These days I prefer the double-punch of Etsy + Google. Create a Shopify + Etsy store, optimize for Google traffic & Etsy traffic, then with the two connected together, the Etsy store feeds the Shopify store authority & sales come in passively from Google SEO. If you want to skip over a 3rd party platform though to give authority (doesn't have to be Etsy - could be eBay etc) then I agree some form of direct advertising is required.
Print on Demand is so dead as Dropshipping ! Rule of thumb is that you gotta pay tons of ads to get leads and perhaps sales conversion in a very SATURATED MARKET. Spend money to make money....
Honestly, it is impossible for Print On Demand to be "dead" and it is impossible for it to be "saturated" - both of those phrases make no sense. Print On Demand is a production & fulfillment method. You use it to produce products. Fulfillment & production methods cannot be saturated. And they can't "die" unless they are made illegal. It is products & niches which "die" from lack of demand, or become saturated due to oversupply. Not production & fulfillment methods. An example of a saturated market is white socks. That is saturated because many, many plain white socks exist. So breaking into the market, while not impossible, is very difficult, because many white sock brands exist. However. Would you say that the main production method used for them, Circular Knitting, is saturated? No you would not, because that makes no sense. Circular Knitting is not saturated. It is just a production method that can be used to make socks. You could use it to make unique socks nobody else is selling in untapped market. Or you can use it to make plain white socks that everybody is selling in a saturated market. Print On Demand is no different. It is a production method used to make products, like clothes, homeware items, art pieces, tech items & accessories. Whether you choose to use it to copy pre-existing products that everyone is selling, or focus on untapped niches, is entirely up to you. You can choose to copy & make products that are in crowded, saturated product niches, or choose to focus on untapped niches. So yes, I genuinely don't mean to be rude. But saying that "Print On Demand is saturated/dead" genuinely makes no sense 🙏
Like Ryan Hogue. I look at his Redbubble and Amazon store. Lots of crap in it. I have like 1 or 2 sales. But like 99% of his stuff have no sales. ANd he say's he makes "thousands" a week.
My Etsy case study did not involve any external marketing, including on Instagram. I did not advertise my products outside of turning on Etsy ads. But I had to wait 2 weeks to do that, and was making sales even before that, using the strategy I discuss at 0:48 - filling a gap in the market
I honestly can’t understand how 99% fail. In every one of your videos, you make it seem like everything is so easy, and that you'd immediately earn thousands of euros.
It took me over a year to get my first sale. I definitely learned a lot over the years. I get at least 2 sales a week now and I only have 190 designs available. (I audited my shop and took down designs that I didn’t think were up to par) my words of encouragement are to keep going. And be original.
That's fantastic, congratulations on growing your store! It's great that you now have solid data to work with, you can use that data to double down on what is working & grow 🌞
@@WholesaleTed Sarah!! You’re the reason I got into POD in 2020. Thank you for your response. I hope you know how many people you inspire because it is a lot and it is far reaching. I live in Houston, quite a ways away from Australia. I’m such a fan girl lol.
@@alienesse " ONLY 190 " 😗 holy heck - I'm struggling to actually 'DO THE THING' and create ANY - I have quite a few IDEAS, but I get caught up in the creative process and lose myself along the way..... ughhh
QUICK QUESTION though - do you run any ads???
@@redpillblupill I thought the same. 190 w/ 2 a week? Over a year? Wow. I know nothing about pod but that seems extremely low
@@HippieP629 yeah, I hear that... that does sound VERY do-able.
Great video. I honestly have no sympathy for copycat stores. I can't tell you how many of my original designs I've had copied over the years. Even stealing and using my watermarked listing photos. The copycats see that a design is popular, but they don't understand how much work, social media promoting, and AD MONEY went into making that design popular. Sellers who steal designs deserve to fail.
Well, now you can have AI steal it, so it's no longer considered stealing. You're welcome.
It IS still considered stealing.
@@fictionaddiction4706 if there was ever a comment that contradicts itself it is this one
It sure is ODD that Etsy is ALLOWING it❗😳 WHY not close copycat's shop❓🤔
@@helengren9349 1) There are just so many of them and 2) how can you tell who is copying who and who started to copy first.
This is seriously a breath of fresh air given all the other vids I’ve watched.
Thank you! It looks like this will be one of my least popular videos of all time LOL, but I genuinely poured a lot of love into this video, and so it is genuinely nice to know that it has helped someone 🙏
@@WholesaleTed It is indeed very helpful.
