← Crickets to Cha-Chings
Crickets to Cha-Chings
201. These 5 Print-on-Demand Products Make Sales Every Day (Even in Off-Season)
00:27:59
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- [00:00]
Emily
Hi everyone.
- [00:00]
Julie Berninger
Welcome to another episode of Cricut's to Cha Chings. I'm Julie Berninger and I'm here with Emily. Welcome.
- [00:07]
Emily
Hi. Thanks for having me.
- [00:09]
Julie Berninger
She is our resident print on demand expert. Although she also has a shop in digital products that is crushing as well. But Emily, I know recently you just hit a big milestone. Didn't you cross 600,000 since you started in your pod shop?
- [00:23]
Emily
I did. I crossed $600,000 in revenue, which still feels very surreal to even say out loud. But yeah, I just crossed it about two and a half years into my shop.
- [00:35]
Julie Berninger
That is very impressive. So congrats. And you're the perfect person to do this episode of Hidden Gems. Today you are going to be talking about five product trends that people should not sleep on if they're interested in adding some print on demand items to their shops. Is that accurate?
- [00:51]
Emily
Yes, that is. So I have five fun products that I have been digging into on Etsy that are simple to make and very beginner friendly that are making really, really big sales right now on Etsy.
- [01:05]
Julie Berninger
Awesome. And we're going to get into all of that. I also want to mention Emily has a webinar upcoming. It's going to be Thursday, August 7th at 8pm Eastern. We'll link to it in the description if anyone would like to attend. But she's going to be talking a little bit more about how to get started with a print on demand shop. If some of you are digital product sellers or you haven't opened your shop yet and you're thinking, oh, I'll get my toes wet, I'll try it out.
- [01:27]
Emily
Yeah, it's gonna be fun. We're gonna talk about how to get to your first hundred sales on Etsy. Kind of that first beginning phase. So lots of really practical strategies to help in that early period of your shop.
- [01:39]
Julie Berninger
Excellent. All right, so let's start with the first niche. And Emily, if you, you can share your screen if you wanna show anybody what you got going on there.
- [01:46]
Emily
Okay, perfect. So the first product that we're gonna talk about is one of my favorites that Printify sells, which is the hardcover Matte Journal. And we're going to be looking specifically at actually wedding vow books. And this is not something I necessarily thought would be like a thing that people would buy on Etsy, especially these just lined blank journals inside. I, I didn't think that would be something that customers would necessarily be drawn to, but I was definitely wrong and there is a lot of benefits to this. So I'm going to show you one product that is absolutely killing it right now on Etsy. And this is a his and hers. You can customize them however you want. This is a French toil pattern wedding vow journal set. And there's a couple things I love about this. So the first thing I love is this listing has only been up about six months and has sold over 3,000 times, which is unheard of. And I remember looking at this product about a month in and it had already sold about 400 times. So it took off really, really quickly. And then the second thing I love about this idea is the idea of getting a bulk order. So a bulk order is someone ordering more than one product in an order. And so with this, you're automatically getting an order for two journals because it's going to be a his and hers, or his and his, hers and hers, whichever type of set. And so it's going to be perfect for selling multiple items at a time and kind of increasing that average order value that you're getting. And then the third thing I love about this, this is more of like a design trend mixed in with this is this French toil pattern is incredibly popular right now. It has been growing in popularity all year and it is still gaining momentum and gaining popularity. And so what I love also about this is it's a super simple design. It's a pattern, and then it's a couple words on top of a journal. So this can be something regardless of the pattern or what design. It can be a really simple design. And you're selling two, likely in one order, which makes it a really awesome opportunity.
- [04:07]
Julie Berninger
And so what the bride and groom do, are they writing. Is this the lead up to the wedding? So they're, they're practicing.
- [04:13]
Emily
So this would be like. Yes. And they might read. So they might read their vows from these in the ceremony. They might write letters to each other maybe that they share with one another. And then it's also positioned to be like a keepsake gift so they can hold on to these long after their wedding and be able to have these as a memory from their wedding.
