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A
Welcome to another episode of the cricketstuchings podcast hosted by Gold City Ventures. I'm your host Cody and today I am joined by Angel, AKA Passive Income. Angel. Angel, quickly do you want to tell people what you're all about and why they should listen to you today when it comes to Etsy?
B
Absolutely. So my name is Angel. I've been in the Etsy space, the print demand space, since 2020. My very first year that I joined, my very first holiday season, I had my first 10k month. In my first year I was able to revenue over 100k which was just really just like mind blowing and exciting because I just joined. I just decided to sell an Etsy as just like a side hustle. I was a full time teacher, I had an 18 month old daughter at the time and we just wanted to add another revenue source. So initially whenever I got into Etsy, I was just going to sell earrings. In fact I'm wearing the kaboch and earrings right now that I was going to sell. I still make them with my daughter now who is seven years old now. Closer to a seven year journey. Five, five, five, six years. Right? Right now. Anyways, I was really discouraged at first because I realized that like if I wanted to really make money, it was going to take a lot of my personal time because I was going to have to make a lot of these products myself, ship them out and I got a little discouraged but I was like, you know what, that's okay. I'm just going to just go ahead and do it as an extra income stream. And while I was researching different ways to make jewelry, different types of trends of jewelry, um, I happened across this video about print demand and I was just like immediately sold. I can spot scams really easily. You know, I'm, I've, I grew up with, with the Internet and scams and things like that and it almost sounded too good to be true at first. Like you can basically start an entire business with very little risk, okay, very little investment of your money and, and so it sounded too good to be true at first. But um, I'm just, I'm so glad that I just like I started my shop the same day I heard about print amand, you know, just from like a random YouTube video. And you know, I was a, I really changed my life. I was able to quit my job and work from home. And so for me the reason why I wanted to do this was I didn't want to miss the milestone moments with my, my, my children, my daughter. I had a 45 minute commute to work. And it was just a really hard on us for me to be at work five days a week and then have you know, you know, an hour ride there and back practically. And this just was, just gave me so much time freedom to be able to, you know, not miss those important milestone moments with my kids.
A
So we are both huge fans of seasonality. I'm a huge seasonal product seller. You said you made $10,000 in your first season. What season was that? Mine was Valentine's Day where I had my like glow up moment and I was like, okay, digital products are for me. What was yours?
B
Okay, so my first success was actually in the senior niche. Now that wasn't my 10k month though. So this is just like a pre, prerequisite to that, a preview to that I guess. So I started in like February. It was crickets. No, January. It was in January when I first watched the video. January 2020. So before the, the pandemic hit. And I just was throwing anything out there, spaghetti on the wall, like, and of course nothing hit because I didn't understand aesthetics, I didn't understand trends, I didn't understand creating listings for intent driven buyers. I didn't understand an audience, anything. You know, I just got started, which is looking back, I'm so glad I did. And I was scared to death that I was going to do something wrong, that I was doing something illegal. I just didn't know what I was doing. You know, I didn't have a business license. I just got started and I just was petrified. You know, that first month when you're, you're getting started and I'm so glad I did. Even though I had no idea what I was doing and I got no traffic because it, it gave me the building blocks I needed to create a successful Etsy shop so that I can make mistakes and then learn from those mistakes. So my first Valentine's Day was a bust. My first Easter was, was a bust. And then at the end in like May, I really hit it hard with the senior niche. And that's when I started getting my first bestsellers. And then, and then the fall I started take. Gain traction for Halloween. And then I used, I found a keyword that was high search, low competition and I made products based on that keyword and you know, and I incorporated trends, specifically trends and topics in the news cycle. And my shop exploded. Exploded. And I, I had listings that like I made in October that by December, by January had made 30, almost $30,000 in revenue. Just a Single listing. So it wasn't, I mean, so like it's October right now. You know, if, if you, you can find those, those keyword gems that, that, you know, those gold mine niches where it's high search, lower competition and assert yourself in that niche and really dominate that niche, you can make a lot of money even as a new seller. So that was kind of, that was where I, where I, I really hit it big. And then it kept happening to me. That following spring, I once again, I hit a news related cycle topic and it got published in like the Huffington Post. Tons of traffic was driven to, to, to the listing from that I made a minimalist Christmas design the following Christmas. That an influencer, which I did not contact. This was totally organic. She found my listing, liked it, bought it. She had over a million followers on Instagram. No, that listing exploded. Wow. And I, and now I see that design, I started a design aesthetic trend and now I see that trend at Target. I see it all over the place and didn't exist until I created it. And so it's just, it's just wild. Wild.
