← Crickets to Cha-Chings
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Crickets Tuchings podcast. I'm Julie Berninger from Gold City Ventures and I'm here with Dorie from your Etsy. Betsy, welcome. Dory.
- [00:08]
B
Hi. Thanks for having me.
- [00:10]
A
This is gonna be a fun one today. I know you have five hidden gems queued up for us, but before we get into that, can you share a little bit about you and your Etsy journey?
- [00:17]
B
Yeah. So I am an Etsy og, I like to say I've been on Etsy pretty much since they started in 2007. I think it was when I first opened my, my first shop. Long story really short, since then I have probably done every Etsy shop under the sun. I have had multiple successful Etsy shops, including anywhere from handmade to digital products to print on demand is what I teach and coach mostly now. But yeah, I've had several shops along the way. Learned a lot along the way. And then I also have my own brand, E Commerce TikTok shop, all of that. But it all started on Etsy.
- [01:00]
A
And I know we connected before about how you love all of the business things and you have a lot of different brands and businesses going on and I think many of us can relate to that. It is hard to stay focused when there's so many exciting opportunities out there.
- [01:15]
B
Yeah.
- [01:15]
A
So do you want to talk a little bit about some of that other stuff that's not Etsy, Just to give everyone the full picture of who you are as a business owner.
- [01:23]
B
Yeah, people. I get students sometimes that are like, dory, I have so many ideas, you know, how, how do I scale them back? And I'm like, don't ask me, girl, because I am all over the place. No, I would say that I'm halfway kidding. I, I don't think there's anything wrong with being multi passionate and having multiple streams of revenue because this day and age, it's so easy to make money online. I don't want to paint a picture like it's like you, you know, are successful overnight, but it's so accessible, so attainable to, to make a living from home, from your computer. But what comes along with that is lots of opportunities to do lots of things. So I, I just say pick wisely. Things that you can stay into, stay passionate about and stay, you know, things that light you up. One of the biggest mistakes I see with even, you know, my own students that come through my, my coaching program or just being in the industry so long is that they give up before they're successful because everyone's made it look like Etsy and Print on Demand and Printables is all this overnight success. And just with anything it takes time to build. And some people really knock it out of the park. I'm sure you have many, many students that have knocked it out of the park from the get go. And then it just, you know, others just takes time. It takes for the algorithm to kick in. It takes time for Etsy to know who the heck you are, what you're selling and who you're selling it to. So long story long, I would say, you know, narrowing down a couple things that you can stay passionate about and sticking with them long enough to see success. Because people think that just because they don't have success that like, oh, they're not doing the right thing. And it's like, no, you could be doing a very good, lucrative thing. You just might need some direction and strategy or some help with your trends or your designs, something like that. So sticking with it is a huge part of it.
- [03:25]
A
Yep, I totally agree. I think there's something called the J curve where it's not really working for a while and then suddenly on the graph, the hockey stick, it's starting to go up and that's where you got to stick it out till you get there.
- [03:36]
B
And for everybody, that's when most of the Etsy sellers talk about it and then everyone else watching is like, oh, look how successful they got. But I use. So just like you talk about the J curve, I talk about the like an iceberg. Right? An iceberg you see floating by the water is this small tip, but it's this huge thing underneath that created it and is supporting it. Same thing with a tree, Right. A tree has a huge root system and it didn't just grow overnight so quickly or it would just fall over. It's really the same with business. Starting any business. Yep, yep.
- [04:06]
A
So we, we've had people come in to our printables community and we have this thing called 100 Sales Club. Some people will hit it in like three months and yeah. And then we have people that it will take them 12 months, right?
- [04:19]
B
Yeah.
- [04:19]
A
And I'm sure for the 12 month people, it's frustrating seeing all the three month people congratulating and you know, getting all celebrated and stuff. And it's frustrating. But it all depends on how much experience did you have coming into this, how much time do you have, what's going on in your life? And we're all living these different lives. We have different backgrounds and skill sets. So you have to be patient with yourself. You're on your own journey. You're not comparing yourself to anybody else. There's more than enough room for you to come in. And I bring up poor Lisa a lot, but she took 12 months to get to a hundred sales and now she's a full time Etsy seller. She sells greeting cards. Last time I caught up with her, she was showing me like the 12 printers in her room. Like she's super into it. And now she does printed greeting cards and she's like a big seller on Etsy. Doing that full time took her 12 months to make her first a hundred sales. So if she had given up, then she would have missed out on this life and opportunity that she has. So somebody could be who listening could be just around the corner from their big break.