@@WholesaleTed Thats probably because most people dont even click on videos with titles like "X Tips BEFORE You Start Print On Demand (Watch First)" anymore, because most of those videos are just clickbait without real advice, and the POD community is tired of that. You video was actually good, thank you for the work you put into making it!
That was a lot of useful info packed into a relatively short video. Thanks Sarah!
Always jam-packed with great info. Thanks for sharing your expertise and experiences. Continued success to you. 🙂
Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge!!
Much appreciated!! 😊👍
Best video! Long time follower, also Etsy seller here and my best sales on items in Etsy in both digital and POD with the multiple stores as well as selling on Merch by Amazon my best selling designs are from creating and selling products that resonated with me either personally or aesthetically in which I had a passion or knowledge or experience in. This has been my same expeience selling kdp books. The books I sell the most of were eiher passion projects or experienced based. Yet this goes against a lot of other Etsy UA-camrs who suggest a general store with multiple crossed niched designs which cab work but having you create thousands of designs hoping for a sale based on what is selling. I think that method would work best if you hire out the designs as It is boring for me and impossible to know what resonates with areas I have no interest in like you, for example sports! But for me the joy is in the creating and this video should be a prequel to online selling 101. Thanks Sarah!
Special thanks for the amazing video!
Sigh. If only all of this would work!!
I started in April buidling a POD store. I picked a very original niche I am very invested in myself. I did extensive research and came up with my own ideas around current trends. I'm a graphic designer, and regularly friends and friends of friends show themselves seriously impressed about the quality of my designs. My prices are not on the cheap, nor are they on the expensive side of things. Started out on Etsy, did not see any results, built my own store with Woocommerce, tested out potential winnig designs by running engagement ads on Facebook and now switched to running conversion ads for the winners (which are more expensive). Since April I have made a total of 9 sales, 2 of which were friends and family. My last string of hope is the snowball effect you are talking about. Other than that I have to agree with all of the people who say it doesn't work. It just doesn't.
Great points, and if you're doing it in an already crowded niche you CAN make profit, but you have to do significant marketing yourself, like I see some Instagram accounts do where they make fun videos featuring their ridiculous shirt designs.
That has not been my experience tbh - I compete in crowded niches all the time with no external marketing, just internal Etsy traffic, but I do what I discuss at 0:48 which is I fill a gap in the market by introducing fresh product ideas. In saying that though, it's definitely harder to do that in a crowded niche. More people are focusing on it, and they're using their creative energy to come up with fresh product ideas. So if you focus on less crowded niches, it's usually faster & easier to come up with new ideas, simply because less ideas in the niche exist 😉🙏
Great insights! These common mistakes are so easy to overlook, especially when starting out in print on demand. I appreciate the clear examples and tips on how to avoid them.
Interesting points #4 & 5.
It can become so overwhelming watching all these different videos on the Tube.
Sometimes I have to stop and go outside, lol.
Thanks for the video!
Fair enough! And you know, a lot of this is information I learned over time. Despite not knowing it initially, I still made money, largely because I have always focused heavily on creating great products. I then over time learned more things which helped me tweak and optimize my stores (such as learning better pricing strategies). In my personal opinion, if you focus on great products first, then you can tweak everything else later.
Excellent video and advice, success comes from hardwork and sacrifice and if that doesn't seem to be working then you haven't worked hard enough yet.
Or perhaps have not worked smart enough.
@@pat4005 I'm not very smart so it takes me twice as long to figure things out ;-)
Glad I watched this. I had gotten the impression from another POD YT guru that if I didn't do paid ads nothing at all was going to sell.
Haha, yeah. They probably did have good intentions, paid ads probably worked well for them and they want to share what did work well for them, but they are probably in a position where they have a lot of extra money to throw around/lose. I know most people aren't and so I personally think that taking a free approach to marketing/advertising is more sustainable for most new store owners 🙏
Probably because their products are not good enough to sell on their own, that’s why they need ads.
@@WholesaleTed Very true, thanks.
I’ve learned and realized so much from this video. Thank you.
do you know any sources for affordable social media marketing help for those who hate marketing?
This video just made my day 1000% better. 😄
What happened when your sales started to increase? Did you finally add new designs that suddenly became popular and the older ones started to sell as well? Or have you started promoting some designs? Or could it be another reason? Because you can add hundreds of designs with no sales and then you can add one or two with lot of sales.
