← How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
Ep 175 | 5 Growing Digital Product Niches -with Gold City Ventures
00:45:52
The Digital Product niche continues to EXPLODE on Etsy! Not only are sellers super excited for the semi passive income opportunity, but more and more shoppers are looking for easy, diy, last minute digital products for gifts, organization, and time...
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- [00:01]
Lizzie Smiley
Hey, my name is Lizzie Smiley and I absolutely love helping people connect with their calling and all the tools they need to kick roadblocks and excuses right out the door so they can cultivate the life they dream about. If you want to launch, grow, pivot or scale your Etsy shop, or you've always wanted to develop the mindset and skills to run your own business, then I'm your girl. I've had that entrepreneurial spirit going strong since my very first lemonade stand. And now I'm a work at home mama with multiple online companies and a full time Etsy shop. All while being present with my kids for the everyday chaos and most important milestones. On this podcast, we'll talk about all things business, mindset, Etsy creativity, dazzling our customers, and so much more. There's plenty of room at this table for you, so scooch on in and let's go. I'm holding nothing back. Welcome to how to sell your stuff on Etsy. I'm so glad you're here. Hey guys, welcome back to the show this week. I'm so excited to be behind the microphone today. I haven't talked to Julie from Gold City Ventures in a few years. You guys know Kody and I vibe. We have a great time, but Julie is just such a lovely personality and she is so smart and this conversation, I am. Can you tell I'm so energized by it. So I cannot wait to jump into this with you. I want to let you know I just released a new product that could be really valuable for you. It is design templates. So. So if you're in the digital product space or you're in the print on demand space and you ever need to go into canva and design stuff, this is for you. I had you in mind. It's over 65 pages and I'm going to continue to grow it as trends change of things. Like here are the best fonts to use. Here's a bunch of design templates that will help you like position things correctly and just make it so much easier. I'm literally using it daily for my own, my own shops. It's got. Did I already say it's got fonts for all the different niches. It has elements for the different niches. It has like trending, like here trending patterns and styles, everything to just make your job easier. Like I said, currently over 65 pages. So if that would help you. If you're like need to go faster with design, you know what always takes me so long? It was the finding it was the hunting for fonts and then also like trying to get things like the curve perfectly on the text in canva, all of that stuff. So I'm making it easier for you. Grab that. It's super, super low ticket if you want some help with that. And then last week we had our live AI coloring page workshop. Oh my gosh, I had so much fun. It was incredible. People are raving about it. If you didn't get a chance to get in, don't worry, it's still available. You can grab the replay and all of the bonuses down in the show notes with everything else. And those are the things happening right now. So let's dig in. I'm like this conversation. I'm still, I've got chills. I'm still so energized. So please help me welcome Julie or Julie Berninger has helped 20,000, 20,000 plus a lot students start Etsy shops selling digital products through Gold City Ventures. She loves all things technology, business and family. So let's dig into the good stuff. Please help me welcome Julie to the podcast. Hey Julie, welcome back to the podcast.
- [03:05]
Julie Berninger
Thanks for having me.
- [03:06]
Lizzie Smiley
Well, I figured we needed a little estrogen this time. We talked to Cody for a few years now and I'm just like, I know Julie's over there having babies, but I want to see her face.
- [03:15]
Julie Berninger
Do it. Let's do it. Like I said, onto baby number three now due in September, but doing well, making it through.
- [03:20]
Lizzie Smiley
You're amazing. I do not know how I am overwhelmed with my 2 year old toddler. So the fact that you're like, let's go for number three. You win.
- [03:29]
Julie Berninger
Yeah. Sometimes I'm like, I think I'm crazy. But you know, we're doing this and I'm excited.
- [03:33]
Lizzie Smiley
I think it's so worth it. And then eventually they hit five and like it's smooth sailing.
- [03:37]
Julie Berninger
Yes, exactly.
- [03:39]
Lizzie Smiley
She says, from a complete ignorant whatever. My daughter's 10, I haven't hit 13 yet. So all of you can email me and tell me how crazy and wrong I. Okay, listen Julie, I've got to start with like this, I think burning question for a lot of people. I want to know, like this is so unique to you. Of all of the digital product possibilities, like with Etsy, there's so many. Why do you say printables are the best? Like why is that your go to?
- [04:00]
Julie Berninger
Okay, there are two reasons. One is that when people are trying to make a side hustle that they can fit in maybe in four hours a week max. Like Two or four hours. It's hard to make a competitive, very complex product. I mean we all have heard that Google sheets and Notion and all of these other cool digital products, maybe you can sell them for over $10 per pop on Etsy. Yes, that's true. But it will take hours and hours and hours probably to make something that is good enough to be competitive and a bestseller. Yet there are these very simple printables and we're going to talk about some today, like for example, a bucket list printable. There's a summer bucket list I was looking at and someone just put 12 random clip arts of like a beach umbrella and a mountain for a hike and you check off as you go along this summer and you know all your different bucket list items. That thing probably took someone like 30 minutes to make in Canva, yet it sold over a thousand dollars, estimated insight factory told me, in revenue in like the last seven days or something crazy. What my point is that you, if you were just starting out, a simple printable is easier for you to make. You can pivot faster, you can get more listings up on Etsy and then you are increasing the potential dollars you can make with the limited amount of time that you have.
- [05:10]
Lizzie Smiley
You know, I wonder, like, for a super beginner who's not coming in with like kind of any design skills, doesn't necessarily have the eye. I have noticed like people who have the eye, like their home is very curated and decorated or their wardrobe is very curated. I feel like those people, teachers too come in with maybe a slight advantage when it comes to like design. But when you think of printables, sometimes it requires, would you agree, or requires less aesthetic strengths to begin with.
