← Crickets to Cha-Chings
Crickets to Cha-Chings
199. Your First $1K Month on Etsy (+ Our New ‘Hidden Gems’ Segment)
00:31:26
Summary In this episode of the Crickets to Cha-chings podcast, hosts Julie Berninger and Cody Berman discuss Cody's recent success with a new Etsy shop, sharing insights on strategies for achieving sales milestones, the importance of effective listing...
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- [00:00]
Julie Brenninger
Hello and welcome to the Crickets to Cha Ching's podcast. I'm Julie Brenninger, co founder of Gold City Ventures, and today I have a special co host with me today. Welcome, Cody.
- [00:10]
Cody Berman
Thank you for having me. And you're going to be hearing a lot more of my voice on this podcast because we have some exciting announcements today.
- [00:16]
Julie Brenninger
Yes. So Cody and I co founded Gold City Ventures together back in 2019. And the exciting news is that Cody started a brand new Etsy shop last year and he's just been crushing it and he's been really hitting some big revenue numbers. So we're going to have Cody talk about that before we get into our big announcement. But definitely stay tuned because I think you'll be excited to hear what new format we have to the show going forward.
- [00:40]
Cody Berman
Yeah, I'll just jump right into it. So as you alluded to, we started Gold City ventures back in 2019, had some early success. Basically my story was like, I blew up one Valentine's Day. I was big into seasonal printables, had a $700 week. I was addicted. Fast forward five years or something like that. 2024, someone commented on one of my Was a YouTube short or Instagram? I don't even remember exactly, but they said something like, you could never recreate your success. Etsy is way too saturated. So I was like, okay, how about I actually go and put this into practice? Like, did the things that we still teach today, Gold City Ventures E printables course, do these things still make money and still work? And you know, Julie, we know because our students are posting wins daily, weekly, amazing things. But I just wanted to see for myself. So I went and started a brand new shop with. I didn't tell anybody about it. You, the coaches, the students, nobody knew about this thing. And I just wanted to see how well I could do operating in a silo. I had a goal of hitting a thousand dollars per month in revenue. I thought that was a pretty meaningful milestone because I remember during the beginning of my side hustle journey, and I'm sure your side hustle journey, like when I hit that revenue goal, I was like, okay, this is possible. When you make those first couple dollars outside of corporate, I feel like that's one turning point. But then like a thousand dollars per month, you're like, okay, this is. This thing actually has legs. So we'll get into all the tactics and strategies and all that fun stuff. But I ended up hitting my $1,000 per month goal. I have the screenshot. You know, the past 30 days on Etsy on day 116. So I was pretty pumped about that. And since then, the shop has continued to surge on. Actually just recently hit $10,000 in overall sales in that secondary side shop. And it's been a fun little experiment and fun journey, and it's a testament to what we teach. It's the same exact strategies that we're teaching day in and day out at Gold City Ventures. So that was a nice little refreshing piece of this whole experiment as well.
- [02:21]
Julie Brenninger
It works. And I know for many of our listeners, their goal is to reach something like $1,000 a month in revenue. And the amount of time they have was similar to the amount of time you had to spend on this. It's not like you spent all day working on your shop. You have another shop that you manage, and you also manage Gold City Ventures. You're an active real estate investor. You got a lot going on. So I think it's something that could translate to a real life experience for someone listening to. So before we kind of get into the nuts and bolts of that, I also wanted to congratulate you too. You hit another revenue milestone. Didn't you just cross the big 10k in total revenue of that new shop?
- [02:56]
Cody Berman
10K? Yep, 10k just a couple of days ago as we're recording this. So that was another exciting one because as you said, I am doing so many other things. This was just a side project that I wanted to be in the shoes of our students. Most people when they join eprintables, when they join the community, they don't have 40 hours a week to dedicate to this. That's. That would be kind of a ridiculous ask from us. So I was spending five to 10 hours a week, like an hour, maybe two hours per day if I got lucky. And yeah, with a five to 10 hours per week, I, you know, hit the thousand dollars per month in 116 days. I ended up having a $2,500 week, actually. And then I just recently hit that $10,000 milestone.