A
And so speaking of trends and aesthetics and seasonality, this is one of the reasons I was so excited to talk to you today, because like I said, I'm such a huge fan. Do you want to start sharing your screen? Because I think the way you go about finding different things to sell for seasons and trends and holidays is just. You had some interesting strategies that I've never heard of before. And I, I know we were chatting before we hit go here and there's just a gold mine of sources out there to like, get product ideas. Whether you're selling POD or printables or whatever you're doing, there's just, there's so much out there to source a lot of overlap. Those listening come join us on YouTube. This is where the good stuff's happening.
B
Yes, absolutely. All right. So you might be wondering, angel, why are you looking at Halloween niches or products on Etsy? Because it's a little, you know, it's a little late for Halloween. We should be going hard on Christmas right now. And the reason why I'm doing that is because I want to reverse engineer the trends that are popping off in Halloween and then, and then apply those to Christmas Because a lot of those trends may not have been applied to the Christmas new shot. And I'm going to basically be adding new value to the market that doesn't exist. And so that's a great way to add new value. And so I'm Just gonna like right now because this is what people are buying right now. It's October 1st, you know, the time of this recording. People are buying for Halloween now they're starting to search for Christmas. We're, we're gaining momentum in those, in those keyword searches for Christmas. But right now everyone's thinking about Halloween. And so that's why there really is a lot of trend spotting that you can do looking at the current holiday that people are searching and buying for. Okay. And applying it to Christmas, to the next holiday and then to evergreens as well. And then immediately we're seeing coquette here, you know, with the bows. That's really popular in the kids niche. Of course, the Y2K aesthetic, you know, the iridescent trend, super popular. I am seeing that take off for, for Christmas as well. And we'll, we'll talk about how that home seeing that. Of course, retro. Retro color palettes are really, really popular. Let's see. Pink is going to be really popular as an apparel color this year.
A
What did you type in angel to get to this page? Yeah, just Halloween. Oh, just Halloween in general. Okay, perfect.
B
Halloween.
A
Just want to get the full workflow.
B
A couple of filters. I applied the Bestseller filter to, to get that you select in the filter show filters here you select star seller and then in the URL you change out the word star for best and then you'll get the best sellers for that keyword. And then for this example, I did filter out the, the digital products. I just have physical.
A
Okay.
B
But a lot of this will apply to digital as well. I will say it, it is nice to do a digital like PNG search too because oftentimes those sellers are ahead of the seasons, if that makes sense. So like those sellers know that their print demand sellers or their cricut, you know, their handmade makers are right now they're buying for Christmas and so they're ahead of the trends. And so there's, there's benefit in doing digital search as well. Okay. So leopard print is, is still really popular this year. I didn't know it ever went out of style, but it actually this year in the past year it. We've seen a lot of peak searches for leopard print. Still really trendy aesthetic there. Of course the, the paint panels here, I call them the paintbrush strokes panels. Those are really popular where each kind of rectangle has a different image that's related to, you know, a holiday or esthetic. Really, really popular Vintage is huge vintage. The vintage retro esthetic and nostalgia super big for Christmas and we'll, we'll look at Christmas too and discuss it there. Personalization helps increase the conversion rate for your listings. So it does help increase conversions. So offering personalization just that simple step right there and can be really helpful and help you to stand out from the competition. On Etsy.
A
At what point in your product research phase are you doing this? Like I know Christmas is coming, we're recording this on October 1st. You're looking at some Halloween trends. We're going to talk about, you know, spoiler alert, how we can maybe take some of these trends, some of these aesthetics and kind of imprint them onto Christmas. And maybe you take Christmas stuff and you imprint that, those aesthetics onto Valentine's Day, so on and so forth. Like what time of the year would be ideal for what we're doing right now together.