- [05:12]
B
That's right.
- [05:13]
A
So Dory's telling you, and I agree. Just don't give up yet. All right, let's give them some inspiration though, to keep them going. Let's do the five trends.
- [05:19]
B
Okay. I've got a few and they're kind of all over the place because there's not just one for print on demand, there's not just one for digital products. I did a lot of research. Let me go ahead and click share. Okay. All right. The first trend I come upon, like, and I, and I know this because I'm an addict of it myself, would be leopard anything. Okay? So I'm inside profit tree right now, and I just wanted to show, you know, the people watching or the people listening. So one of the things I love about profitry specifically is that it shows you right here in this column what is in demand and what's selling right now. So with their product finder, you can just like I just typed in leopard and you can see right right away, this very, very first listing right here is actually a png. I'll show it to you on Etsy. It's a, you know, it's on trend right now because obviously it's almost pushing into Halloween time. But the leopard print, everything. 45 of these PNGs have sold in the last 24 hours. This custom initial artwork is so simple. It's just a letter with some leopard print inside of it. This is in 20 plus carts. Again, another. Let me go to another one right here. This is another perfect example. This varsity style, very simple text with leopard print inside of it. So whether you're handmade and you're making things with leopard print, or if you're digital products and you're making PNGs or you're in the Pod space. This applies to really everyone because you can see across the board leopard everything. And I'm sure just anyone listening knows that leopard everything is. Is all the rage right now.
- [07:13]
A
Oh yeah, I fell victim to the leopard trend. So speaking of multi passionate business owners, my husband and I bought a property to Airbnb this year and I was planning the decorations, but I also looking.
- [07:24]
B
At doing the same thing too. Good.
- [07:25]
A
Oh, it's a journey. It's a journey, I'll tell you that.
- [07:27]
B
But.
- [07:27]
A
But I bought wall art on Etsy. There were two leopards sitting in bed eating pizza. And I don't know why I bought this. I mean, and then I got it like blown up big and it's crazy.
- [07:38]
B
It.
- [07:39]
A
This is like a coastal Airbnb and now there are these leopards. But I saw it, it was like a bestseller. And almost like my Etsy brain couldn't get over it. I was like, oh, this is so funny. But yeah, I mean, the leopards, they're taking over.
- [07:49]
B
I mean, these are like this one too. Vintage leopard print. I mean a. It's in 20 plus cards. A couple sold in the last 24 hours. Leopard, literally, you can put leopard on anything and you can't go wrong, probably. And I don't see, I don't see leopard going out anytime soon. I think you have a good year or more, you know, on this, if not longer. Trends are a lot longer than people think. I would just say, you know, if you can incorporate leopard, however it is into your digital products. Print on demand, handmade. I don't think you can go wrong there.
- [08:22]
A
No. My kids have liked leopard cheetah print things for years.
- [08:27]
B
Yeah.
- [08:27]
A
But now we're seeing it more in the adult spaces. I also saw it on a lot of like throw pillows and things. The leopard pattern, but like different colors. Kind of like a teal leopard here. And if anyone's just listening to the podcast, you can't see visually, but a lot of the designs had actually brown like they were calling it espresso backgrounds. I thought that was unique. I haven't seen that quite a bit in the past, so maybe that's something comfort.
- [08:50]
B
So yeah, that's comfort colors. Espresso T shirt. Personally, that's one of my best selling color T shirts in my line as well. So. Yeah. Okay.
- [08:57]
A
Pod tip.
- [08:58]
B
Yep.
- [08:59]
A
Go to the next one.