- [04:35]
Julie Berninger
Also, did you write your own vows?
- [04:38]
Emily
I sure did not. But we, we wrote letters to each other beforehand. I am, I'm not like, super publicly affectionate person. So we, we did write our whole ceremony because we had a friend officiate, but we did not write like specific vows that we read in our wedding.
- [04:55]
Julie Berninger
Yeah, same. We kept, kept it standard. But I always think it's cool when couples write creative vows. It's fun.
- [05:03]
Emily
Yes. And I Think it's a good testament because again, like I said, I was wondering, you know, are people really going to buy these plain journals? But it's thinking about the customer and not yourself. Right? Like, I didn't do that. But obviously there's been over 3,000 plus people who have bought even just this one in the last six months. So obviously there is a market for that. And it is a great kind of niche opportunity to get into while selling a pretty simple, straightforward product.
- [05:34]
Julie Berninger
Cool. I love it. All right, let's queue up the next one.
- [05:36]
Emily
Perfect. So the next product trend that I want to dive into is one that's one of my favorites. And this is going to be funny career candles. And this is an area I have spent a lot of time in researching, and it has been a great evergreen product and kind of general niche. So this idea of careers is very big. So you think teachers, nurses, accountants, designer. I mean, there's so many different opportunities under that career umbrella. And what I have found is that kind of these clever, funny candles with a super, super simple design. Right. So this is just a kind of white label with black writing on it, and that's all. But what it does is it connects with that specific audience. And so these simple, straightforward candles are absolutely killing it on Etsy every single day. And so this one is about five months old, has sold about 450 times in that five months. And something that I'll point out that this candle does really well is they kind of take it one step further and they apply it specifically to graduation. So you have a nursing school student, you have a graduation gift, and then you kind of have this, like, clever, funny candle, and they've put that all together. So the key with these candles is going to be getting specific with who you're selling to and thinking about occasions like graduation that you can apply that to. But again, this is a great opportunity to do something that's a very simple design and you're connecting with that audience with words as opposed to having to rely on trends for your design.
- [07:20]
Julie Berninger
And I'm sure for people getting started, that's a little bit easier just to focus on the text and the words.
- [07:27]
Emily
Yes, absolutely. So my first year or two, I was not a designer. I had no background in using Canva or anything like that. And so designs like this were where I spent a lot of my time, because I realized I would get a lot further focusing on a product like this where I could come up with these clever phrases and not have to rely so much on graphic design ability, which is great, especially in those beginning phases if you don't have that design background.
- [07:55]
Julie Berninger
That is welcoming to hear, I'm sure, to anyone who's kind of getting started. Also I think is interesting about this one. We talk a lot about giftable products and how Etsy is a big gifting marketplace. And I know you have your course, the Gift Lab, which is basically about creating print on demand giftable products and that has driven your sales success. The first one, the vows journals, that's something that maybe the bride might buy themselves or it could be gifted, but probably the bride's gonna buy it from my understanding. But this is like the pure playbook of like just create a giftable product and that's what's going to work. So I love how it kind of fits exactly into that, that niche.
- [08:30]
Emily
Yes. And Etsy is really pushing the platform as the go to for gifts. And I think what people love about buying a gift like that on Etsy is that they can't go to Target and buy a nursing school graduation candle. Maybe it's something funny, sentimental, whatever, but they can go on Etsy and find something completely, completely unique, specific to that person. And I think that is what Etsy is for and that's what we can kind of fill that gap with. And what's so unique is that we can do that in a really simple way and then never have to touch the product ourselves. Right. So we can really focus on that design, talk to the customer. And then our print provider, Printify, can kind of handle the rest from there, which makes it a really unique opportunity and makes it really fun. Like I have a lot of fun doing this because it's fun to provide these unique gifts. People can't just get down the street.
- [09:23]
Julie Berninger
Yep, I love being part of that too. So the third, the third hidden gem idea, what's that?