You can add hundreds of designs with no sales, or 1 design that gets lots of sales, absolutely, because if your 200 designs were bad/not what the market wanted, people won't buy them. But if the 1 design is what people want, they will buy it. That is the key. It isn't about adding in hundreds of designs. It is purposefully, mindfully trying to add in designs that you think customers want to buy. And the way I do that is discussed in this video:
0:48 - I come up with product ideas that fill gaps in the market
5:18 - I find those ideas by using myself as a yardstick
By combining these 2 together, while not all of my designs have hit, as I discussed in 12:38 - by purposefully & mindfully adding in designs that met these 2 qualities, I was able to have several product hits.
Therefore, I guess the answer is: it was a slow burn. The store slowly grew over time, like a snowball, and regularly added in new hits. It wasn't that I added in 200 items, then had 1 hit. It's that, for maybe every 10 products I add, every 1-4 products I add will go on to become sellers overtime, some will be big sellers, some will be small sellers, but either way, they add up.
I just started selling vintage dresses, but I'm only making like 1 to 4 sales per month (60.00 to 200.00 bucks per month). Gonna try POD shirts instead.
Unfortunately vintage dresses have a limited market size, so there are only so many that you can sell, and also, you have a limited supply to source making them tricky to earn a full-time income off of!
Kia ora,
I have gone down a rabbit hole since finding your videos. I'm tired of scraping by, so I'm here. Hopefully I can dive into my niche, but it's good to see another kiwi doing it good. And lemme know if you ever need a coffee buddy if you're in the CBD in Tamaki (:
I aimed at goat themed designs because a, I own goats and are passionate about them, b, can use my own photos for designs or inspiration and c, felt the niche wasn’t as saturated as dog, cat and horse niches. I get people saying they like or love the end results, but not really enough to buy. I will see other (to my way of thinking) very generic style goat designs selling so what I like to see in the genre must be different to what others like to purchase. Which then leaves me at the point of either not designing according to my ‘perceived ideals’ of the genre even though they potentially fill a gap in the niche, or accepting I simply suck at it haha. I haven’t given up trying and learning though so maybe one day I’ll get the right combo.
It sounds like you're selling photos. For better or for worse, photos have a much lower perceived value these days and so I'd consider branching out beyond photos, and instead look into creating designs 🙏
@@WholesaleTed oh no the photos are sometimes incorporated into a design (like a head shot or silhouette shape) and sometimes rendered into painting styled artwork. Very few photos are used as the sole image. And some designs are text with canva graphic
WHAT IF YOU SELL ON YOUR OWN WEBSITE. DO YOU START WITH RUNNING ADS?
Thank you Sarah for the great advice!
Thanks for the advice.
Almost 5 month in my t-shirt Etsy shop, using monster digital and I haven’t made any of these mistakes and still I haven’t made any sales, if you can help me out by any means I would really appreciate it.
Honestly... This is going to sound harsh but usually, when people are not making any sales, yet say they are not making any mistakes, they usually are - they just don't realize it! Especially mistake #1, 2 & 3. But it can be hard to look in at our own creations unbiasedly. So what I would say is that it might be helpful to:
1) Find a store that is thriving in your niche
2) Find a brutally honest family friend or member
3) Ask them to compare your store with the thriving store. Ask them to note what they think that the store is doing that yours might not be 🙏
@@WholesaleTed ok, thanks
I’ve heard many successful POD UA-camrs say it’s important to research what’s already selling well on platforms and then create your own version, but better. They advise against making designs that haven’t been tested in the market. I’m confused!
Well, that is not entirely against my approach either. I have a video that discusses a formula I use to create original ideas that I call The Cross Idea Formula. You take a popular idea, but apply it to something new it hasn't been applied to before. Nothing is new under the sun, all "original" ideas are actually inspired from something else. But you can apply them in new ways: ua-cam.com/video/M9ZOiqxuMsg/v-deo.html
@@WholesaleTed Thank you Sarah! That's really helpful and I am so glad I haven't gone far on the wrong direction.
Great video as usual! Thanks !
Any advice on how to do the non-designy parts of a product listing well? I'm able to make lots of (thought out) designs very quickly. But I find the actual process of writing out descriptions for them all, adding relevant tags, setting the right categories, (and so on), really hard.
My dyslexia really doesn't help. So the thing that puts me off creating more designs is the effort of all the "boring stuff". I know it's the boring stuff that brings in customers, but I end up being stuck in my own head trying to get something written down for each listing.