- [09:01]
B
Okay. So the next one would be Huff embossed things. Now again, this is going to. I'm going to type in puff embossed and the one listing that I'm wanting To come up should come up right away. But this too is, goes across multiple applications. So whether you do digital or you know, print on demand or. So you can't do emboss like if you're doing print on demand specifically unless you're doing embroidery, of course. But I want to show you what I mean. So this right here, this custom puff embossed sweatshirt has. So first of all, let's not not ignore here that this listing is only three months old and has almost $14,000 in monthly revenue and 30, almost $33,000 in total revenue in three months. 27 of these have sold in 24 hours. And basically what this is is like a puff transfer that they can customize, you know, the, the wording or whatever and they put it on the sweatshirt and they can choose, you know, know, obviously their color sweatshirt. This is another one. 69 of these have sold in the last 24 hours. It's in multiple, multiple carts. Again, this, this tone on tone puff, this has actually been pretty hot for a while and it kind of like lost a little bit of traction or I shouldn't say lost traction, but just kind of stayed kind of level and then I feel like it's exploding again personally also with my. I can personally speak to it that I use it in my line and have designs with this puff kind of either puff embroidery or you can do it with vinyl. If you, if you work with Cricut or you do DTF or you do screen print, anything like that. There's puff variations of that. So using the term puff or embossed is huge. And it goes into digital products too. I don't know if there's gonna be any digital ones right on this page. But just for reference, like if you were to, to type in something on Etsy like embossed. Let me go here really quick. We'll do embossed invitations would be really big. You can see right here. Popular now. Popular now, Etsy's pick. Lots of bestseller. Popular now, Etsy's pick. But this very simple, classic embossed look is, is another huge trend that I am seeing.
- [11:29]
A
So there's no way that you know of to do this with a drop ship or print on demand. Well, you'd have to set up a custom relationship with a drop ship. There's none of the print on demand people that are offering, yeah, I don't.
- [11:39]
B
Know any print on demand yet that is offering any kind of puff options. Your option there would just be embroidery which is, is not the same, but you could very well get that same look with tone on tone. So if you were to Mac match the hex code color of the garment to the embroider or the embroidery thread, then that would give you that look. If you wanted to do the print on demand side of things. If you are watching this or listening to this and you do like I do also at home, which is making your own say so DTF doesn't necessarily have puff, but there's things called screen print transfers and they can have a puff version of it. And then also with vinyl, if you, if you're at home and. And you're a Cricut girl, then you know you can do puffs. Vinyl basically transfers, so you can do that if you're on handmade. I'm not sure. I've never made any type of embossing with digital products, so I don't know the, the application for that. But yeah, very, very, very popular right now for sure.
- [12:42]
A
Now the texture, the. The varsity letter look on some of the things.
- [12:46]
B
Yeah. So a couple things to note. Yeah, A couple things to note with this are, you know, the font is very important. So you're either finding these really cool script fonts like, you know, something like this, or you're sticking with more of the. The varsity or the, you know, just the easy, like serif fonts like this. This is a good way too, to offer customization on Etsy too, without getting into trademark issues and all of that, because multiple teams, you know, people have the Eagles, you know, it could be their, their high school team, football team, so you don't get into trouble with, with trademark and colors and all that stuff. So I. The other thing to note here is the tone on tone. The monochromatic tone on tone look is very, very popular.
- [13:32]
A
And I know if you're just listening, we have the YouTube link below if you want to see the visuals. But if not, just describe it with me. Tone on tone. We were literally looking at a beige, white sweatshirt with a beige, white puff, and it pretty much matched. And the other example you had was navy with a navy puff that was just a little bit different color. So it seems like people are into the like, you mentioned the monochromatic look right now. It's a very clean vibe.
- [13:54]
B
Very much.
- [13:55]
A
Yeah, I know when we switched to white sneakers a few years ago, I was very bummed. So I'm like, okay, this is difficult now, but I see people want that clean look on their clothes.
- [14:05]
B
Yep.
- [14:06]
A
And that's hard because some of us in the printable space, we come in and we just want to, like, put jazzy colors everywhere, but it sounds like rain it back for the summer.