B
So one important strategy to be successful on Etsy is to, is to make sure that you're not listing for event based niches like Christmas, like Halloween. Too late and certainly too late to, to scale the listings are getting attraction. So a lot of new sellers, they might have like a one hit wonder where they like they're starting to get sales on a product but they've listed too late and so they're really missing out on a lot of sales and a lot of ability to scale out that, that niche or that esthetic that they're having success with. So I recommend listing so like for Christmas, you know, Mother's Day, things like that, at least eight to 12 weeks out, if not three months out. I one of my top selling listings, that one that went viral, the minimalist Christmas sweatshirt of mine that went crazy, I listed that in September. A lot of people who scout for trends, they do it early on like two to three months beforehand. So content creators who are going to be creating content for the holidays, you know, so you want to show up early, you don't even have to be like a year early, you know, you don't have to, to say okay, you know, in March I'm going to be designing for Christmas. You know, you don't have to do it that early. I would say try and do it at least three to four months out. And especially for big ones like Christmas, they come start to, to search really early. So I would say by September 1st I would have some Christmas listings up for Christmas.
A
Love that.
B
So stay ahead at least, at least eight to 12 weeks out because you always want to look at longevity because if you don't have time to rank and time to scale out, you're almost Better off either focusing on a proven evergreen at that point or going on to the next holiday. Now, I will say with Christmas, because there's so much traffic, there's so much search volume, you can come late and still make a lot of money as long as it's a high search, lower competition keyword, and you're adding new value to the market.
A
I was just about to say, for Christmas, if there's like a. Too late. I've actually listed something because I was just going bananas one year, listing as much Christmas stuff as I possibly could. I listed an editable letter from Santa like a week before Christmas. This is like December 18th, which is like such a. No, no. It's like, I wish I listed it way before, but that thing made so many sales during the week, all the way up till Christmas Day. All the way up till Christmas Day. The last minute parents get in the editable letter from Santa. So is there like a cutoff date that you like to recommend for the people that you coach and talk to?
B
So for print demand, if you're not using the, the new express shipping. So like Printify, they offer express shipping where you can get the item in two to three days. I've had huge success with that. It's amazing how fast those products get out and. But there are only a couple products that they offer that with. I think it's like the Bella Canvas T shirt and then one. One other type of T shirt. And outside of that, they don't offer it. So those items, honestly, you could, you could list really close up to, to that point. If you're digital, like you said, a week beforehand is okay. Now you missed out on thousands of dollars in sales. Not listing it sooner because not. Not only for that product, but then going, oh, people are searching for these keywords. I'm going to make related products to this or I'm going to take that design idea and apply it to different products. So you missed out. You left a lot of money on the table doing that, but you still got the money.
A
So I got some money.
B
Yeah, you still got the money. So for digital, I, I think it's okay to list all the way up until like a week beforehand. If you're feeling, if you're feeling motivated, if you're seeing trends flying off, absolutely. Digital has, has a little bit more leeway. But print and demand, I stopped listening For Christmas by Black Friday because of the shipping issue. Because once you have a lot of orders, the shipping time slows down. I don't even guarantee Christmas orders after like the first week of Christmas. Like I'm, I don't guarantee it's going to be there by then. Now it almost always does get there, you know, as long as they're ordering by like the second week to Christmas. But you'd have to be really careful. So yeah, it's, it's fine to, to list through October. Absolutely. Even up until Black Friday. If you're like seeing trends pop off or you have a design popping off or listing popping off and you want to scale that, totally fine.
A
Now I don't know if you want to keep scrolling on Etsy or if you want to talk about some of the other sources that you use to find product ideas.
B
So earlier I mentioned how I found a high search, low competition keyword that made me thousands of dollars because it was unsaturated but high demand. And so I do use E rank for a lot of keywords research. I also do a lot of research on Etsy itself. You using tools like ever be Etsy Radar is a new tool that I've been using that's been really helpful too. But it's really helpful for those keyword searches. So these are the top, top styles and aesthetics that have been searched on Etsy in the last 30 days. Now a lot of these are influenced by Halloween because it runs about 30 days behind before they like crunch the numbers and provide them to like the public. So keeping that in mind, there's floral. So I think cottage core florals still really huge. And across all the niches on Etsy, retro. We talked about retro vintage earlier. Super popular and that has been for a while. I even think gothic will still be a popular search term for Christmas. See we've got Japanese watercolor, Goth Christmas.
A
And where did you pull this from again? Angel, this report and is it just on Erank's main page or can you tell people?
B
What I end up doing is screenshotting this and putting into ChatGPT and ask it to make a chart for me.
A
Oh perfect. Okay.