- [05:34]
Julie Berninger
The simple printables do and the seasonal printables that we tend to push people towards do. Now if you come in and you're like, oh, I want to make something for someone in the beauty small business niche, they're not going to be okay with really gaudy stuff because if, let's say that they wax eyebrows, a person walking into their studio will think you're going to remove my eyebrows. Like this thing is so ugly, I'm terrified. So I would say stay away from some of those high stakes niches. Wedding is obviously one. But there are people that they come in with that look in that design skill set and they can jump right to those more competitive niches. But I would say the majority of people, they don't even have to do that. Like we have people that have 25,000 sales on Etsy. Sasha, one of Our main coaches is perfect example. And she does simple printable. She's not necessarily doing anything that's Picasso level printables, but she's crushing it.
- [06:18]
Lizzie Smiley
I also want to encourage people. Like, so just for the record, I don't have an eye at all. I came in with like, like, I literally cannot pair two things together. I have grown and developed that skill. It's taken a few years for me. So we all start kind of at a different level. But I literally just the other day went in for a, what do you call, like a color consult where they told me what colors to wear and not wear. Like, they tell you, oh, you're a spring or you're a winter or you're a whatever. I'm a summer, by the way. I'm a dark brown summer. But I still kind of need some of that. But I have noticed as I have designed more and more over the years, like, it's a, like, I just want to encourage people. It's a skill you can develop. But like, so tell me more, Julie, about what, what kind of products would printables include? So things like bucket lists, like, because you were kind of going into the beauty. What, like, what would that even look like?
- [07:02]
Julie Berninger
So you could, for example, make social media templates, and we're calling those printables. They're technically digital products. They're Canva templates. So what we're incorporate in our world is anything made in Canva, including both non editable and editable files. Although I will say Canva just recently rolled out a change where you have to have Canva Pro to make an editable template, which is a little bit of a bummer. I mean, I. I've been paying for Canva Pro for a while. I really think it's worth it if someone is serious about this side hustle. But it's a little bit of a change because for years we had access to the free stuff.
- [07:36]
Lizzie Smiley
Guys, my dog is making an appearance today. I apologize. He'll chill out in a few minutes. We okay? Like, literally segue. Side note, last night saw our first rattlesnake here on our farm. I had to kill it. And so I'm like, not letting the dog, like, I'm like watching the dogs like a hawk until we establish there's not like a nest in the yard. So little bit different happening today. Okay. I think that's so interesting and I love to know that you're expanding. It's really also including templates. So, like, you know what's amazing to me and I Don't necessarily suggest that people go into wall art but the way that you guys teach like holidays and seasonal stuff when I'm in there like playing on ever be and looking at some of the top designs they're like newer shops selling you know like some AI wall art specific to a like a holiday like for Easter. There have been some really amazing ones and like that, that to me like what a, what a smooth way to transition into it and not have like an enormous workload.
- [08:27]
Julie Berninger
No, I mean the ghost in the bathtub wall art was the big breakout. I don't know if you remember that around August, September last year and people were, they were using mid journey and they were making competitors to that and I'm sure now there probably what an Easter bunny brushing his teeth. What was that?
- [08:43]
Lizzie Smiley
Oh yeah. And there's well there's a lot of like more like faith based that I'm seeing like a lot of resurrection kind of image but like very, very beautiful watercolor vintage feeling really, really interesting stuff. But I love like just printables expands. There's so many possibilities. So like how do you like a knowing that there's lots of possibilities how do you decide what to design for? Like how are you making those decisions on where you should spend your time to create?
- [09:09]
Julie Berninger
I would say for 99% of people as fun as the AI stuff sounds and even the editable templates, they really should stick with the simple non editable PDF that I'm talking about. And it's tough because we all get shiny object syndrome and we want to just learn all the things. And so even us today, we're talking about midjourney and we're talking about some cool AI tools that we want them to learn and use. It's just chasing the next hot thing if they can learn how to make a simple PDF. We have seen people make thousands and thousands of sales with just a simple non editable PDF. Like the bucket list I was explaining to you that was an example of something that is not made with used any fancy tools or anything and it's crushing it. So I would say for the majority of people unless and for us like the marker is 100 sales on Etsy. Once you hit 100 sales on Etsy, you've proven to yourself that you kind of, you kind of get it. Like you're starting to get it and you're moving on to okay, now it's time maybe you can experiment. But until you get to that point and not to put a hard cut off if it's in Your heart, you want to do something else. But I would say for the majority of people, like stick with the simple non editable PDF in Canva like the one pagers and you can do research using keyword research tools to figure out specifically what to make. And that's going to set you up for the slam dunk.
- [10:19]
Lizzie Smiley
I think that that's so helpful for beginners. Like I'm super, super into the AI stuff, but I'm realizing you really do need to have a bit of an eye and so if you're brand new and or you're having trouble selling things that are more aesthetic, trying to go into something so simple to create like a PDF, like it doesn't get more simple than that. So what a, like such a great place to start. Especially like it makes me sad when people are like, this isn't working for me. And I'm like, we just need to simplify. You're trying to do too many. You're trying to make this too complicated. So perfect. And you mentioned to me like you've been noticing there's like five growing digital product niches and I'd love for you to talk to us about that. Like, I know everyone's going to be super excited to hear that piece.
- [10:55]
Julie Berninger
Great. And I will say that some of these are the exciting shiny object. Want to learn more? Because I don't know, we're here for it, but the person listening, I don't know where they're at. But if you're someone like me, even if you choose not to pursue that path, it's still exciting to hear about what's, what's happened, what's hot in the space. Okay, so the first one we're going to talk about for anyone that's crafty and you're craft loving people out there, the crochet patterns, they're big again this year. They've been big for years. I'm sure. You know, Lizzie, you've heard people sell in the crochet space. I even tried to pick up crochet the last couple years.
- [11:26]
Lizzie Smiley
You did not.