- [14:12]
B
You know, I have to say, like, just kind of side note, the things that I see on Etsy that sell tenfold over, like, just everything else is classic designs, minimalist, simple, timeless. Especially if you do any type of personalization or customization. You can't go wrong with tone on tone. Very simple, classic designs. I always say simple cells, and it really does. So the third. Are we on three? Yeah, yeah. So the third would be cropped. So this would be like, for print on demanders, or I'm going to type in here cropped hoodie, so you can see what I'm talking about. But cropped anything is very, very end. And it's even merging into fall, no problem. The hoodies. All right, here we go. This one is in 20 plus carts. It's made almost $15,000 in revenue. This is the cropped look I'm talking about. Very, very, very popular. And again, if you are in. In the space where you can do any customization to your. Your tees or your sweatshirts, that would. That would only, you know, behoove you even more. And it goes into, like, this is not. This is like a crochet pattern. Right. So again, you know, I'm kind of all over the place with how you can choose to use these tips and, and these trends. But, you know, if you do patterns right, you're going to have people looking for crops, things more than they were, you know, say last year, a cropped hoodie, sewing pattern. Oh, gosh.
- [15:59]
A
For anyone who sees the visual, there's not much.
- [16:02]
B
There's not much there.
- [16:03]
A
There's not much remaining in that one.
- [16:06]
B
Yeah, this.
- [16:07]
A
It's funny to look at this as someone who's 38 weeks pregnant, because I'm just imagining myself in the crop, just like terrifying people as I walk down the street. Oh, my goodness.
- [16:17]
B
Exposed. Yeah. Here's. Here's a perfect example of two trends combining into one. Right? So I talked about the embossed stuff a minute ago. Here we have a cropped, embossed custom text. And again, this. You know, if you do print on demand, you can absolutely get this a similar look like this with embroidery. But if you're at home and you make your own and you do cricut or screen prints, transfer, something like that, then you can do the puff text. But again, that's. That's showing like two. Two trends combining right there with the embossed puff and the cropped hoodies.
- [16:50]
A
Do you know, if the pod providers, they, they have it already cropped, like they have an option to choose the cropped.
- [16:56]
B
Yes, there is a couple. I know they have Bella Canvas cropped. I don't have any in my particular shop yet. I offer the Bella Canvas sponge fleece sweatshirt. It's the most softest, yummiest. If you're, if you're listening to this and you need a soft sweatshirt or you're wondering, the Gildan 18,000 sweatshirt is one of the most highly sold ones because it's very, very. It's a very good generic sweatshirt to use. It's very cost friendly also too. But if you want to not knock it up a level and you have a customer that's wants that luxury kind of buttery soft fleece, the Bella Canvas sponge fleece is definitely where it's at as far as that goes.
- [17:45]
A
Thank you for saying the names because I know when someone's getting started in pod, it can get intimidating. And we've all ordered a bad pod T shirt before and, or, you know, and we're like, oh, this is like terrible quality. And then like the way it prints is not right. So it's nice to hear, okay, this is the particular product better than this one.
- [18:02]
B
And a few years ago, Bella Canvas 3001 T shirt used to be the go to T shirt and it's not anymore. It's very thin and it's also not cut like the trend right now. So people are really loving the big boyfriend oversized T shirt look. And number one seller for that is the comfort color 1717, which is the only thing that I use in my line. So little. Yep, little POD tip there. Number four is a digital product. So you probably won't be shocked here. Well, you, I guess you do digital and printables both. But in the digital space, we're going to put in digital day planner. These are huge. So if you're a digital designer or you're in the printable space, you could do both. Obviously you could have a digital version and a printable version. But I was shocked at how many people buy these digital planners. But maybe that's because I don't plan anything and I have ADD and I'm, I, you know, I live by the seat of my pants, so I don't plan anything.
- [19:09]
A
Well, ADHD and add, the trend is booming right now in terms of adults getting diagnosed later in life. So we saw in the digital space as that was happening then correlated with these things like the planners and yeah, brain dumps is another term that People use for, for things like this just to help people stay on track, get organized.
- [19:32]
B
Yeah.
- [19:33]
A
Not shocked, but it's, it's a good, it's a good tip and actually not that hard to create.
- [19:38]
B
No, they're not. Yep. So here it is. I, I just took out day, so it's digital planner. I typed in profit tree. 66 of these have sold in the last 20, 24 hours. So like, I mean this person's made almost $11,000 just on this. And just to give you an idea what it looks like, this is an all in one digital planner. And again, obviously, you know, with, with digital stuff, printables, I mean you, you, all of your time is spent just creating it one time and, and then it's passive from there. So I mean you can't go wrong with digital planners. And then this one is more specifically a wedding. You know, any, anything you need to plan for. Right. This is a bestseller. It's a wedding. A digital wedding planner. That one is sold 16 times. Oh, here we go. ADHD Adult Digital Budget planner. I could probably use that one. So I would just say anything in the planner category really. And especially if you can do the digital and the printable version, you're gonna, you, you're gonna have two customer segments there that you can cater to with that. So digital planners, a hundred percent, if you're in the digital space. That's a good one. Yep.