B
And so, so use your AI guys. Use your AI. It's really helpful. Goth, Christian. I think the Christian niche is going to be huge this, this year. Western boho. So a lot of aesthetics that, that honestly are really unsaturated. I'm not seeing a ton of Christmas Western niches. Let's see, stained glass is going to be popular just like it was last year as an aesthetic. Trying to see if there are any other ones. Minimalist is going to be trending. I'm seeing definitely seeing that trend. Deco abstract and art is still really popular. So if you do wall art, wall prints, digital prints, still really, really popular. 90s so 90s nostalgia. Y2K are some of the top ones. Pastel, that's part of that Y2K aesthetic which I'll show you guys examples of later. Cottage core. Very big. I'm surprised I'm not single cat. Maybe I missed it earlier. Some people search preppy for coquette. 80s is on there. Let's see Renaissance. So yeah, those are some of the top trends that people are actually searching for and typing into Etsy right now.
A
Awesome.
B
And then I thought this was just kind of interesting to share with you guys. I also checked to see what their, their what the top gift recipients were for on Etsy. So what people are. So when you sell an Etsy you have to remember people come there and they, when they type in the search bar, they already know what they want to search for. They're not really browsing. Like how often do you like on Etsy? And like I'm going to browse like the way you would add a mall. Right. You know, you window shop. People are not doing this on platforms like Etsy. They already know what they want to search for. They already know who they're buying for. And so they come in and they look for gifts for babies, gifts for a baby shower. You know they're. And they're looking for micro niches. Okay. So they're looking for gifts for teachers, first grade teachers, gifts for ER nurses. Okay. So keep that in mind when you're building out your listing. You're building out your product catalog for Christmas. Especially for Christmas is that people are coming to purchase gifts for other people. So just keep that in mind, okay. Because that will help increase your conversion rate. And you're also, you will also be able to use long tail keywords that help you to be discovered more easily. Okay, so dog. Who would have thought of that top? That's the top recipient people are searching for right now in the last 30 days. Now this will change as we get closer to Christmas. But this is just to give you an idea.
A
Angel, can you swap over this list to the share screen?
B
Keep doing it.
A
No worries. No worries at all. I mean, I'm listening. DOG is the top gift recipient, which is hilarious one but it makes sense.
B
This is also data from E Rank.
A
Okay.
B
If you go into like their trend page, hot page and then you search for the last 30 days, this will pop up.
A
Okay.
B
Baby cat gifts for men. A lot of women come to Etsy look to look for gifts for men. I think that that's a really unsaturated market on Etsy. So something to keep, to keep in mind there. Oftentimes people are looking for gifts for men for, like in micro niches. So maybe they like pickleball, maybe they like motorcycles. So just keeping in mind those micro niches for men. Cat. So pets. Women. Girls. So for kids. Kids is a big niche on Etsy. Pets. Teachers. Moms. For moms. Once again, Girls, oftentimes looking for kids. Nurse, specifically. Let's see if I can pull this up here for you guys. This was really interesting to me.
A
We have people who will be taking these down, screenshotting these charts and all the good stuff. Hopefully we give some people some product ideas today. There's a lot here. There's a lot we're working with. I appreciate you compiling all this for us.
B
Angel, let me share this. Okay.
A
All right.