- [11:28]
Julie Berninger
I have bought so many kits that have sat in my closet and you know, you just open it and you're like, oh, do I have time for this? And you're excited, but it's huge. And I can't even tell you. I'm someone that's a blogger too and I have access to the top blogs who are getting the most traffic and it's the crochet blogs that are just crushing it right now. It's insane. But what is the hot trend is not, it's not enough necessarily to do crochet patterns. It's to become somewhat of an influencer. And there was this one particular shop that I saw where the woman turned her crochet shop almost into like mini TikToks and she applied a seasonal element. So if she was teaching you how to make this like crochet Santa hat, you saw her wearing the hat, you saw like all these different angles, her making it and you could tell that like she's crushing it in the social space and then bringing it back to selling on Etsy. Which I'm bringing this up because 99% of us do never even touch social media and that's why we love selling on Etsy. But if you do have that extra energy or like you're someone that really enjoys the TikTok or influence, influencer space, try to make your Etsy shop into almost like a show that people can follow where whatever your latest pattern is or your latest design and make it seasonal and you can really crush it. So this woman, she had like 1200 sales in the last seven days. She made $20,000 in the last two days. Or it was like it was some ridiculous. These are all estimations. But she's, she's really doing very well. Not surprising because crochet is big. But I just wanted to add that like there are people that they're getting the extra energy to, to apply that kind of social reality TV show element to it and it makes a big difference in their sales.
- [13:02]
Lizzie Smiley
I've never seen that like in an Etsy shop though. Now I'm going to have my eyes peeled because I'm very curious. Like, how are they? Like, is it the thumbnails? Like you're seeing the same product but in several different listings. But the thumbnails, she's using the, the.
- [13:15]
Julie Berninger
15 second video that you can make.
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Lizzie Smiley
Okay.
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Julie Berninger
And it's literally like a TikTok where.
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Lizzie Smiley
You can see her.
- [13:21]
Julie Berninger
Like, you know, you're. It's not. When you're selling a digital product, like we often just make the digital mock up and it's like very boring. And if we have a video, it's like showing how it's editable or you can download it or whatever, right? But like she's showing what the actual end product is, but it's clear it's a digital product and she's kind of doing the latest, whatever the latest thing is. So you know, Easter's upcoming, so we'd be talking about like you would see her Making whatever her Easter stuff is. That would be what is making. Right. So I'll just give you a reason to go back to her shop and follow her. And I'm sure she has, like a very dedicated social following too.
- [13:51]
Lizzie Smiley
So many people could use that, though. My handmade makers. I'm really sorry about the dog, you guys. Come here, JoJo.
- [13:56]
Julie Berninger
He's fired up about this idea.
- [13:58]
Lizzie Smiley
I feel like so many people can run with that though. Like, if they sell anything handmade, even, like anyone who's running any social media, like, that doesn't just have to be a hot digital product idea. If you have something take off on Instagram or on TikTok as a video, pop that in as your. As your Etsy, like, listing video. That's. That is a brilliant idea. Julie, you've. Okay, I'm excited. Let's keep going.
- [14:19]
Julie Berninger
Have you seen the cold brew candle lady? Oh, oh. The cold brew candle lady crushes it. It makes me want to eat a candle. I've never wanted to eat a candle before. But you know that like when you first pour some milk into a cold brew and it swirls around, she makes her candles look like that. And I found her shop through like the Etsy data mining. And then I'm like, there's no way this woman's just getting this traffic from Etsy. Like, there's not enough market for people typing in coffee candles. And of course, like, it's like something that took off on TikTok or Instagram and then people are coming back to her shop to purchase it.
- [14:49]
Lizzie Smiley
And yeah, she's driving traffic. She's not going organic Etsy traffic.
- [14:53]
Julie Berninger
I mean, she's doing both. Like, she still ranks for the top candle keywords too, but just at the beginning, I mean, the coffee candle wasn't. I have seen a lot of editable, like cereal candles and stuff that people like, but she's driving traffic off Etsy too, and bringing her own traffic to Etsy.
- [15:08]
Lizzie Smiley
My gosh. Okay, well, this is. That is so exciting. Anyone playing in social media. That's a humongous pro tip. I've never even thought of that. I love it. I've got chills. What's the next one?
- [15:18]
Julie Berninger
Okay, so the next one is the German market is growing, so I don't know if you've noticed on Etsy, but definitely Canada, Australia, UK seem to be growing markets, but Germany has some breakout shops and specifically for almost like giftable items. So there was this one shop that did really well. I think it had 3,400 sales in the last month when I was looking at it and it was selling almost like birthday last minute printable gifts, but entirely in German. So if, if somebody speaks another language and it's one of, from one of those countries that I mentioned, then it might be interesting and worth it for you to try to list some things. But Google Translate AI tools are coming much better. If you're brave, if you're very brave and you want to see if you have it right, you could try to list something. And in German in specific specifically is one that I've seen take off.
- [16:05]
Lizzie Smiley
And that's so interesting because I know there's like a nuance to what the language is that you're, you have to, you go look this up on the, in the Etsy seller handbook, guys, because if you have your shop language listed as English, it's going to, I think, translate. Sometimes it'll translate your SEO into English from the German and vice versa. So go look that up. There's a whole thing about that in the Etsy seller handbook. But Julie, it's so funny you say that because this year I feel like there was more October Fest content than I've ever seen before.
- [16:32]
Julie Berninger
Yeah. And you can imagine Etsy is trying to grow. So it's probably paying a lot of money to advertise in those countries. So they're getting more and more people looking there. And I mean, for digital products, I was shocked. Now, admittedly, this shop was entirely in German. It was like either somebody's second niche shop or it was their primary shop. So it wasn't like someone just adding a random German listing because for the reasons that you mentioned, it could be confusing. And Etsy might be changing stuff if you have two different languages in your shop. But I thought that was cool. I haven't seen that recently take off as much and I'm seeing more and more of it.