It is too hard unfortunately to explain but, something I actually have a whole video semi-dedicated to inside my course The Ecomm Clubhouse is my personal approach to listing optimization and believe it or not, these days, I don't really care much at all about it. The only things I care about are:
* A great design - most important of all
* A great photo - second most important thing of all
* A listing that clearly outlines to the customer expectations in a professional manner
That's it. Because these days, algorithms (including Etsy & Google's) are much more based on user activity, and user activity/conversions. And users won't convert based on the right tags etc, they convert based on design + photo + professionalism.
But yes: that is why I focus so much on design, because that is actually, IMHO, the best form of SEO/optimization there is.
For Etsy, I have a video that discusses what I've observed with the algorithm, it is a little-watched video on this channel but it is one I would love more people to watch, honestly: ua-cam.com/video/v3jE2qNt3I8/v-deo.html
Your videos are incredibly well-edited. Do you also handle the editing yourself?
Haha no! I wish I was that talented but I am not, I have very talented video editors that help me :)
would you say it is bad to join a niche and make my product fully customable ,that this niche is know to be 60% scam ? for example i work with flowers and i want to preserve them with a box and sell, people will think that this preserved flower are not real and are made of plastic,etc like this.
I don't think that in itself makes it a bad niche at all. It might impact how you have to market yourself though. You may have to emphasis you are using real flowers, which explains the price difference. I sell more premium products and it is just about positioning yourself as a premium product 🌞
@@WholesaleTed would it be advisable if i have the same basic products in 10 pods but each one have a main product that different from each one?
Great info, thank you! What about if we are just starting POD and we have Christmas political themed designs with very limited time left to sell them. Would it make sense to buy an ad in this case?
I think that it would if you knew you would make money from it, but if your store is new that is pretty risky because you don't have data yet to get an idea of what any expected ROI you could get. It is up to you and your own personal judgement!
I targeted myself as a customer and it's working well!
Heya! Can I ask a quick question please.
With listing products on Etsy in a store, would you recommend sticking to one type or product per shop? For example one shop solely for mugs. Then another shop solely for wall art.
Or is it ok to list a wide range of products in one store ?
It is a balance. Selling designs onto multiple products is great, but if you just list it for sale on any product under the sun, then you lose integrity because a brand that is high-quality will only focus on selling the best products that suit it's brand, not just any product. Having a solid brand will let you charge higher prices than Muggy McMuggins, lol! Their price had to be rock-bottom because they had no brand. If you present yourself as a brand, then you can charge higher prices. So, as vague as this may sound, it's honestly the truth: think about what your brand is, what it stands for - and then think about which products fit your brand, and then list those products in your store 🌞
@@WholesaleTedThis makes so much sense!
Getting ready to launch on Etsy although I would rather go Shopify (shoestring budget unfortunately). I looked at a Halloween shirt on Etsy I thought looked good and down below it showed something like eight other shops with the EXACT same graphics and wording on the shirt! Somebody copied someone and then you have to compete with the lookalike that is cheaper. If you post your original graphics there someone is going to steal yours. Bums me right out.
Honestly: I wouldn't be so worried about copying you. People will only start copying you once your products are a proven success. By that point, you will have established credibility with algorithms in whatever website you're advertising with. I get it is frustrating but copying is part of business: businesses with established credibility copy each other all the time and for good reason. But in the beginning, in my experience, it has always been important to focus on originality to give customers a reason to trust you when you don't yet have established credibility.
@@WholesaleTed Thank you for the positivity! Appreciated. And thank you again for your videos as they help us newbies so very much :)
Can you please do a review on Printful quick store
Do you know what POD the accountants use for their Business?
I don't but I could probably figure it out by taking a closer look at their products. Most likely it is Printful, or Printify!
@@WholesaleTed Thank you.
Is it possible to get logs printed on the bottom of a t-shirt? Every place I've tried won't allow it
If you'd like to print something at the very bottom of the t-shirt, the only way to do that currently with POD would be to get an All Over Print t-shirt. You can print pretty much wherever you like - but the t-shirts themselves feel nothing like a standard t-shirt so it is probably not what you're after unfortunately! The POD apps focus on the most popular printing areas.
Thank you, sir, for your progress. We want you to explain the registration on the society6 website in the new speech, and how can we win an opportunity, and thank you, sir.
I do not use Society 6 myself, sorry! But there are a lot of videos on UA-cam about it from other content creators 🙏
Thank you for watching! And unfortunately I don't sell on Society6 so I'm probably not the best person to make a video on that, but there are other UA-camrs that do 🌞
How do you know there's a gap in the market if there's no search volume and no competitor sold that product before? I guess you just have to take the risk when you want to introduce something new to the market. It may or may not end up a flop. Tho this mug is as basic I doubt the seller even cares.