B
So these were screenshots I took from Etsy. I'm sorry, not Etsy, but Erank once again, where I was just kind of like doing a general, like, Christmas search. And I, I don't just pay attention to like the search volume. People kind of get, get like, pay attention just to that as well as, you know, the competition. But what I like to pay attention to is like, what people. What's popping off, like, right then that month. And so that often can trigger like a signal that that's a trend that people are searching for right then. And it's often lower competition. Not always, but oftentimes. And what. One of the top ones I noticed that people search for in the last 30 days was Christmas phone case. And this, this right here, this graph, it shows you like the whole year. So like the two big bumps right here, like, they're, they're smaller than like this bump right here, the August bump. But this is the Christmas bump. Okay? So it is just like going nuts. So a lot of people are searching for Christmas phone cases. So if you are in the print demand space, I would have that on your radar. Black and white, checkered Christmas balls. So you might think, you know, how does that apply to me if I don't sell Christmas balls, you know, for Christmas trees? But what that's signaling to me is that the colors, black and white, are trending, which I have seen that with a lot of different data points, a lot of different research I've done online, black and white is going to be popular, partially driven by retro aesthetic, the vintage aesthetic, but also the Scandinavian aesthetic. So that's really popular with that aesthetic. But yeah, Black and white and retro going to be really, really huge this year. Laser retro Christmas, that's more for my digital sellers. So that is like skyrocketing, Skyrocket, skyrocketing with search trends and keyword searches. Christmas apron, that's a new one, as you can see here with the chart here. Looking at the last year, didn't see it like it had a bump at around the holidays, but this is kind of significant. So that's something I would have on your radar too because it's probably going to be a lower competition product. It is print in a man available. Printify has has aprons in their catalog. A lot of other ones do too. If you follow me. Follow me on my Wednesday Grind podcast, guys. It's on YouTube. I go over a lot of these trends, but in my last episode I talked about a newer product and I've heard you guys talk about it on here too on the Golden City Ventures podcast. And it's a product available through Anywhere Pod. It's a cookie platter and, or like a grilling platter. Just like a, a, a plate or a platter. And it's super high search, lower competition product that you can make with print demand through anywhere Podcast. And I can just see someone, a really smart seller bundling this for a grandmother gift where they've got the plate, you know, grandma's cookie helpers or I'm trying to think of what, what phrase I would use but like grandma's cookie crew or Grandma's favorite cookies. Okay, so you've got the platter, you've got the matching mug and then you've got the apron that says that, you know, I'm bundling that together. People really do enjoy those types of gifts and they're personalized and so your conversion rate is increased. So I don't know, I just always jump around like, how can I, how can I increase my average order value? And that's just one way, one example of doing that.
A
I love that. Are you getting these just from typing literally Christmas into the E ring search bar? And then. Okay, cool, easy enough.
B
Now I do a lot of mining on it and so I'm really manipulating the data to find these easily so that I'm looking so that, so I'm easily able to like find, find the ones that are low competition. If that makes sense.
A
Yeah, that makes sense.
B
In, in, in E Rank, it lets. They'll let you like organize the data by like volume, by competition, things like that. And I, I do a lot of that manipulate manipulation to minus as do I. So yeah, yeah, you know what I mean? A lot of this, these little screenshots represent like a little bit of time spent researching.
A
Definitely a lot of time.
B
Lots of nurse Christmas shirt. So the micro, you know, once again, intent driven buyers, you know, more and more often people aren't just looking for Christmas shirt, they're looking for a Christmas shirt for nurses or a Christmas gift for nurses. And not just any nurse. If you're smart, you're going to, you're going to niche down even more and go ER nurse, labor and delivery nurse. If you don't know anything about nurses, go on to ChatGPT and ask ChatGPT what are the most popular nurses, you know, nurse occupations. Know that, that you can go in or that or areas of specialty, you know, where you specialize in an area and it will tell you so you know, you know, make sure you're focusing on intent driven micro niches. First Christmas married ornament Another thing that's really important to keep in mind with being success successful on Etsy and driving traffic to your shop is a, a lot of people come to Etsy not just buy a gift. They want to create a memory or they want to commemorate a memory. And that's why milestones drive a lot of traffic and, and have increased conversion rate because people want to create a memory or they want to commemorate a memory. So in this case it's the first Christmas that someone's married. So they either want to commemorate it as a couple and create that memory or someone is buying it as a gift for them. So something to keep in mind there. And this is for a lot of different milestones. There's a lot of different life's milestones that you forget about. There's babies for Christmas if you have a baby. But let's start before that. Okay, we'll start, we'll start babies for first Christmas then first birthday. Okay, That's a big milestone birthday. I have seen Etsy shops explode and all they sell is birthday shirts. Okay. For kids or they, or birthday, you know, paraphernalia for kids because, and they focus on those milestone Birthdays to 10th birthday, 5th birthday, your 60th birthday. Retirement is a milestone. I'm trying to think of other milestones, engagement. So anything that, that is a milestone. If someone dies, you know, and they want to, they want to create a memorial ornament for them. So always be thinking, thinking, thinking about that. If you're listing gifts, okay, Christmas Crew 2025, that is, we saw a huge influx in August for Those searches. So that's mostly people who, who are searching for that are people who are looking for T shirts, matching T shirts for their family Christmas photos or their couple. And they're searching for it for Christmas morning for that, for the Christmas photos, for their cards or even offices. So offices are going to do this. I think it would be fun to do like Christmas er crew, you know, going into those micro niches again. Okay. Unsaturated. So always be thinking of like how can I dig a little deeper? You know, go, go, go a little bit more micro. My niches now don't go too micro that it's like there's not any search traffic for it. So you want to do a little bit of research and validate those, those niches. But always be thinking about how you could add new value to that. And with Christmas crew, definitely recommend if you're going to do that to try and add personalization.