- [03:32]
Julie Brenninger
Excellent. And I noticed because you had shared this on your IG story, that you were at like $9,997 and then you got a $4 sale and it tipped you over to $10,001. And I kind. In the digital product world, sometimes our numbers are made up of little 3, 4, 5 dollar sales. So would you say in this new shop, the majority of your products are still in that kind of lower but not totally low sales price category? Or have you found some products that are in that Sweet spot of like 10 to $15 per item.
- [04:05]
Cody Berman
Haven't made it up to 15. Everything I have is between 399 and 999. So I still am in that sweet spot. But I will say is some people, depending on who you are, you might hear a number like $10,000. You might think that's a lot. You might think that's a little. If you're in the physical product space, it might sound like a little. But you got to remember with digital products, these things have like 90 plus percent margins. There's no cost to create this thing. You can go in in Canva, you can use the free version of Canva if you want. You can use free keyword research tools and go in and make this thing. Whereas if I was making baskets or T shirts or whatever, those things are going to have way lower profit margin. So even though that number, that overall revenue number might be a lot higher, I'm going to be taking a lot less of that home. So that's another cool thing about digital products. Not that many of you need to be reminded, but those who are in the handmade space and those who do sell pod like $10,000. Most of that can be revenue if you're selling digital products because the margins are so high.
- [04:58]
Julie Brenninger
Yep. And you can also turn the products into a bunch of other things. Like, I know you've perfected the template method and I think that's one of the ways you. Yes, I know we're going to get into that. And that's one of the ways you've been able to multiply your time. So for all of us busy people, how do we multiply our time when we have such a limited time so that we could list as many items as possible? Because I don't know if you want to give a range of how many items you have listed in that shop, but that might be helpful for people to get a benchmark.
- [05:25]
Cody Berman
I now have just under 500 items listed in that shop. That might sound crazy to some people, but a lot of these variations, I'll take one base product. So let's give a real example because this template method was the one of the big reasons behind my success. So let's use a thank you card, for example. I can very easily take a thank you card and just create 25, 50 different variations of that thank you card. I could create a thank you card for every variation of birthday, for every holiday throughout the year, for Valentine's Day, Easter, graduation. And then you can go into like niches like teachers Nurses. There's an infinite number of possibilities. So basically what I do is, is I'll build a really nice looking base template. Once I'm happy with how that base template looks and the listing images and the description, like, I'll do all this at once. Then I'll just go and kind of brainstorm. Using various keyword research tools, how can I basically make this base template into as many products as possible. So there's some where I have 50 variations of one product. So that's how I'm able to scale to 500 different products so quickly. And with something like taking a thank you card and making it a nurse thank you card to a teacher, it might just be changing the design on Canva, which is like maybe changing the colors, the words, changing some of the elements like the clip art. Then I literally will drag and drop the new design into my listing images. I'm using the same exact listing images, just with the new design on it. It takes me less than a minute to swap out all the different listing images. I'll go in and update the description to make sure that it's talking about the new products, the title, the tags, anything that needs to be changed. But a lot of this stuff is drag and drop. So a lot of this stuff I really don't have to recreate the wheel. And that's where I see so many people get stuck, is they're like, oh, I just spent six hours creating this product. Let me go spend another six hours creating the next product. It's like I actually spent a couple hours creating this main product, and now I spent the next two hours creating 10 different variations of that product. Now I have 12 products and the person in the first scenario has one and a half.