- [09:30]
Emily
Okay, so the teacher niche is obviously incredibly popular on Etsy. It's one of the ones that's, I feel like most talked about out there everywhere. And while teacher T shirts and all of that sell really well, there's a lot of opportunity in selling other products to teachers. So this one is a teacher tote bag and this one has been up a couple years. It has about 1400 plus sales. But you can see now it's, it's in 19 carts. It's a bestseller. And these tote bags that are sold on Printify through Monster Digital have, are really high quality and they also have really great profit margins and they ship really easily, which is nice. And so being able to provide A gift like this, a tote bag, that's something different than like a teacher, a teacher shirt, or a teacher candle, because teachers get a lot of candles and things like that. Having something that they can use like a tote bag and then being able to personalize it potentially with their name or some type of phrase relevant to teaching. So this one says helping little minds grow, grow. This is a fun, kind of unique way to provide a gift for teachers or really anyone in a career space or hobby space. But for this one, teachers. And it's a product again that teachers can use, parents can buy for their kids, teachers and customize it. So there's a lot of opportunity here. One pro tip I would give you, if you're looking at getting into teacher tote bags, would be scope out teacher T shirts for trends, you know, what kind of designs are selling really well there, and carry those into tote bags. Because there's not as many people selling tote bags for teachers as there are T shirts.
- [11:20]
Julie Berninger
And I'm curious about this cause I have a friend that she's a fourth grade teacher and I know she starts setting up her classroom in August. I think she was even mentioning she was sending her kids to camp with my kid because she's trying to get her classroom organized during the two weeks or whatever. So with these tote bags, do you think the teachers are also buying them for themselves too? Like maybe this is a good time to list them because they're in the mood to like start their school year off, carry their little tote bag to and from school as they get going.
- [11:48]
Emily
Definitely. I have seen, I sell tote bags in my own shop and I see a surge at the end of the school year, obviously, and that is primarily parents buying for those teachers. Then I see a small surge in August time. I think that is a mixture of teachers buying for themselves and then teachers and then parents buying for the new teacher of their child. I kind of see like a combination of that. Then the other time I see a little bit of a spike is actually people buying them as gifts for new teachers. So let's say their child just graduated and is starting their first teaching job. I've had some parents that have reached out and said, oh, this is for my daughter, she's starting her first teaching job. I wanted to get her a gift. So you see kind of a variety. So there's a great way to position these for a few different types of customer.
- [12:42]
Julie Berninger
Okay, awesome. And I'm glad. Thank you for explaining that. Because I think what I see A lot of newer people do is they don't ask the questions of, well, what are the specific occasions that somebody is shopping for this and buying for this and who's buying it for who? And so the design is never quite right and then it doesn't sell because they didn't figure out the situation. Because you can imagine in those scenarios maybe people want a little something different on them or maybe not. So thank you for kind of getting into that. Of course.
- [13:11]
Emily
And what I would say too is don't hesitate to get specific with other types of, I would say school professionals that are supplemental to teachers. So think about speech therapists, occupational therapists, bus drivers, you know, everyone across the board. So there's some fun opportunity to design for those specific groups kind of outside of just teachers.
- [13:34]
Julie Berninger
Great points. Okay, number four.
- [13:37]
Emily
Great. So this is a fun one. And I often get the question about ornaments, which is, well, they're only going to sell in November and December, right? That, yes, there is definitely the highest peak of ornaments being sold during the holiday season. However, ornaments truly sell year round. I was actually speaking with a student last week and, and she got her first bestseller badge and it was an ornament she was selling and she was like, I can't believe my first bestseller is an ornament in July. And I was like, yes, these ornaments sell all year round because people love to give them as gifts for kind of these special moments in their life. So the one I've pulled up here is an engagement ornament that's personalized and you'll find out there ornaments for, let's say new pets, first Christmas with a pet when someone gets married. There are thank you ornaments out there. So there's a lot of different occasions and people will buy them throughout the year to give as a gift for that special occasion. So this is just one example. Again, this is an engagement ornament. This one is personalized. It's sold about 715 times, but it is right now an active bestseller. So which means that number is probably a bit higher. And the other thing I often hear is, well, how much can you really sell an ornament for? And these are selling for 20 plus dollars. And so you can absolutely make a really healthy profit on these. And I love them because they're small. Again, they're really light to ship and it helps keep the cost down. And you can do all sorts of designs on these. But the good news is you can also keep them very, very simple, which is, which makes it very beginner friendly for someone who's kind of just getting into this space. But ornaments are super versatile. So even if you're selling other products in your shop and you're kind of ready to look for something else, ornaments might be a great supplement to what you're doing as a gift product to offer, you know, as a supplement to the other products you might have in your shop. So I, I really enjoy ornaments. I think they, they just sell all year round, which always blows my mind. But it's so true. And there's so many different opportunities for.