A
Absolutely.
B
Ugly Christmas sweater. This is one that people, a lot of people overlook. I want to say my second Christmas on Etsy, I really, maybe it was my second or third Christmas. I just made a ton of money by ranking for ugly Christmas sweater on that first page. And it was just a sweatshirt. It was a gilded sweatshirt. It was something that was in the news cycle. I think it was cross niched with politics possibly. And it just went nuts. I mean I, I made a lot of money and that was one of those ones I didn't catch until November. I listed in November and, and it went crazy. I've had other ones. My first Christmas actually now I remember it this, that was my third Christmas, my first Christmas. It was just a topic in the, in the news. It wasn't political and I ranked for ugly Christmas sweater there as well and made a lot of money. So a lot of people forget about ugly Christmas sweater. There aren't a lot of searches for it until closer to Christmas. Um, but if you can rank for that and your product takes off and then you start ranking for the word Christmas on the first page, it can be really, really helpful.
A
And now that we talked about some breakword breakout keyword ideas and kind of how your brain works, I mean I think it was just really cool to see like literally live product ideation from these keywords. Can we talk about how you kind of combined the first two things we talked about where you look at aesthetics and trends from maybe different holidays and then you kind of superimpose them over the new holiday that you might be searching for to create.
B
All right, so I want to show you Guys, an example of, of where a Halloween aesthetic carries over to Christmas. Okay, so this pumpkin right here is a Patrick pumpkin. It's part of the like cozy country Christmas trend that we're seeing on Etsy. And this is an example of more like a fall exam, fall design with the chickens. And now we can see how it integrated in or moved on into Christmas with the Santa and the Christmas tree. So once again, these were trends I spotted at Halloween that I noticed. Oh, this is catching on. And this is going to be trendy for Christmas as well. Let's look at another example here, the Y2K trend or the like iridescent trend. There's like some different names I've seen floated around for it, but here are some fall examples or Halloween one. You know, we see the ghost here with the coquette bow here with the cross. You know, more of a Christian niche with once again a coquette bow integrated into the design there. And then here's a design that's taken off for Christmas where you can see those color palettes sort of caught, you know, caught that trend here where it's like Y2K aesthetics. And we can go on to Etsy and we'll see definitely see examples of this. Let me go through all the trends here and then we'll go on to the Christmas search on Etsy and we'll see if we can like look for these trends as well as places like Target.
A
Cool.
B
All right, so pattern text trend that's going to be huge for on Etsy and across all platforms this year. I'm definitely seeing that for fall for Halloween. Like, you know, the mama example here, huge for Christmas as well. And a product idea I had for digital sellers. It's starting to get a little late, but there's still time for it. It would not be hard to create an Alphabet like this with AI And a lot of people look for Christmas doodle alphabets. So just something to think of if you're a digital seller. All right, so coquette coat is huge. This, this Christmas, definitely. I'm seeing it with the, you know, the cozy trend here, the country trend with pattern text with, you know, candy canes, with the club trend, you know, where it has like the Christmas club crew kind of thing as well as with the Y2K trend. It's, it's really popular. Another one, I don't have it on here, but it's like the messy coquette doodle trend where it's more like the hand drawn doodles that's really popular. There's usually Like a little bow somewhere in there. So it's sort of integrating the cottage core or I'm sorry, not catchcore but the coquette niche. So there's just lots of ways to add value to that. Okay. Western, this was really big for Halloween and it's definitely starting to become trendy for Christmas as well. And it's lower competition. So definitely something to think about for holidays this year is Western Christmas. And that's another great example of how we're seeing a trend that's really popular for Halloween that's carrying over to the next holiday. So, so that's why it's really important to trend spot the previous holiday or the holiday that people are currently buying for when you're doing your next set of trends for or designs for the next holiday. Cottagecore, this has been popular for a couple of years now, two or three years now, it's still popular. And when I see examples of that and Etsy, when we do the Christmas search, we'll point that out.