- [07:24]
Julie Brenninger
Yep. And so that's how you're able to get those listing numbers up. And I'm just very. I'm just curious. We don't really have a specific number that we think people have to hit to kind of get meaningful results. I mean, we've had students make sales off of the first listing that they ever published. Or we've had students publish five listings and one of them really takes off versus the other four. Did you find that there was a sweet spot? It was like, okay, once I got to the first 25 listings or something, then I started to snowball. Or would you say it's been pretty consistent linear growth as you list new items?
- [07:56]
Cody Berman
Definitely pretty linear growth. Although I'll say I made my first sale on day three. So I only had a couple of products listed But I was very intentional about the products I was listing. I was doing my keyword research, making sure that people are actually searching for that thing. Didn't have a lot of competition. So I made that first sale on day three. But I think I've talked about this before. I like to think is of each printable, each digital product as like a mini passive income stream. Some people think I'm crazy. Like I will go after something that only has 50 searches a month in, you know, Erank, Everbee, Insight Factory. Pick your poison, however you're doing your keyword research. But if I'm one of two people selling that thing and I can capture just a couple of sales with a $5 product, like that thing might be making me $20 month over month over month over month. And as I assembled this army of these little passive income monsters in my Etsy shop, it's like I had $185 in sales in month one, and then 400amonth two, and then 900 in month three, and then two month four. My sales exploded. I had over $4,000 in sales. So as my number of products listed has increased, it's been a pretty steady linear growth for the revenue as well.
- [09:00]
Julie Brenninger
Cool. And would you say it's been mostly the editable templates that you've been selling, or do you sell mostly static one pagers? I'm curious about the breakdown on that.
- [09:12]
Cody Berman
Mostly editable templates. I found early success with editable templates, if you remember from my Valentine's Day love coupons back in 2019 or whatever it was. And so I leaned into that. Customers love being able to edit and add their own personalization and change the colors and whatever they want to do with that template. So I have leaned pretty hard. I'd say like 90 plus percent of my sales are with editable products.
- [09:34]
Julie Brenninger
And you're using Cordial C O, R, J L to make those?
- [09:38]
Cody Berman
Yep, Cordial for a majority. I have Canva for some of them, depending on the product. For Cordial, it's like when it's getting sold to a customer that might be a little less techy and might just want to make a quick change. Maybe they're just like changing the names on an invitation or they're changing the names on a coupon. But for something that's more robust, I'll use Canva Pro. And someone. If someone's like maybe a little techie or and wants more customization. I don't know what word I was going for there. Customization is the one I was going For.
- [10:03]
Julie Brenninger
Yeah, for Cordial, you can use the mobile demo link.
- [10:07]
Cody Berman
Yes. So that's a.
- [10:09]
Julie Brenninger
You use it, put in a listing. Yeah, yeah. So this is an interesting one. We've been selling on Etsy for a long time and I would say we're part of the old guard in that we use Cordial, another third party software, to make our templates editable. But since we've had thousands of students take the Printables course, we've brought on six plus coaches. And we've noticed over time the coaches have stopped using the third party software as Canva improved and now they just use Canva and unfortunately Canva changed it. So you have to have Canva Pro to share a template link, which is a feature that you need to sell an editable template. But Canva Pro has so many benefits beyond just that one thing. If you're a serious seller, you will have Canva Pro eventually anyways. But I thought that's been interesting over time. But I think you and I, we're still part of that OG Cordial crew and I still think that Cordial is just slightly better, but it can be cost prohibitive to someone who's just starting out to pay for another subscription before they're getting lots of sales to kind.
- [11:06]
Cody Berman
Of make up for it if Canva introduces the demo link. See you later. But right now I don't want to change what's working. You know what I mean? It's like I was able to build a new shop to $1,000 per month in 116 days. A lot of the editable stuff was with Cordial. So it's like, if I can do that, there's no reason to not use it until Canva gets so much better and we're like, you know, I'll just leave that in the dust. But for now it's working for me, so I'm going to keep on using it.