- [15:59]
Julie Berninger
Using these, and I do love that healthy margin there. So almost $20 for the ornament. And people say, well, who would pay $20 for an ornament? It's not really about that. I mean, when they're thinking of a gift to give someone, I think a lot of people, the budget for gifts is like 20 to $25 or $20 to $30, depending how well you know the person and you know what it is.
- [16:19]
Emily
But.
- [16:19]
Julie Berninger
But it. Or is it an add on? You know, different things. But it kind of feels like that's more what is setting the price point in the shopper's minds than necessarily like, oh, this ornament's really cheap to produce. It probably cost them like three bucks to produce or something. So you can, you can charge more. Because theoretically people are like, oh, this is how much a gift should be.
- [16:39]
Emily
Definitely. And my husband and I used to do. We still do it, but an annual ornament exchange at Christmas. So we would each buy each other an ornament of something that represented that year. And I always went to Etsy and bought ornaments because you can't. Again, I can't go down the street to the store and find something that's. That is customized to my dog's name. Right. Like our new dog. I can't find something necessarily customized to a new baby or our new house or anything like that. So I would go on Etsy and I would find these, and I would be willing to pay a little bit more to have it be exactly what I wanted and be something really meaningful as opposed to just something really generic. So I definitely think there's a lot of power in providing these unique and custom products for people that they can't find just anywhere.
- [17:24]
Julie Berninger
That's cute. I love the idea of an ornament gift swap. So where was he getting your ornaments? Was he going on Etsy?
- [17:29]
Emily
Oh, gosh, who knows? I think online too. I think he did a lot of Etsy also, but he, he always did funnier ones like we binged Game of Thrones one year. So he got me like this Game of Thrones, like the, like the crown or something, whatever it is. And that's always on our tree now. It's like this big Game of Thrones ornament. So we would always kind of try to do something. And it's fun because then when you put them up at each year, you're like, oh, remember that year that this happened? And you know, so it does. It's a really fun time when we put up the tree now.
- [18:01]
Julie Berninger
That's cute. I love that.
- [18:03]
Emily
Yeah.
- [18:03]
Julie Berninger
All right, last one.
- [18:05]
Emily
Perfect. Okay, so this one is a little bit funny, but this is both a product trend and a bit of a design trend. And these are actually. This is a new hot thing right now, these hidden message mugs. Now this one in particular is like a hidden swear message mug, but they have all sorts of hidden messages out there. Another thing that's really popular is QR codes on products. So QR codes on a mug, things like that, where you really either have to like use your phone to look at it, or if you look really closely at this, you can see a hidden message in it. So all these really are, are like a pattern and someone's added some small text there. So again, a fairly simple kind of design. These dual tone mugs are one of my favorite on Printify. They always print really, really well. They look really nice and customers love these mugs and these sell like hotcakes. So you can see this mug is only about two months old and it's sold over 1200 times and it's a bestseller 20 in cart. And so there is a lot of opportunity here. So not just with the hidden message, that's kind of like a fun design trend, but also just these kind of two tone mugs. And I see this style of mug really so well. And you can get them in different colors. So they have like red and pink and blue. And so you can get mugs that kind of match your design or you can offer multiple. But these perform incredibly well, especially going into the holiday season. Mugs are a big item for gifting. And so something like this would be a great gift for say, a coworker. A funny, like retirement gift, Like a funny mug to give someone that you work with or share an office with or whatever that might be. So this is kind of just like a unique spin on a traditional coffee mug.