A
It's funny, I've been watching rewatching Stranger Things for anticipation of the season five and it always reminds me of cottage core aesthetic. Just the whole, the whole show. It's funny.
B
Yeah, it's, it's everywhere. It really is. It's not just, just in shopping, it's, it's, you know, in movies that we watch. It's yeah, it's everywhere for sure. Really quickly. Some low competition keywords ideas for you guys whenever you're creating your listings. Remember keeping in mind those intent based buyers for those micro niches. These are some lower competition ones. Mother in law people like to, to search for guests from mother in laws. There's neighbors, godparents, co workers, employees. So bosses who are searching for employees, their granddaughter, grandson, Hostess gifts are really popular. Firefighter, firemen. Once again, godparent, remembering words like godmother, godfather, Gifts for pharmacists, gifts for lawyers, gifts for principals, hairdressers and veterinarians. So just some ideas for you guys. All right, so now I'm going to stop sharing this and let's see if.
A
We can identify some of these trends on Etsy itself. Yeah, that's pretty fun.
B
All right, so you guys can see see me here. Okay. Alrighty. So we are on Etsy and I have just put in a very broad search term like Christmas and we're going to just look for some of these trends and discuss new trends as well. Obviously ignore anything that's ever trademarked. These are shops that will be taken down later on and even are Being, you know, getting sued, especially when they're infringing on. On trademarks. Like Disney would never do that.
A
They get a big trademark takedown team.
B
Always ignore those. Yeah, one of the trends I'm seeing for kids is it reminds me of like the 90s character animation. Like think like American tail or you know what I mean, where it has like the big doe eyes. It's like exploding for kids. So if you design kid ornaments, if you design kids apparel, by the way, kids, kids personalized ornaments and kids personalized apparel, super popular on Etsy for the holidays are these characters. And you can easily use AI to create these types of characters. You can do reindeer, you can make gingerbread men, things like that. And by the way, you guys, I will put together an entire cheat sheet of trends that we cover today that you guys can. It'll be a free download. I'll give it to Cody to put in the show notes for you guys. So I know this is a lot to take in. So I will make sure to condense this into like one document for you guys. Okay?
A
Thank you so much. That'll be awesome.
B
Make sure you grab that in the show notes. So another trend I'm seeing, we. We haven't talked about this yet. It's like the sarcastic trend, you know, like this one is really, this one is like going crazy right now. Probably just gonna jingle some of the way. I'm tired and, and people are noticing that this is taking off. So do not copy this design. You know, anytime you copy design, you're not going to get anywhere except for a copyright infringement. But what I would do is think of ways to add value to this and maybe, maybe even screenshot it. Put into ChatGPT and ask to chatgpt for new phrases. Okay. Because people are looking for sarcastic funny shirts to wear for Christmas. I could see this even ranking for something like ugly Christmas sweater. So something to keep in mind there. Now this one here, the Donald Duck once again wouldn't touch it because it's, it's copyright infringement. However, what I would take from this is the, is this jolly enough. And I would put like, you know, the, the goose trend, like the country goose trend or like, or geese or the duck trend or even like the, like the rabied looking possums and the, the raccoons sort of like the weird core ones. I would wrap one of those in the lights and ask, you know, is this jolly enough? You know, so taking inspiration from that without infringing on any copyright. Right. Christian niche is going to be Huge. Now, here's that doodle trend I was telling you about earlier. Right here. It's sort of like, I call it the messy coquette, or like, just the doodles. That's really, really popular. This can be done with AI. It's a little tricky with AI. You have to really watch to make sure it doesn't mess up, like graphics or misspell words. So if you do use AI for this, you have to be really careful and make sure you're checking those designs, but it can be done with it. But a lot of people just like to put together elements that maybe they've gotten from creative Fabrica to create a unique design, but that's really popular. I'm really popping off right now. Sarcastic winter shirts. I'm trying to think of what else. The coquette. The coquette Christmas tree. Now, what I think that people who are smart sellers are doing is they're using AI to create a Y2K. Like, a Y2K version of this where it has, like, the. More the pastels, iridescent colors with the bow. So there's just lots of ways to add value to this. And then I would place this on a. Apparel for women, apparel for kids, maybe personalize it, place it on ornaments, things like that. Once again, you know that sarcastic trend we're seeing? Here it is. Look, that character again. Right there it is taking off, you guys, those, like, big doe eyes with. With like, a fun, whimsical, playful font. Lots of nostalgia. Of course, the. The 1x4 collage with cookies.