- [17:02]
Lizzie Smiley
I think that's fascinating and I love it. Like, I love seeing it expand, you know, more global. That's great.
- [17:08]
Julie Berninger
Great. Okay, the third one, this particular category is about AI, but the pregnancy and gender reveal category, it's, I don't want to say it's a tired niche on Etsy, but for those of us that sell digital products, we've known about these type of products for a long time. If you think about the Instagram basic post where someone says October 2024 and then you'll see like the sonogram with some pumpkins all around it, those have been big for a while. But AI and some of the recent technology changes have Made it really easy for people to make those type of products because before you'd have to like in order to be competitive against other people, you'd have to go find unique clip art like unique baby shoes or unique pumpkins. And it was, it was hard to kind of make something that stands out. But now with the use of AI and all the different AI tools out there, like you can more easily kind of come in as a competitor to the space and it's really elevated the space. So I'm using pregnancy and gender reveal as like one example. But you mentioned wall art. Like there are tons of other cases where this was a niche on Etsy that I don't want to say like saturated per se, but here's a way like new technology changes have allowed new people to kind of come in and like up level and compete in the space where they're starting to kind of divert some of the sales away from other people because they can just produce more listings faster with unique combinations. Now I want to mention AI requires you learning another tool. So if you haven't mastered Canva yet, probably not a great idea to try to learn another tool. But hey, I like learning new thing, so that's fine. Two, Etsy requires you to disclose when you use AI. The shop I was looking at actually had not disclosed that it was AI made, but it was like, yeah, this is probably AI made. You couldn't really prove it, but it looked like that. And then three, like Etsy's really, they don't want to be just like a junk factory because the higher quality all the products are, the more sales we all can make because we have customer trust. So just be careful when you are using AI that you're not. But everything you're putting there is something that you're like proud of and you'd be comfortable with. You're not just like, oh, because I can put up 50 listings in one day doesn't mean that you should do that.
- [19:05]
Lizzie Smiley
You probably get hit with like a spam thing anyway and get like a temporary suspension or something.
- [19:09]
Julie Berninger
Yeah, I mean they're really suspension happy, so it's not worth it. But there's just like, just huge opportunity with incorporating AI. And even if you don't want to do like a whole AI whole thing, you can do like just a clip art or something and that could help me make your stuff stand out.
- [19:23]
Lizzie Smiley
We've been talking about that a ton. That was a shop that I launched end of last year that kind of, that did very well right off the bat. And I am not a good designer naturally. So AI Midjourney and Ideogram have really changed the game for me because I can't sit down and draw something or graphic design something. But if I compare my skills that I do have with some AI elements I can really create. Like I could sell a lot of PNGs, whereas before it wouldn't have been an option for me. So we talk about that a lot around here and I think that there are, like you said, it's opened up possibilities for people.
- [19:52]
Julie Berninger
Yeah, totally. Okay, the fourth one. So this is not necessarily a change but I just want to mention that like seasonal products are still crushing and it's our number one recommended go to for anybody who is coming in. And I don't even say newer because some people are like, oh, it's just for new people. But to be honest, like it doesn't take that much to be in the top 1% of Etsy sellers. Like once you get a couple thousand sales, next thing you know you're in the higher echelon. So the majority of sellers actually they're still in this category where seasonal printables and like chasing the holidays is still a fantastic option and maybe one of the better ones. So this one particular shop I was looking at, it had like 1300 sales over two days and it was just crushing it with those simple seasonal PDFs. So they're, they're there, they're here to stay. And more and more as consumer shopping patterns change and have changed, we're not going out and getting in the car and like getting stuff as much as we did in prior generations. Like we're just staying at home and doing it last minute because we're overwhelmed and we're just printing things. So before every holiday, day before week, before every holiday, that's when you can really pick up some of those like last minute sales. And we can, I mean We've seen almost 25,000 people at this point go through our E Printables course. And the ones that are hitting our hundred sales marker faster, 100 sales club, they sell seasonal printables. So it's just like over time it just reinforces belief that that's probably the best thing for a seller that is starting out or even one that has, you know, 20,000 sales on Etsy. It's, it's the way to make money on Etsy with digital products.
- [21:18]
Lizzie Smiley
I think like the, like the key like seasonal is phenomenal for those quick impact sales and the more that you can trend comb. So like if Easter's coming up. And you don't just do a little Easter bunny. Although that's adorable. Maybe bring in some of the toile de joie, like that, that kind of indigo blue monochromatic floral pattern, like bringing in some coquette, bringing in some, you know, like, even. Even bringing in like skeleton, like a skeleton rabbit probably would do well as you trend combine. Like, I think I was so anti holiday before Julie. I'm saying this to like out myself because I'm just like, oh, it's not evergreen. And just gonna. And then. And then that was literally how my shop broke out. Was I trend combined into a holiday and boom. And I'm just like, well, should have listened to Julie and Cody from the start because they know where it's at. So huge opportunities.
- [22:04]
Julie Berninger
It's funny you mentioned goth. Like, we'll have people come in and they want to sell Christmas tags, like gift tags, which they're. Those are huge. They're big sellers on Etsy. Right. But you need to know what is hot and what people are looking for. And for whatever reason, like gothic skeletons have been big the last couple of years. So, like Christmas gothic skeleton tags are one that, you know, that's not the whole market for gift tags. But if you can try to find and understand like what's popular, what aesthetics, people like, you could really do well in that space.
- [22:30]
Lizzie Smiley
Who would have thought?