- [11:32]
Julie Brenninger
Yeah. And I find it as a customer. It's easier to print from Cordial to do multiple items per page than it is to figure that out from Canva because people don't know how to use their printers, including me. I don't know how to use my printer. I'm trying to. So Cordial just makes it so simple. So something like gift tags or little things like you're mentioning your love coupons, it just seems easier. But that being said, you know, when we do poll our coaches and we poll our students, they're using Canva Pro for the majority of them. So it is kind of interesting. You have Many options as a seller nowadays.
- [12:03]
Cody Berman
A lot of ways to win.
- [12:04]
Julie Brenninger
I like to say a lot of ways to win. So what other ways are you winning in your shop? Any other fun tips for us?
- [12:12]
Cody Berman
See, I think something that most people do incorrectly is they don't spend nearly enough time on the main listing image. So when I go through and do my keyword research, like, I will type in exactly the product that I'm making. Let's say I'm making a Father's Day card. Father's Day is right around the corner. I am going into the search results, and I'm just seeing what pops up. Because the last thing you want is your thing to either a look so different than everybody else's that nobody's going to click on it. Like, maybe it's just weird sizing or just doesn't make sense or it just look worse in general. Like, nobody's going to click on your thing. And your main listing image is the gatekeeper to sales. So a lot of people will be like, whew, I finally finished making that product. I'm just going to whip together these listing images and spend two minutes on it. Well, it's like, you could have the best product in the world, but if that main listing image doesn't pop, doesn't attract buyers, then you're not going to make any sales. So I see way too many people making this mistake. And you can just tell the listing images look like crap. The final product, like, they might have spent hours creating this product. And then just because the listing image is bad, nobody's gonna click in and see how awesome this thing is. So I spent an inordinate amount of time on that main listing image. And I don't. I mean, I do have. I think I have like, eight listing listing images per product. I spend some time on listing images 2 through 8. But most of the time, they're just like, you know, drag and drop and they don't matter as much. But that first listing image is just so, so important because if someone doesn't click into your product, like, they don't even have a chance to look at the description, to look at the other listing images to kind of get a deeper dive. So I think a lot of people don't spend nearly enough time on that main listing image. Mm.
- [13:46]
Julie Brenninger
And they get fatigued. That's the issue. But the buyer spends the majority of time. It's reverse. It's an inverse pyramid where the buyer is spending the majority of time looking at your marketing images, your listing images, and not your product, they don't even see your product till after the sale. So that makes tons of sense. We've also noticed people don't zoom in enough. So they're super zoomed out and you can't even see what the product is. So you don't have to be an amazing graphic designer. I'm guessing that you're just making sure that it's centered, it's zoomed. Now do you use the new square crop or do you still do a horizontal layout?
- [14:19]
Cody Berman
I will. So good question. I will make sure that my product looks good in a horizontal format and when it's cropped square it looks good as well. So I'm. Because a lot of the best sellers you'll see if you're in certain views and Etsy's changing these views all the time. But in some of these views you'll see a lot of the even top search results. They'll be cut off on the left and right. Like even the words describe in the printable, like the main part of the image is getting cut off. So I am always I use like the in canva like the show rulers and guides. I make sure that the left hand side and the right hand side, like when those are cut off when cropped is square that the listing image still makes sense.
- [14:58]
Julie Brenninger
If that answers your question, that makes total sense too.
- [15:00]
Cody Berman
Cool.
- [15:01]
Julie Brenninger
So Cody, I know you put together all of your best tips from this journey. Well, first you shared it all on Instagram and Odydberman which is amazing. So thanks for doing that. We'll link to your IG handle in the description. But you also put together everything in a new ebook I think. So do you want to share a little bit more about what people could find in there?