- [20:07]
Julie Berninger
Okay. And by the way, if anyone's just listening to the podcast, I linked to the YouTube channel down below and you can Click and open the video so you can see the visual if you need to see it. But it looks like I don't see any letters there at all. And I'm. My brain is trying to compute like, okay, hidden message. What am I doing with this again? Like, it looks like a pattern.
- [20:27]
Emily
Yeah, it's. So this one is written sideways. Some of them, some of them are actually. So what they did, which is. Do you see what I'm saying?
- [20:39]
Julie Berninger
We'll let other people read that themselves.
- [20:41]
Emily
Yes. Yeah. So we're not going to repeat what it says, but yes. This one is why you give this.
- [20:46]
Julie Berninger
To your co worker.
- [20:47]
Emily
Yes. So this one is fun because what they've basically, basically done is they've written out a phrase and they've put it kind of like vertical and just repeated it and it creates a pattern. I've seen other ones where they put a pattern on them. Like say it's like a floral pattern for women, but they write really small words kind of weaved into it that you can't really see unless you look closely. So there's a few different ways to go about it. And then I mentioned like the QR code. One is also a really easy way to do something kind of funny like that. So there's a lot of different options in this space and you obviously don't have to use like, you know, curse words or anything like that. There are some, there are plenty out there that don't. But this is kind of just like a unique spin on that funny coffee mug for someone.
- [21:35]
Julie Berninger
Now I'm curious how you stumbled upon this trend. Like sometimes in, in this space we'll see. We, we have a good pulse on what's selling, but then sometimes it's like blowing up on social media and that's where people are getting the idea to buy it. And that's how you found out about it. I'm just curious for this one in particular, did you discover it through like the ever be research tool or did you know, you know, this is a thing on TikTok, because I've actually never heard of this.
- [21:59]
Emily
Yeah, no, I. So what I did hear of before, there were a lot of political coffee mugs, T shirts, flags that had subtle messaging in them. That has been like a big trend for a while, like sub subtle messaging in the political niche. But I hadn't seen this quite like this. And I was doing some research on like funny coffee mugs, coffee mug gifts, and this kind of kept coming up. So I was like, oh, this is clearly like a thing. And so I think it may have started in that political space. This. We saw it really grain traction in November, December, and it's still really popular. And now I think it's kind of segueing into other areas. This whole, like, stuff, subtle, secret message idea is kind of trickling into other spaces.
- [22:48]
Julie Berninger
Yeah. And I mean, obviously it makes for a good reveal. On the podcast prior, we talked about how gifts are really about the reveal for the person that's buying. And clearly for me, once I realized what it actually said, I started laughing, you know, But I'm sure that's when the person's buying it, they're like, hoping to get that reaction out of the person that's receiving it.
- [23:07]
Emily
Yeah. Because you probably open it and you're like, what is this? And then once it clicks, that's always like a good moment.
- [23:14]
Julie Berninger
Yes. And it is interesting. I was listening to a podcast that was talking about viral in marketing now with social media, like viral moments. Creating viral moments is like super important. And I always struggle sometimes selling digital products. I'm like, well, how. How do I create that viral moment? But you can imagine here, which. Yes, small disclaimer, 99% of us are not doing any social media promotion, like maybe some pinning, but we're not, like, going on TikTok or whatever. But if somebody has the energy, bless you, go record a video and you can make this, like, best white elephant gifts for this year and, you know, show someone's reaction to realizing what the message said or something. I feel like that's creating that viral moment, that you can get a lot of views and get a lot of clicks into your shop that way.
- [23:59]
Emily
Absolutely. Yeah. That would make a really great TikTok if someone is doing that. I personally am not, but that would be a great idea. I could see that really taking off.