- [22:31]
Julie Berninger
And I think like with seasonal products versus at the end of the day, like if you see the top sellers, they're going to be making second and third shops that are very niche specific and they know exactly they're picking the right niche from the beginning and they know exactly what they're doing. The majority of people are not there. And what is beautiful about a seasonal product is that you get that feedback through that season of did I know what I was doing or not fast enough? Like you. Just because the volume is there, it's like all the rush of people, did it work or not? And if, if it doesn't work for a particular holiday, then you can go to the drawing board and go find communities like yours or mine where you can say, hey, like I. What happened here? I put four listings up for Easter. None of them sold. Like, why? And the experts can tell you, here's here's what's here, here's why it's not selling. And then you can readjust that. Where some of the evergreen niches, they're just not enough volume for you to really get, like when you're newer, to kind of get that quick feedback. So that's why I think, you know, after 12 calendar months of seasonal products, like you've almost trained yourself to kind of be ready to go on. You can find Evergreen then, or you can just continue with seasonal if you want to scale.
- [23:36]
Lizzie Smiley
Are you a print on demand or digital product Etsy seller who's tight on time or still learning all of the Etsy secrets? I totally remember the days of having no idea what product to create next before I learned how to make those informed decisions. So I can really identify with where you're at. I know how stressful and frustrating it can be to just create listing after listing and see little to no results. You wonder what you're doing wrong and just you just want someone to tell you what to create that's actually going to sell. Where are those opportunities? So let me give you a leg up with my weekly trends and opportunities report. You just join my membership and every Monday I'm going to send you an email with a list of examples exactly what is trending right now, with a video tutorial showing you how I found those trends and how to apply them in your shop. We're taking guesswork and time, extensive time off of your table. I'm also going to send you five print on demand and digital product opportunities that are growing in demand right now, helping new shops make sales and still have very low saturation in the marketplace. So your tight schedule, your newbie status doesn't have to hold you back anymore. I'm going to help you earn while you learn. You can grab my free demo to start and see an example of what the weekly trends and opportunities email looks like right from the show notes, see what you're going to get and I will see you on the inside soon. I feel like when I do something evergreen, it'll hit, but it'll hit a lot later. It'll take like four to six weeks. If I do something like seasonal that's coming up in the next 30, 60 days, it can hit within, within the day. If not, you know, the week or for sure the month, it feels like it's faster. I wanted to give like a little hot tip. Like we talk about these things that are trending right now. I'm noticing this is what we're talking about in the, in the weekly trend report is how to apply kind of quilted, quilted fabrics, like very grand millennial quilted fabrics. Like, how could you bring that in to Mother's Day? How could you bring that into Easter? Better yet, thinking forward, like, what crazy thing could you do to Bring that in for summer. So just. I just wanted to drop that one because I'm just seeing it really, like, show up in all the different ways. Are you seeing that, Julie, that kind of quilted look?
- [25:36]
Julie Berninger
Are you seeing it in the digital products, or are you seeing it in, like, print on demand and handmade?
- [25:40]
Lizzie Smiley
Yes, both.
- [25:41]
Julie Berninger
Both in the, like, what's an example of, like, seeing it in a digital product?
- [25:45]
Lizzie Smiley
So a really big one we're seeing, I think it's kind of. It's a little bit Easter themed, is you'll see four different. It's like. It's like a square png and there's four different pieces of fabric that are just squares. And then it'll say, like, amen. So there's an A in the first corner, an M in the second corner, an E in the bottom left, and an N in the bottom right. I have that right.
- [26:06]
Julie Berninger
Yeah.
- [26:06]
Lizzie Smiley
And then they'll actually put, like, a coquette bow in the middle. So it's pulling together like the Easter trend with the coquette trend with the grand millennial quilted trend. So, like, that would be an example.
- [26:17]
Julie Berninger
I think that's just. That's a perfect example of, as you said, the trend combining, which can help you stand. You don't. You don't need to do this to sell on digital products. But if you're in a space that already has, like, a lot of competition and you want to get on page one, like, if you. You can catch somebody's eye in page. In page one and like, in a simple example, the retro groovy font, when that was huge.
- [26:39]
Lizzie Smiley
Yeah.
- [26:39]
Julie Berninger
Like, in the digital product space, most digital product sellers for the holidays and such would not be incorporating that. But when that started becoming big, the listings that did incorporate what people were hoping to see. Like, they were able to come into a very crowded page one and get those clicks. And if you don't get the clicks because you don't get the eyeballs because you're not standing out, you're looking too much like everyone else. That's a way to, you know, waste your time and get buried on, like, page three and four. So I love that idea of, like, combining. So where. Where for that particular thing, like, just if somebody's not up on TikTok or Instagram, like, where are you seeing that? The quilting, like, vibe is what people are looking for.
- [27:17]
Lizzie Smiley
Okay, again, this is where I told you I don't have an eye. I also, when I first started on Etsy years ago, was not good at paying attention to trends. And that's. That worked out okay. Cause I was just in farmhouse signs. But as I've like grown as an Etsy seller and wanted to develop my skills. And last year I started really studying trends. And what I do is I go to Etsy.com and let's say I'll go, I'll type in like T shirts, like women's T shirts and I will filter by bestseller and I will study like the first several pages to see what, like the things that are flying off the shelves. What are the commonalities that we're seeing in trends. So like you brought up groovy fonts, which is a really good one. And that one's very much phasing out. Sometimes we are seeing designs that incorporate them that are newer, that'll hit. But it's very like ultra micro niche, weird kind of thing. Right now it's all about the doodle fonts. So it'll look a little bit sketchy and doodle. And so like the person going into the next holiday, if they wanted to do that same thing you were talking about where they brought in the groovy font and it helped them right now, it would be the doodle font.
- [28:10]
Julie Berninger
Okay.
- [28:11]
Lizzie Smiley
This is my obsession. I get. Can you tell?
- [28:13]
Julie Berninger
Yeah, no, I mean I got, I love it. Like I do something very similar. And we were talking about the. I always love to ask people to see like what, what they're doing too. We were talking about the cat in the bathtub for Halloween.
- [28:25]
Lizzie Smiley
So a ghost, right?