- [15:21]
Cody Berman
Yeah, it's called you'd first thousand dollar month on Etsy. Very fitting name for this little challenge I put together. It's a 17 page E. It's going to talk about all of these strategies that I use to grow a brand new shop to a thousand dollars per month without using social media, without having an audience. Yes, we have an audience but this is again done in the silo. I was just relying on keyword research and SEO and making sure that I was showing up in the search results talking about how to niche down and create kind of bulk differentiations of each product. So like taking one thank you Card and creating 40 different versions of that. Both the keyword research side and the like actual template in template side of things. And yeah, there's a whole bunch of context in there. A Whole bunch of examples. I spent a long time, probably longer than I should have on this ebook. I was like, I'm such a perfectionist. So I like to make sure that every page is perfect. So I think people are gonna get a lot of value out of this. They'll kind of see how my brain works when it comes to this stuff. And the cool thing is, like I said, this is the same exact stuff that we're talking about day in and day out in Gold City Adventures. Like, it's not like I'm completely reinventing the wheel. This is just gonna further cement. If you're someone who's ever purchased a product from us or been in our community or in our course, like, still check this out. But it's just gonna further cement. Like, this stuff works if you're someone who is. I always love using this visualization. There's like the meme of the guy in the the diamond mine. He's like, just about to take another swing and then he turns around because he. He gives up. He's had. He's tired, he's had enough swings, but he's like one swing away from getting all the diamonds. That is where I see a lot of people in the Etsy space. Like you might be one design away or one tweak away from sales starting to pour in, or even maybe it's your first sale, or maybe it's like just starting to get that sales momentum and people just give up because they might be missing one tiny piece. So hopefully this ebook will help people get over that hump. You can grab it@the GoldCityVentures.com 1000 and it's called the your first thousand dollar month on etsy. So that's goldcityventures.com 1000. Julie, should we get into the exciting. Yes. One. Yeah, not spelled out. Just one. Zero, zero.
- [17:22]
Julie Brenninger
Got it.
- [17:22]
Cody Berman
Oh, yes, Exciting part. Sorry.
- [17:25]
Julie Brenninger
Yes, we definitely can. And I want to say if they do go on your ig, Cody D. Berman, they need to click your highlight because then you go through day by day, day one, day two, day three. It's kind of cool to see someone build the new shop in a series. Cause I think people can relate depending on, you know, where they're at.
- [17:40]
Cody Berman
It was a lot of work. It was a lot of work.
- [17:43]
Julie Brenninger
Yes, you did. You did a great job, Kody. Okay, so now to our big announcement, the new show format. I'm gonna do a drum roll and you can be the announcer.
- [17:51]
Cody Berman
Okay. All right, so we're gonna do a new show format called Hidden gems. And basically what we're gonna do is we're gonna get inside the brains of some of the most successful people on Etsy. So this is the biggest YouTubers, Instagram influencers, TikTokers who are talking about Etsy day in and day out. We have a very new, exciting format. We're gonna be getting tips from them, getting trend ideas from them. We just want this stuff to be as actionable as possible for you. This is a format we haven't seen on other Etsy podcasts. We want to be one of the first ones to kind of teach this and show you guys this. And it's just gonna be different. I think you're gonna have to listen to the first episode, the next episode, to see how things are gonna shake out and how actionable it's actually going to be. But I think this format is just. It's gonna be something. You're gonna be taking notes and you're gonna, you know, rush your computer and want to dive into these trends, want to implement these tips immediately. And again, it's with some of the best and brightest in the space, names you guys will definitely recognize.
- [18:45]
Julie Brenninger
Yep. I'm so excited for this because I think when Cody and I were talking about our favorite podcasts that we listened to in the business space, we kept coming back to podcasts that were in this format, like, very almost tactical, where every episode you learn something, and we like to share those type of episodes back and forth between each other to help us grow the business. So we said, why don't we bring that type of format to the Etsy space with our audience and community? And I think you all will love it. And it also helps with the time saving because we know in order for you to be successful on Etsy, you have to be. Be spending a good amount of time creating products and experimenting and listing on Etsy. And that takes time. So if we can give you this information in less time in a bulleted format without some of the longer backstories or long interview formats that you'll see on normal podcasts, I think it will help you too. And we all. We all need our time back. We're. We're all very busy. So excited to introduce that format. Stay tuned. It's going to be every episode going forward from today, and sometimes it will be me hosting, and sometimes it will be Cody hosting. Maybe sometimes we'll be together. But get ready, we're going to bring some big names here and excited to hear what they have to say. Hidden gems and.