A
Seen it all.
B
Yes, there's anything like from Halloween. So once again, this reminds me of that Y2K Halloween element we saw. So once again, you know where. Where you see those aesthetics carry on to the next holiday. Nostalgia, of course, is huge. One touch anything Disney up. Here's some. Here's an idea. An example of the goose trend I was telling you about earlier, where that's really, really popular. So, yeah, those are just some ideas for you guys.
A
That's a million ideas.
B
Yeah.
A
This is awesome. This is seriously awesome as we bring this episode to a close. Angel, I know you do your weekly trends every single Wednesday. I believe you're a wealth of knowledge on social media, constantly posting, like, just listening to you now. You clearly know your stuff. You're actually in the weeds doing this. Where do you want to send people? Where do you want people to get more passive income? Angel.
B
Yeah, just search for me on YouTube. I'll leave a link for Cody so you guys can find my YouTube channel. Just passive income, Angel. I teach a lot about Etsy, print on demand, digital sales, making money online, things like that.
A
Awesome.
B
Cool.
A
Well again. And AI. Well, cool again. Thank you so much for your time today. I think our listeners and watchers are going to get ton of information, ton of ideas from this and can't wait for our next chat.
B
Yeah, and I did want to also mention that I have the Wednesday Grind podcast that's part of my YouTube channel. So that's where you would find that as well. As well as on Spotify.
A
Perfect. We'll link everything up in the show notes. Thank you again, Angel.
B
Thank you.
Podcast Host: Gold City Ventures (Cody)
Guest: Angel, a.k.a. Passive Income Angel
Date: October 30, 2025
This episode dives deep into the precise, trend-driven strategies that helped Angel, known as Passive Income Angel, scale her Etsy shop to over $100,000 in her first year—with no prior experience. Cody and Angel walk through Angel's methods for spotting trends, leveraging seasonality, timing listings, finding low-competition keywords, and using research tools and AI to stay ahead in the handmade and digital product niches on Etsy. The episode is designed for Etsy sellers looking to “steal” this actionable $100K trend method and maximize their reach for upcoming seasons and holidays.
[00:16–02:29]
Notable Quote:
"I just decided to sell an Etsy as just like a side hustle…I got a little discouraged but I was like, you know what, that's okay. I'm just going to just go ahead and do it as an extra income stream."
— Angel [00:28]
[02:29–05:33]
Notable Quote:
"I found a keyword that was high search, low competition and I made products based on that keyword…and my shop exploded...I started a design aesthetic trend and now I see that trend at Target."
— Angel [04:02]
[06:12–09:34]
Angel’s Methodology:
Pro Tip:
"You really can do a lot of trend spotting by looking at the holiday people are currently searching for and applying it to the next one."
— Angel [06:12]
Workflow Demo:
Research Hack:
[09:34–14:05]
Notable Quote:
"I listed an editable letter from Santa like a week before Christmas…that thing made so many sales during the week, all the way up till Christmas Day. But you missed out on thousands of dollars in sales not listing it sooner."
— Cody & Angel [11:53–12:23]
[14:12–16:29]
[16:32–19:12]
[19:14–26:09]
Bundling Tip:
"I can just see someone, a really smart seller, bundling this for a grandmother gift—plate, mug, apron with matching phrase…People really enjoy those types of gifts and they're personalized, so your conversion rate is increased."
— Angel [21:49]
[22:16–30:39]
Notable Quote:
"If you’re smart, you’re going to niche down even more and go ER nurse, labor and delivery nurse…make sure you’re focusing on intent-driven micro-niches."
— Angel [23:02]
[27:22–36:16]
Method: Spot aesthetics/graphics in the current holiday and translate them to upcoming events (e.g., Y2K pumpkins ➔ Y2K Christmas trees).
Examples:
Low competition niche ideas: mother-in-law, neighbors, godparents, coworkers, employees, hostess gifts, pharmacists, veterinarians, etc.
Notable Quote:
"Always be thinking: How can I dig a little deeper—go a little bit more micro with my niches. Now, don’t go so micro that there’s no search traffic…always be thinking about how you could add new value to that niche."
— Angel [25:31]
[31:43–36:16]
[36:37–37:14]
For Angel’s cheat sheet and direct links, refer to the show notes as promised during the episode.