- [28:26]
Julie Berninger
The ghost. The ghost, yeah. It was a ghost cat together in a Victorian themed bathtub. It was, it was cute. Like, and then I knew because the whole Barbie pink thing has been big for years. I'm like, there somebody is going to make the pink version of this and that's going to be the next thing. And I made one, but like I just didn't have the time to list it and then that took off and I was so mad at myself. So I just want to mention that for people, like, just because something isn't a bestseller yet doesn't mean that it's not going to be. Like if you, if you have that knowledge from. With the trend combining, if you could jump ahead and be the next person to provide the thing that someone's looking for. They don't even know it's not even there yet. That could be another way to like break into a crowded page one.
- [29:05]
Lizzie Smiley
You have to give it time. Like, I'm so glad you said that, Julie. And I know we've gone. This is me that we go off the reservation. I can sometimes get really discouraged because I do something so hot, like so tranquil minded. I've done this enough to know like this should hit. I'm not always right, but I'm right a lot. And so that new brushstroke trend where there are those like swatches of brush. Have you seen these? I'm more in the, yeah, in the PNG space in the print on demand. But like it's like four swatches that look like torn paper that are like brush strokey. And then pictures are basically like a canva frame like inserted into them to create an image. I saw that hit like it was like a month or two ago. Now it's everywhere. But then it was just starting to hit. There were just a couple bestsellers. I took it into a micro niche and it took six weeks for that thing to take off and now it's a bestseller. So you have to just, you have to trust yourself and you have to also not be so attached to the results of like looking for that immediate feedback on whether or not this listing is working. I think when you're playing in the trends. Yeah, I was too ahead.
- [29:55]
Julie Berninger
If you're newer, it could be a little dangerous. Like, so as part of our course, we have a companion Facebook group where we have 4,000 plus people in there. And so we have people posting and sometimes I'll see they're going too far. Like page one is a certain way for a certain reason. And then we're going complete like, and they're like, oh, I'm trying to make something new. And, and it just isn't a thing. This happens a lot with St. Patrick's Day and, and it's like we're just missing the big picture where. When was the last time anyone gifted you anything for St. Patrick's Day? Like, it's just gifting is just like not a thing. Like it is for the other holidays there. And maybe in some situations, maybe like a little bit of teacher gifts, but just the volume is not going to be there. Whereas St Patrick's Day, like what tends to be the big sellers are more like kids activities. Leprechaun traps were really big this year, which I know because my own kid was 3, coming home and talking about leaving leprechaun traps. So when I see people try to go too far and then they forget to pause and be like, okay, wait, is this actually a thing? Like, yes, I combined trends. I made this thing, but now it's totally new and it. The buyer there's just like no buyer that's looking for the thing that I just made. And it's not a cultural event or it's not a thing in society yet. You can really take it too far. So I just want to mention, like, definitely put that double, double check that double. Like, hey, is this, is this a thing before you spend all the time?
- [31:11]
Lizzie Smiley
I agree. I think, I think St. Patrick's Day is way overdone a lot of times. Like, we shouldn't be spending as much time there as we often are. I took us super far off. Julie, do you want to hit number five?
- [31:20]
Julie Berninger
Okay. Number five, the last one. I just want to mention that there are the shops that are coming up that are just one season. And when I discovered this, I'm like, this is so genius. Oh, this person. So this, this one shop, it got 11,000 sales in December. It was its first just, I think it was listed like December 1, and then it somehow made 11,000 sales in a month. And they were all just like simple red and green printables, like kids activities, but all the Christmas printables. And they had a lot of listings. So it's kind of curious. I'm like, is this somebody's like, junk bin listings of all? Like, they just like took the Christmas out of their other shop and put it in the second shop. And you know, you can't have the same listing in two shops. But it just. This person had a massive amount for only Christmas and they clearly crushed it. And it was like probably the perfect blend of once they started getting momentum and they got more best sellers. And I mean, imagine just a whole shop of best sellers because you only sell Christmas stuff in December. Now when I was just looking recently, they made like no sales in the last seven days. So they're not crushing it year round. It's not quite like, you know, people are buying Christmas stuff every day, although they will buy stuff off of Christmas. But I've never seen anything like that. You know, I kind of wonder. I feel like Halloween might be big enough for it.
- [32:26]
Lizzie Smiley
Yes. Oh yeah. It's bigger than Christmas almost, I think.
- [32:29]
Julie Berninger
Yes. But I mean, not every again. Like, you shouldn't have a whole St. Patrick's Day themed shop that's a little bit nuts. But I've never seen anything Fourth of.
- [32:35]
Lizzie Smiley
July, maybe not like, yeah, it just.
- [32:37]
Julie Berninger
Kind of blew my mind. And typically, I mean, we recommend that people get started with one shop. And like, we've seen people with thousands and thousands of sales in just one shop. It's easier to maintain one shop. But if you are someone that likes to experiment, maybe that's an idea for someone to, to think about as they go into the holiday season this year.
- [32:52]
Lizzie Smiley
Why do you think that worked so well, Julie? In that just to go like hard Christmas. And when you say a lot of listings, was it like hundreds or thousands? Do you think, do you remember thousands?
- [33:01]
Julie Berninger
It was, it was hundreds. It was, it was probably like 200. It was more, it was more than what the average person could make in their first 30 days on Etsy. So it was definitely a more experienced seller that listed the items. But it wasn't a crazy, it wasn't like AI generated crazy amount and they were using simple PDF printables. It wasn't like super editable or AI generated or anything. So I would say it worked because the percentage of their listings that were doing well and got lots of traffic out of their whole shop was like really high at that time. And they didn't have any. I like to sleuth and see like oh, did this person have social or anything? And there wasn't, there wasn't anything like that that I, that I discovered it was purely a Christmas pop up shop. It was cool.