- [20:50]
A
And I do think they are evergreen, but I'm guessing for some of those the back to school season helped in terms of people saying, oh, college students or whoever, I'm back to school teachers, I wanna get organized.
- [21:02]
B
Yeah.
- [21:03]
A
I don't know when people get engaged, but I think end of summer people get engaged so they're probably getting on there.
- [21:08]
B
Yeah, I think wedding weddings are, you know, an evergreen type of thing. I definitely know that there's a wedding season for sure. But yeah, I can see these really, really taking off either at the very end of the year or the very beginning of the year for people that are wanting to just New Year's resolutions, getting, you know, organized for the new year. You know, middle of the year for teachers, like you said, getting organized for teachers. I guess it just depends on your line of work. But yeah. Oh yeah. Yep. The last one, I'm gonna do a twofer. I think for this one. It's personalized baby books. Honestly guys, if you're watching this or listening to this, personalized anything is really where it's at for Etsy. Because think about it, when you say you Want. Like when customers want to come to Etsy to find something, they know that they want to find something unique. And nine times out of 10, you know, they're looking for something very personable, personalized, customizable. So personalized baby book is one. You can see six. So this one is more specific. It's into. This is where I tell, like, my students picking customer segments or choosing a. Let's say you do. Let's say you're in this space and you do personalized baby books. You could do one type of book, right? Or you can have multiple customer segments to get all that SEO. And what I mean by that is this is a christening gift, baptism gift, custom baby book. They're getting hit with all. All those yummy SEO keywords and being found with, you know, through that. And this one has been. It's been up for a very long time. But oh, my goodness, look at this. This one book has almost made these people almost a million dollars, $860,000 now. It's been up for seven years. It's been there a long time. But I don't know about you, I will take a million dollars a year for one list.
- [23:13]
A
It's funny, you meant. So Hannah from Profitry, she also mentioned baby books, and I shared that it was on my back burner of business ideas that I put, look, I have too much going on. I can't focus on it. But every time I see this, I get, like, angry because it's such a good opportunity. I know it too, because I read these books to my kids, and sometimes the stories, they read like they're written by a Martian. Like, this person actually didn't live on planet Earth and wrote this story. So if you could just come in and just make like, a book that you can turn the page and follow the story, I feel like you'd really do well in this space.
- [23:46]
B
Yeah, and you're right. Hannah's page, I think she did a little tutorial on how to do this. She, like, did not get gatekeep at all. So, you know, if people don't know about Hannah or E Com Hannah, like, you can find. She has a tutorial on it on her page. But yeah, anything in the personalization space for babies is huge. And I'll just give you, like, one more bonus one, because look at this. This one is crazy. If you are in the handmade space or print on demand, I mean, you could do this print on demand. I mean, obviously you won't be able to do exactly what I'm going To show you with print on demand, but just the concept of having a personalized baby item. They are crocheted sweaters with the baby name like scripted on. Okay, this one is sold 101 times in the last 24 hours. Now when I click on it, the, the Etsy listing is not available because probably because they had to shut it down because they're too busy. So it's prob. Probably that being the reason why. But 23 sold. 33 sold. 39 sold. I'll click on these so the people that are watching. Oh, well, here you go. Here's a bunch of. But anything in the baby space that can be personalized if, I mean, I gotta say, if you're looking for a niche to get into on Etsy, you cannot go wrong with personalized and baby anything. And the really cool thing about this is is that you can have multiple products within your spread of, you know, products and you could ha. Really up your average order value because they may come to your shop and get a personalized little baby blanket and then add on the personalized baby book and then this, you know, and you can really, really up your average order value that way.
- [25:39]
A
So those are, I love those, by the way. I think they're so cute. Like I'm about to have a baby. I'm like, does this baby. Well, first of all, we pick a name. But once Baby gets a name, they could get a little sweater like that. That's adorable.
- [25:50]
B
Yeah, yeah. These are super cute and they are selling like hotcakes. 49 people have bought this in the past 24 hours.