- [19:56]
Cody Berman
Okay, yeah, Hidden gems. I was going to say if you guys have suggestions for guests or feedback from these first couple episodes, like, definitely shoot us a DM on Instagram or anywhere at GoldCity Ventures, because we'd love to hear your feedback. We want to, we want to know if this is helpful. There's certain things that you want to hear more of, if you want to hear less of, seriously, all feedback is welcome. We want this to be as actionable and tactical for you as possible.
- [20:20]
Julie Brenninger
Totally. And then I wanted to end with a hidden gem from my shopping experience this past week. So now my husband and I have been diving into the real estate world ourselves and we just purchased a beach house that we're going to rent out on Airbnb and vrbo. So we did construction and renovation work and all the boring stuff's out of the way. But now the fun part, which is the design and decor, it's time for that. And my favorite place to shop for that is on Etsy. So in the process of doing all this shopping, I got a sense for one, how to actually sell a certain type of digital product on Etsy, how to do it good and bad. So I'm going to give you those tips and then we'll talk about some design esthetics that are trending right now. So the first thing is regarding wall art. Cody, do you sell any wall art at all?
- [21:05]
Cody Berman
I don't. I have not ventured into the wall art space.
- [21:08]
Julie Brenninger
I'm scared and I, I don't sell wall art either. But if I were to sell wall art, I can tell you what I would and would not do. And hopefully those of you who do sell wall art, this helps you. So the first thing, when you are a customer shopping for wall art, the wall art seller will give you a whole bunch of different sizes that they will provide. And the majority of sellers that I saw, they list things out in aspect ratios like 2 parts across by 3 down or 3 parts across by 4 down. Fairly industry typical aspect ratios. But then when you actually get the files from the seller and you go to buy it, it is a hot mess in those dropboxes and Google Drives, gosh, it's a disaster in there. And so when you're getting a whole bunch of sizes, it can be, it can feel really overwhelming. So I thought the sellers that included the information in their listing and then they also included like a PDF that didn't just have the link to the Google Drive, it kind of explained the sizes again and, oh, you wanted an 18 by 24 inch wall art then that would be the 3 by 4 aspect ratio. So that's the particular one that you're going to download. So you don't have to download all of them. Because it just felt like a little bit of bargain basement. When I got into people's dropboxes and the files weren't all labeled kind of they were, they were labeled consistently, but they were labeled kind of weird. And the sellers also, they would make the largest in each file size. Like they'd make the 18 by 24, but if you wanted a 9 by 12 or you wanted something smaller, uh, it wasn't for me who does this every day. I knew that it would translate. But I feel like a brand new person would probably send you a message and just get confused. So some type of style guide would be super helpful. The second thing, think about the way the person is purchasing this. So I was purchasing these prints so they could be above the beds in each of the rooms and set of three, like a gallery wall. Set of three is very common. So this is a beach house. So I had like sailboats and I had three pictures right next to each other. But I bought a king bed for this room in the rental and I was trying to match up well, what size frames do I need. And it required me to use ChatGPT and like Google for 20 minutes to figure out what sizes these should actually be. And I feel like this is something that if a seller wanted to go above and beyond, you could do that. Like you could say a standard sofa is 83 inches. If you want to do three gallery wall above the sofa, we recommend this size. Or if you want to do three above the bed, we recommend this size and maybe show some sort of visual with that. Like nobody did that and it was just such a missed opportunity and it makes the seller and the buyer not the best experience. And then the third thing, the sellers, not all of them did this. Most of it was a free for all. Like you can print it out wherever you want. But the majority of them, they did not say anything. But some said, oh, you can print at Walgreens or Walmart or one of these photo centers. But actually the people that recommended Prints of Love, I appreciated that because the Prince of Love website is so easy to use. I do think they might be a little more expensive than like a Walmart photo. But it is foolproof. Printing your wall art out at Prince of Love and you can print everything out there like wedding cards and stuff. And I'm pretty sure you can use an affiliate link so you As a seller could get a commission on someone actually printing their stuff out through them. Now, I haven't received my items in the mail yet. I just ordered it, but I'm like, oh, this ordering experience was so easy. And I went on Walmart.com because that's usually where I print my pictures for the kids. But for wall art, like, it just got overwhelming, the choices. And I feel like the average buyer would just ha. So those were some of my tips now that I've gone down this wall art journey for the Airbnb. Have you ever bought wall art, Cody?