- [33:41]
Lizzie Smiley
I wonder if they were testing it against their exist. Well you're not. You technically can't have the same listing in more than one shop. But I wonder if they were testing. Well, either they were breaking that rule or they were testing. They had like taken them out like you said and they were testing to see how it compared against last Christmas with the same stuff in it. And that's such an interesting, you know, because I play so much in print on demand and I mean not I talk to a lot of print on demand sellers, but I sell a lot of digital products. A lot of times it's not, it doesn't make sense to be as niched down as maybe in like a handmade or some other. Like you test a lot of different things. Like you, you might have your like your niche becomes like women's T shirts kind of thing or do you know, do you know what I'm saying Julie? A lot of times those big shops will have 2 to 4,000 listings and they're making lots of sales off of the volume and they're not so much like niched. And so like I always wonder and I don't know, like sometimes people are like I really want to do like cats that drive cars as my niche. And I'm like that is so like you can do that but that's so narrow. You better have Pretty low goals for your, for your results in that there's only so much you could create. Obviously Christmas is much bigger, but I just wonder like that's, I would love to know what that person's data was like, did that perform better than if they had just kept them all in the same shop with everything else they were creating? Do you have, do you have a theory on that?
- [34:58]
Julie Berninger
I mean, I would say, I think 11,000 sales in a month is top of the top for Etsy Digital products. So I would say it performed better. And I'm just guessing, you know, Etsy, when Etsy knows what's a hot shop and sees that it has a higher percentage, like let's say only 7% of your stuff is Christmas, but like now 100% of your stuff is Christmas, yeah, it's going to be, you know, higher chance of bestseller. I don't know. I'm not saying that people should remove the items from their shop and relist it. It's just if you have a lot of stuff for one holiday or like you're interested in doing that, you could try a pop up one year. Now that being said, the person took a risk. I mean, it could not work right now. You just made 200 listings of Christmas items that didn't sell. It took a lot of time, but this is proof that it could really work out.
- [35:45]
Lizzie Smiley
Are you brand new to Etsy, about to get started, or struggling a bit to find your groove? What I'm about to say is just for you, okay? I can completely relate to where you're at because I think I can help you achieve success faster. When I first started my Etsy shop, it was not one of those success stories that we hear, you know, on the big YouTube channels, even on this podcast where I just had crazy success and it took off right away, right? I all but failed for my first six months, just like a lot of new sellers. And so it's very relatable. And the issue for me was I didn't understand demand for one. I didn't understand SEO. I was way too broad in my search terms and I didn't know how to position my product so that customers just couldn't help but click add to cart. And so once I learned those things, I went from making about $25 a month in sales to $6,000 a month and up. And in the holidays, I would even have $13,000 months, like at my shop's peak. And the thing about me, if you've been here for a minute, you already know this. I'M a terrible gatekeeper. Okay, When I figure something out, when I crack code, when I get excited, I cannot help but tell everybody who wants to listen. It's like either my, my best asset or my toxic trait. I can't decide. But I put everything that you need to know to fill that beginner knowledge gap into a low ticket, just under three hours beginner course that I have called Six Figure Secrets to getting started on Etsy. In it, I'm teaching you how to find what's in demand for your niche, how to find and use trends, how to start your shop if you're worried about that part. SEO strategy to find the micro niches where the opportunity is, how to understand the Etsy algorithm and a ton more. The whole thing is bite sized videos. Not long form, just small bite sized videos. Zero fluff and to the point. You could get the course today, go through the less than three hours over the next couple days, launch your shop this weekend and have sales coming in as soon as Sunday. So let's get you the few missing pieces of the Etsy success puzzle, those little tweaks you need to make so you can start making the sales that you deserve. Because I have no, never been more convinced that there is room at this table on Etsy for everyone. And the opportunity is so ripe right now. I am in the numbers in the data every day and my mind just keeps expanding on the possibilities. Okay, so as a special treat, use the code save50 to save $50 on the Six Figure Secrets course today. That's $50 off with a coupon save 50 and by all means DM me or shoot me an email when those sales start popping because I want to celebrate with you, you and I. I have so many questions. I like want to know how many listings were you putting up a day? Did you get hit with like a bot? Like you know, did it look like you were spamming? Like how did you do that? Were they all up really quick? I have, I have so many questions for them.
- [38:20]
Julie Berninger
They obviously were too late too because I would have put, I mean we know like December. Yeah, they could have put it up earlier. So I mean they probably just came up with the idea later. December.
- [38:30]
Lizzie Smiley
And that is so fun. Do you think that there's an advantage to like this is something I'm actually trying to snuff out right now. So I have my old sign shop that I took off of Vacation Mode to sell something different because I was just like, well first of all, I'm just curious, you know, how they'll say like, I don't know, they say it more for social media like oh, your account. Like it's hard to resurrect an old account. How are you going to do that? And I just want to test and see and the results have been super slow. So I'm also wondering too, like maybe those were old listings in their shop and they were testing to see if I put them in a brand new shop. What happens? Like, can I resurrect old listings? A, because they're being relisted and that traffic that or that activity on an Etsy shop is always positive. But then B, it's a brand new shop and they're maybe getting some advantage in the. Because people I think otherwise think, oh, the OG shop's gonna have the advantage. Well, maybe not since my shop was on vacation mode for years. Like I'm trying to figure that out right now. So have, do you know, have you like seen data about that? What do you think?
- [39:23]
Julie Berninger
I haven't, but in this particular shop I wouldn't say the listing images were like the most amazing thing I've ever seen, but they were, they were, they did not have the mistakes that I see new sellers have and the mistakes I see new sellers have new sellers. Like for example, in the gift tag example they'll have a mock up with like an entire present and the gift tag is taking up like 7% of the screen. So when you're on page one, no one even knows what your gift tag is. All they see is like the pink present box or whatever. So it had like zoomed in listings. It was very clear what it was. The background was like simple stock photo y not very distracting. So I would say like if someone was bringing up their old listings there's a, it's not Etsy's fault that your listings aren't selling. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but often like as someone I just have seen a lot. I've seen 20 something thousand people create shops and I get access to them because of the group. It's not because, you know, Etsy buried you in an algorithm. Like there's a reason, right? So if you don't have, if you don't have that reason yet and you truly don't know that's where you need to have your friends, your community to lean on to tell you like, hey.