- [25:58]
A
I thought you were going to say it first cropped for baby. I'm like, not, not for the babies too.
- [26:02]
B
No. And personalized baby blankets, personalized baby everything. I mean, again, just like if you're getting anything from this and you're. You want to sell an Etsy, if you have the ability to do anything customized or personalized, that's really one of the simplest ways to. To break through on Etsy is offering something personalized.
- [26:23]
A
So we're big E Rank users around here and I was looking at the top recipients by keyword and baby was definitely number one, I think. But cat and dog were also.
- [26:33]
B
Yes. So I've had many, you know, on my TikTok page is where I do most of my content and I've done numerous little tutorials showing, you know, hot keyword finds from E Rank. I use Erank a lot too. I just more recently started using Profit Tree. But Erank is awesome too. And yeah, cut in the customizable space, people are serious, no joke, when it comes to their pets and their babies. So you can't go wrong either way there, for sure.
- [27:02]
A
And you know what was funny? So women was not. I think it was like, very low in the top 10, which makes sense because we're the ones that are buying the stuff.
- [27:09]
B
Yeah.
- [27:10]
A
But men, I think men might have been number four. So it's almost like don't make products. Well, you could do the whole long tail, keyword, niche down thing, but make product for yourself. Make it for women that are gifting it to other people.
- [27:25]
B
Yeah, for sure. Yep, Yep. With personalization, it's so cool because you can take one product, let's say a Tumblr, a personalizable tumbler. Again, I always talk about reaching multiple customer segments in order to imagine. Imagine a bowl of. Imagine you're. You're playing or entering into a raffle, and you want. You want to get picked. Right. The more raffle tickets you have in your bull or more, you know, raffle tickets you've bought, the more chance you have a winning. It's kind of the same thing when it comes to your SEO and your customer segments on Etsy, especially when you don't really know who your customer is yet or you're. You're more of a general store who doesn't cater to just like one very specific niche. One of the best things you can do to cast your SEO net really wide is to have again, the Tumblr that I'm going to use as an example. It could be a custom graduation tumbler, you know, a personalized bridesmaid gift, you know, and so you're reaching hundreds of different type of customers that are looking for the same exact product, but they're just looking for it for a different reason. So your SEO and keywords in your customer segments that you can reach, like, the bigger. The more you can reach, the more fish. So it's like casting your net wide, you're gonna catch more fish. Same thing.
- [28:49]
A
I'm curious, when you mentioned the embossed sweatshirts earlier, they almost seem to break my rule. I would think someone's buying them for themselves, but I don't sell apparel, so I'm not sure. What do you see when you're seeing people and yourself selling apparel? Is it the customer is actually buying it or is it typically giftable too there?
- [29:08]
B
Oh. So I don't necessarily have a way of knowing. I'd say it's very strong in the giftable category, but I think, I think they're buying it for themselves, too. It really just depends, you know, the reason I feel like they might be the giftable category might be bigger when it comes to that is usually if you're looking for something custom, it's typically because you're not always, obviously, but it's typically because you're looking to, like, buy something unique for somebody and you need it really customized. You know, you might. You might find a bride, though, right? That is like looking for customized bachelorette shirts. Right. And so technically they're buying for them and bridesmaids. So I don't know as there would be one huge benefit versus the other. I think definitely people are buying them for themselves and giftables. But giftables, I think would have to take the cake. Probably only because I see that the custom ones are the ones that are doing so well. So whether they're ordering them for them or their school or, you know, their niece who's graduating or whatever, I don't know. It'd be 50, 50, a tough call. But you, I don't think you could go wrong. Yeah.
- [30:23]
A
Good to know. Well, thank you, Dorie. This was a lot of fun. It gave us a lot of ideas spinning in our brain of what we might make. If people want to learn more about you and follow you, where can they find you?
- [30:33]
B
Yeah. So I am your Etsy bestie everywhere. So I'm mostly on TikTok is where I try to cross post over to Instagram. I get a little bit lazy with that. But your Etsy bestie, and that's an ie on bestie, is where they can find me everywhere.
- [30:49]
A
Awesome. Well, we'll definitely link to that below. Thanks for coming on.
- [30:52]
B
Thanks, Julie. Appreciate it.