- [24:54]
Cody Berman
I was just about to say, I am so fortunate that my wife Lauren did all of the outfitting for our Airbnbs because this is so foreign to me. Like, I have never once even bought a painting or a picture ever. I don't, I don't do design stuff, but hey, I'm an Etsy seller. It works.
- [25:10]
Julie Brenninger
Yeah. Yep. I know. And Lauren has great taste. I love all the pictures of your guys. Rental properties.
- [25:16]
Cody Berman
Thank you.
- [25:17]
Julie Brenninger
But this was something that I hadn't thought about. But okay, so other now I did want to talk about the practical side of selling wall art and some of the things that I think are easy opportunities that somebody could do, but just in general. Oh, oh, last thing though. People were way undercharging for wall art. Like, way undercharging. So some people were selling their wall art for like $5 or $2, and then other people were selling it for $40 for a print. Wow, $25. So what I want to say is, like, you for just digital download. So you could. There's no reason that you need to sell this wall art for like less than $10. I mean, I'm, of course, this is me coming in as a buyer, but. And this is for a property where I'm going to make money on an Airbnb. But I don't think you need to be undercharging. Like, I think the people that were selling it so cheap, I was like, why?
- [26:09]
Cody Berman
Why?
- [26:09]
Julie Brenninger
Why are you doing this? You know, I hate when people do the race to the barrel pricing.
- [26:14]
Cody Berman
Yeah. Wow. 40 bucks for digital download wall art. Hey, that's serious.
- [26:19]
Julie Brenninger
Yeah. No, it was something that was like a bestseller and it was pretty creative and Etsy had kind of recommended it as Etsy's pick. So I bet they didn't originally start out there. They probably started to bump it up as they saw they got more successful, which I think we've all done, increased our prices by a dollar or two as we go. Yeah, but, yeah, I think people are in general undercharging. Okay, but in terms of the trends, Cody, let me know. Have you heard of any of these aesthetic trends? And by aesthetic, I mean literally, what does the design look like? Like, there's, there's certain. And this is a word that I think Gen Z kind of uses a lot. But now us millennials, we're starting to use it in other generations. It's. It's means the vibe. Have you heard of a grand millennial?
- [27:03]
Cody Berman
No.
- [27:03]
Julie Brenninger
Have you heard of coastal granddaughter?
- [27:07]
Cody Berman
Nope.
- [27:08]
Julie Brenninger
Okay, so those two are kind of similar. But you know, all the movies that have Diane Keaton in them, she's the coastal grandmother. You know, she's got a certain vibe to her and she's got like that white linen button down shirt and she's hosting a dinner party in front of her hydrangeas on her house. That's right by the water in the ocean.
- [27:28]
Cody Berman
I can fix it.