I discuss that very topic at 5:13 when I discuss Mistake #3 - when I launch a store and have no data, I use myself as a yardstick and I create products that I would like to buy that don't yet exist. And yes, it is always a risk. That is why I also discuss Mistake #6 at 11:52 I note that most products do flop. To get data, you need to put out products and yes, it is a "risk" because until you put it out, you don't know if your idea is actually good or not. A lot of people are unwilling to take risks and put out products that flop/fail. Society conditions us to see failure as a bad thing. But failure is important. Large corporations flop & fail products all the time during their market research phase, and they don't mind. It is part of business. Until you put out a product, you don't truly know if it'll flop or succeed. You can guess but it's just a guess.
I'd also recommend watching this video here, which discusses the Etsy algorithm. Most sales these days on Etsy are not made through their search engine. They come from personalized Etsy recommendations. I never look at search volume when coming up with an idea. As long as I know a niche exists, I don't need to see search volume for my exact product idea, because I know my niche already has customers in-general and so if I create a great product, Etsy's personalized recommendations will match it: ua-cam.com/video/v3jE2qNt3I8/v-deo.html
It's baffling how little this is discussed on YT. So many videos on Etsy SEO. No videos like mine there discussing Etsy personalized recommendations!
@@WholesaleTed Thanks for the insightful tips, I'm always looking forward to seeing your next video.
Helo what is print on demand ? 🙂❤
Thank you!
How to sell my print on demand cloth i cant invest on shopify
There are lots of ways to start a store for free. I even made a video showing a new method for starting a store for free with Fourth Wall here: ua-cam.com/video/1nwxxRkVbgQ/v-deo.html
@@WholesaleTedThank You!!
I'm going to check this out when I finish watching This video!!😊👍
Very insightful
Was this video sped up or something? It seemed very fast. I felt like my heart was racing trying to follow along... (I still learned stuff) ♥️
Haha sorry - I actually thought the video was kind of slow/a little boring and wished I'd edited it faster! I'll keep this in mind for the future 🙏
Sarah's video was almost 18 minutes long, but she really fills each minute with important info, not wasting time with fluff and filler, so it may seem like the time flys by fast because it's action-packed. 😊
Thank you for another great video!
@@pat4005 not arguing that!! ♥️
Brilliant.
I've being getting Vsits but no conversions.
Usually, if you're getting visits but no conversions that is a sign that people are interested in your products but don't trust you. I'm sure Muggy McMuggins also has a fairly low conversion rate despite what is probably a fairly high CTR, because the store looks untrustworthy. Take a look at people who are thriving in your niche. And then make your store look at least as equally good as theirs.
Have you ever used peaprint?
No I haven't - I have very reliable suppliers now and so I prefer to use what I can now trust, rather than experiment with unknowns. I actually have a video coming out discussing that, working hard on it right now!
Thanksssss
Crazy "like to click" ratio🥵
Sadly AI cant help you with that😢
Please help not sale my store 😢😢😢
I recommend watching this video fully through - Mistake #1 & Mistake #2 are the biggest reason I see new stores getting no sales!
@@WholesaleTed thanks
Why'd that old guy try to start a side quest 😂😂😂
I don't make any of these mistakes, I still have 0 sales after 2 months.
Honestly, as harsh as it is, you may want to get a family/friend to give you harsh criticism. It's difficult to know without looking at your store what exactly the problem/s are, but the most common culprits usually are:
1) People's products aren't as good as they think they are,
2) People's products are more boring/copycat than they realize because it is genuinely very easy to accidentally copy.
3) People's stores look uglier/less professional than they realize.
Get an honest family member/friend to take a look at your store, and then compare it to a store that is thriving in your niche, and get them to tell you what exactly they think of your store, versus the other store. That comparison might show you what your store is missing 🙏
I am beginner even after 1 year with 0 sales
Then this video is probably a good one for you to watch! Haha 🙏 I hope it can help.
I started doing pod because of your videos thanks your content is much appreciated 👌
when you start, there will be no reviews
No... there won't be, haha, that is pretty much exactly what Mistake #1 discusses - why it's important to avoid that because you have no reviews or social proof 🙏 0:48
Sarah Can you hear me say you got me into this POD I only got 2 sales in the past few months and now most of my designs are expired
I hope that Mistake #1 & Mistake #2 can help - these are the most common reasons I see people not get sales or traction with a new Etsy store. I recently started a brand new Etsy store and got my first 2 sales within 1 week, using no paid ads or external advertising, and with a small number of designs, because I filled a gap in the market 0:48 🙏
12:00
爱莫姆
♥️🔼💵
It all comes down to advertising.