- [24:09]
Julie Berninger
Every time I get myself geared up. Like, I'm gonna get the energy to do this.
- [24:13]
Emily
I just can't.
- [24:15]
Julie Berninger
No. But I guess if you wanted to do this, you could order it. Do they give you samples through print on demand, like Printify or you can order samples.
- [24:22]
Emily
Yep.
- [24:23]
Julie Berninger
So you could order yourself that mug and, like, recreate it or, you know, gift it to someone or something.
- [24:27]
Emily
Definitely. And if anyone's selling on TikTok Shop, which Printify does sync with TikTok Shop, that could be a great avenue for that too. Because if you can get a viral video kind of reveal of that, it, you know, that might help as well.
- [24:41]
Julie Berninger
Yeah. But again, you don't need it. And I'm sure people don't do That.
- [24:44]
Emily
I don't do that.
- [24:45]
Julie Berninger
But hidden, hidden messages. Like what are the keywords someone types in for this Hidden, hidden message, mug or something.
- [24:50]
Emily
Hidden message mug, subtle message. Even if you type in like subtle message, subtle, fill in the blank. If you look up subtle, like if you are in the political space, subtle, political, then those things will start to come up. You'll see some trends out there for sure. Yeah.
- [25:10]
Julie Berninger
You'd have to think through the shopper journey, though. Like the shopper, are they thinking subtle or are they thinking coworker gift? And then great question.
- [25:16]
Emily
So keywords for something like this that we just showed would be coworker gift, promotion, gifts, maybe white elephant gifts, retirement gifts, maybe gifts for like your boss or your like administrative assistant. I've sold a lot in like Administrative Professionals Day. And people love to buy funny gifts for their admins. And so I could see that being something that people would enjoy any appreciation day too. Right? Like nurse appreciation, things like that. You probably position this in quite a few ways. So yeah, you definitely want to have those keywords in there so that you're showing up when people are searching for that.
- [25:58]
Julie Berninger
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense because they wouldn't search necessarily hidden message at the top. It'd be like occasion. So then the listing images have to make it clear. Like the person buying has to understand. Because the first time I saw that, I'm like, oh, that's like a pattern mug. It looks like a sweater. You know, you have to, you'd have to show them. Like, here's what it actually says.
- [26:17]
Emily
Yes, yes.
- [26:19]
Julie Berninger
Okay. Very cool. I haven't seen that before. Thank you, Emily. Well, Emily, these five were super fun. This was awesome. Thank you for getting everyone jazzed up. And I know if anyone wants to learn more about starting with print on demand. And why don't you learn from someone that has sold $600,000 of revenue in two and a half years? Why not? Right? It's the right person. So next. So we have Thursday, August 7th at 8pm Eastern time, you're going to go live with your webinar. We're going to link to it below. It's called you'd first a hundred sales with POD with Emily. And then also noting that Emily's course, the gift lab, is open for enrollment with a discount. It's going to kick off on Thursday, August 7, and then doors to the discount close on Monday night, August 11th. Is that right, Emily?
- [27:02]
Emily
That is right. And I'm super excited. Yes. The webinar is going to have tons of really great information in it to kind of get you started. And I'm really excited to see people there.
- [27:13]
Julie Berninger
Awesome. Yeah, you can find that@goldcityventures.com the-gift-lab or we'll put it below if people want to check it out. Cool. All right. Thanks, Emily. Oh, and if they want to follow you on IG, I know you are have a big IG and you have a blossoming YouTube channel as well. How can they get you?
- [27:29]
Emily
Yes. On Instagram. You can follow me at ecomemily. So that's E C o M m Emily on Instagram and then also the same on YouTube. So I just started my YouTube channel and I have some really exciting content coming out and just going to be sharing more information about how to sell on Print on demand, my strategies and and also talking to other people in the space so you can hear from different folks in the print on Demand world.
- [27:55]
Julie Berninger
Awesome. We're excited to see what you're going to put out. Thank you.
- [27:58]
Emily
Yeah, thank you.