- [27:28]
Julie Brenninger
It's like a vibe. It's a certain vibe. Yeah. So apparently people are into that, but those are the words they use to describe that vibe. And the art prints are like coastal, nautical, like kind of, I would say like powder blue, periwinkle blue. Like blue and white. They're just kind of summery vibes. So that's big. But there's this other sub current going on right now. Have you heard of Italian summer and the sardines? Okay, you've heard of that?
- [27:57]
Cody Berman
I have heard of those. I have heard of those. There's like a Grecian one too, that's really popular.
- [28:02]
Julie Brenninger
Yeah, the Mediterranean vibe.
- [28:04]
Cody Berman
Yes.
- [28:05]
Julie Brenninger
So that is like the dark blue and white with the bright color yellow for the lemons. And then the strange thing is that the sardines trend, which, my husband eats sardines and I find them to be disgusting. I don't understand sardines.
- [28:20]
Cody Berman
I thought it was like for Sardinia. I thought it was like Sardinia, like the region of Italy.
- [28:24]
Julie Brenninger
No, like there's. There are literally people are putting prints of sardine tins, but those instead of just being the blue, white and yellow, those actually have like the pinks and some of the almost like pastel Barbie core disco ball combined with sardines. I don't quite get it, to be honest, but that's really big. And you see it everywhere.
- [28:45]
Cody Berman
Okay.
- [28:45]
Julie Brenninger
And you see it's a new one for me, a TJ Maxx or a home goods. Like that style is what people are looking for visually. And apparently Italy, like, I saw there was some baby shower things that people were Doing pizza themed, Italian themed. I find that to be funny. As someone that has some Italian heritage, I'm like, Italy was always popular. Why did everyone blowing up.
- [29:06]
Cody Berman
I have two weddings this year, Julie in Italy from friends who are both in the States. I don't even know if one of them is Italian. But it's becoming a thing for whatever reason. So I love that you're pointing out this trend.
- [29:18]
Julie Brenninger
It's a big trend. That sounds amazing, Cody. And I know you all don't have kids yet so you can have a nice little vacation and just really enjoy that.
- [29:26]
Cody Berman
That's the plan.
- [29:27]
Julie Brenninger
Not worry about the looks of those.
- [29:28]
Cody Berman
Passive income sales on Etsy.
- [29:30]
Julie Brenninger
Yep. Yep. Okay. And then the last trend, strawberries, they're taking over and I don't again, I don't quite understand why but. And it almost reminds me of a print that would be on clothing for my like kids, the under five age group. But apparently adults want to be covered head to toe in strawberries and have strawberries that bright red and green color scheme. It's big. So I saw this all over the wall art and I see it in person. So if you sell handmade and you go into home goods or TJ Maxx, you're going to see that stuff there. Target, Marshalls, I'm sure they're all gonna be selling these type of things and maybe you can find a way to incorporate that into your design. Now to Cody's point though, you don't wanna be shoving these designs into things that don't make sense. If everyone else is doing a whole different aesthetic. It could be a risk to start taking a left turn and make a strawberry themed thing. But I've seen it work. Like for example, their first birthdays. Berry sweet first birthday was like a big one. I know that started becoming big last summer. So sometimes you might be the first to market, but it might make sense.
- [30:35]
Cody Berman
I love that. Yeah, definitely don't try to force some kind of a theme onto a niche like you don't want to be. Let's say there's a first birthday for a girl and every. All the best sellers are like these like nice pinks and whites and you just decide to go in with like a hard black and like a really dark red. It just does. It doesn't fit the aesthetic. It doesn't make sense. So like don't, don't stand out just for the sake of standing out. Stand out if you have something to add or something that you can differentiate with because again you don't want to have you don't want to force some kind of a trend or a theme onto a niche where it doesn't really make sense. You won't make sales that way.
- [31:09]
Julie Brenninger
100%. All right, well, I think that's the pod for today, and we're so excited to introduce Hidden Gems going forward. Definitely subscribe so that you can catch all the episodes we have upcoming with our super talented and amazing friends in this community. All right, bye, everyone.