I sincerely, sincerely disagree with this take. I do not think it comes down to advertising. I think that this might be the biggest mistake that people make, honestly: thinking that it comes down to advertising. It does not - it comes down to designs. Great designs ARE advertising, because great designs sell themselves, thanks to recommendation algorithms. It is the main way I sell products, utilizing recommendation algorithms: ua-cam.com/video/v3jE2qNt3I8/v-deo.htmlsi=rALRzdL5LVT0pxJX
Recommendation algorithms will recommend ALL products for you through their test impressions, without you having to do anything. However, they will only keep recommending products that actually convert. If your product doesn't convert, it will stop recommending it. If it converts however, it will keep showing it - and you don't have to do anything. I create high converting products and then let recommendation algorithms do the traffic for me. That is why I focus so heavily on this channel on design. Because I believe through my experience that a great design IS the advertising/traffic 🌞
@@WholesaleTed Let's see. You have your own site. How will people find it, if you do not advertise it?
Ah, sorry - I thought from memory that you sold on Etsy, not exclusively through your own store. My bad! You have been in the comments a lot, I recognize you but misremembered your store. In that case, unless you prefer SEO traffic like me - yes you will need more of a plan if you want to skip over an external 3rd party platform like Etsy. These days I prefer the double-punch of Etsy + Google. Create a Shopify + Etsy store, optimize for Google traffic & Etsy traffic, then with the two connected together, the Etsy store feeds the Shopify store authority & sales come in passively from Google SEO. If you want to skip over a 3rd party platform though to give authority (doesn't have to be Etsy - could be eBay etc) then I agree some form of direct advertising is required.
It’s not easy. They want you to spend money advertising and there goes your profit.
On mistake #3, I wouldn't buy any of the products on etsy. But I would sell it to anyone who wants it. I spend more money on food than on other c**p
Her name is Ted?! What?!😂
My name isn't Ted, my name is Sarah. There is a whole story behind how the channel came to be called Ted. The story is on my website.
Print on Demand is so dead as Dropshipping ! Rule of thumb is that you gotta pay tons of ads to get leads and perhaps sales conversion in a very SATURATED MARKET. Spend money to make money....
Honestly, it is impossible for Print On Demand to be "dead" and it is impossible for it to be "saturated" - both of those phrases make no sense.
Print On Demand is a production & fulfillment method. You use it to produce products. Fulfillment & production methods cannot be saturated. And they can't "die" unless they are made illegal.
It is products & niches which "die" from lack of demand, or become saturated due to oversupply. Not production & fulfillment methods. An example of a saturated market is white socks. That is saturated because many, many plain white socks exist. So breaking into the market, while not impossible, is very difficult, because many white sock brands exist.
However. Would you say that the main production method used for them, Circular Knitting, is saturated? No you would not, because that makes no sense.
Circular Knitting is not saturated. It is just a production method that can be used to make socks. You could use it to make unique socks nobody else is selling in untapped market. Or you can use it to make plain white socks that everybody is selling in a saturated market.
Print On Demand is no different. It is a production method used to make products, like clothes, homeware items, art pieces, tech items & accessories. Whether you choose to use it to copy pre-existing products that everyone is selling, or focus on untapped niches, is entirely up to you. You can choose to copy & make products that are in crowded, saturated product niches, or choose to focus on untapped niches.
So yes, I genuinely don't mean to be rude. But saying that "Print On Demand is saturated/dead" genuinely makes no sense 🙏
There’s actually 8
One is believing the bs of UA-camrs
Like Ryan Hogue.
I look at his Redbubble and Amazon store. Lots of crap in it. I have like 1 or 2 sales. But like 99% of his stuff have no sales.
ANd he say's he makes "thousands" a week.
first mistake is watching video like this without knowing that the "how to make money online tutorial" is also a niche, really good niche
So she advertised on her Instagram. Which she already have a following.
My Etsy case study did not involve any external marketing, including on Instagram. I did not advertise my products outside of turning on Etsy ads. But I had to wait 2 weeks to do that, and was making sales even before that, using the strategy I discuss at 0:48 - filling a gap in the market
I honestly can’t understand how 99% fail. In every one of your videos, you make it seem like everything is so easy, and that you'd immediately earn thousands of euros.