- [40:26]
Lizzie Smiley
Here'S why I think that's brilliant. Okay, Julie, I have to say like you and Cody, we've been like, I would say partners for a really long time. I Would. I would. I don't want to push it, but I'd call you guys like buddies of mine, like friends. And you're one of the. I, I'm very collaborative with other Etsy coaches. I love the. There's more than enough room at the table for everybody. I'm so into. Like, how can I help you? How can I help you? Like, oh my gosh, you guys need to meet. Like, I'm super collaborative and you are one of my favorites because I trust you guys so much. You have proven over and over again you're going to provide awesome content, you're going to provide awesome service, you're going to get people results. And I love you and I send, I refer people to your content all the time. And so one of the reasons I was so excited to have you on right now is that your course, which hundreds of my students and listeners have gone through now, E Printables is like opening up here this week right now, when if you're as you're listening March 31st through April 7th. Can you please tell everyone who hasn't heard about it yet about E Printables and what's happening, because I have just seen incredible results. I love when my students go through that because they get results.
- [41:27]
Julie Berninger
E Printables is a video tutorial course that covers the A to Z of how to start and scale a digital product shop on Etsy. And what makes us different is that one. We know that a lot of us are busy and we need motivation and challenges. So you get 30 days in our Facebook group. We have a 30 day challenge coming up in April where our amazing coaches are going to lead you through like a step by step, day by day. You're going to get a printable tracker, you're going to get like audits, everything to keep you on track with the goal of you reaching your first 100 sales on Etsy. And if you. We have people who join who already have 100 sales on Etsy, but your goal would be to progress 100 sales with us. And then once you do that, then you get our monthly membership completely for free. And we know that people that motivation helps. So we have 30 day challenges. We have. Well, we're one of the very few people that actually we're not like a solo guru course. There's Cody and I and then we hired six Etsy coaches and we're always scouting for the best of the best. I find them on podcasts and I invite them to come. We talked about Emily, who's been on your show before she is incredible. She has like 500000 sales on Etsy in her first two years. We find people like her or we've grown them through our program and they come and they coach for us and they're the people in the group that are giving you feedback and audits along with Cody and I. So you're getting not just the perspective of Cody's shop and my shop, you're getting a perspective of five or six other people who you have to have at least like 5,000 sales for us to consider you as a coach. And then you're also getting the community of all these sellers that they have thousands of sales on Etsy that are still with us. So I would say maybe the, the group and like getting the holistic feedback is what kind of sets E printables apart from the other courses.
- [43:02]
Lizzie Smiley
It's like exponential value. So I trust you guys. I love the course. I highly recommend it. You guys. There's going to be a link down in the show notes where you can go ahead and you want to get in there while it's, while the doors are open. It's open for seven days so don't wait on this. This is one of those times where you need to go click and if you're hearing this after the fact I will also link one of their free workshops and so you can start to get a taste of what they do and go through their free workshop down below. If you're hearing about this after April 7th and then down the road you'll be able to join them in E printables if it's like right up your alley. Am I missing anything Julie?
- [43:35]
Julie Berninger
No, I mean I'd be pumped to help and Cody and I are very data driven people. So we have looked at what works. Like I mentioned we've had a lot of students who take this and what gets somebody to 100 sales, what gets them to a thousand sales and we, we update the curriculum and the course feedback and the group feedback to kind of get people where they need to be. So we take it very, very seriously. It's not like one day I just woke up and decided I was going to be an influencer on Etsy or whatever like this is. We take it like really seriously and we want to help you get to where you want to go. So that's our goal and where are.
- [44:06]
Lizzie Smiley
The best places for people to find you and connect if they want to follow going forward.
- [44:11]
Julie Berninger
If they go to Gold City Ventures, G o l d City ventures.com, then that's where you can get our information. And definitely check out the links that Lizzie has below, though, because that's our free workshop where you can get to know Cody and I a little better. Our stories and some examples and case studies of students that have done really well on Etsy.
- [44:28]
Lizzie Smiley
Okay, well, I've just had the best time. Like, no shade to Cody. I love it in pieces. And he talks faster than me. I don't even know how that's possible, but, like, I'm so, like, this was an awesome convo, Julie. Thank you so much.
- [44:40]
Julie Berninger
I love chatting with you, Lizzie. Let's not make it, you know, go years before we catch up again.
- [44:44]
Lizzie Smiley
Yeah, well, maybe we go every other or something, because this was like. This was packed. Like, I love it when I sit here and I learn something, too. Like, that's just the best.
- [44:53]
Julie Berninger
Yeah, I feel so.
- [44:53]
Lizzie Smiley
Okay, well, we're going to be thinking about you as you go forward and have this baby, and you are always in our thoughts and prayers, and we're just so grateful for you. So thank you, Julie. Thank you to everyone who listened today. We're so glad you hung out and sipped your coffee alongside us. And so until next week, y'all go make something awesome. I love you guys.
- [45:10]
Julie Berninger
Bye.
- [45:10]
Lizzie Smiley
Bye. And that's a wrap on this episode of how to sell your stuff on Etsy. Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. If you're looking for more resources, head on over to howtosellyourstuff.com where you'll find podcast show notes, all the links from today's episode, the blog, courses, coaching, and more. If this episode was helpful to you, awesome. The greatest compliment I can receive from you is a rate, review and subscribe on this podcast. Not only will it allow us to connect again on a future episode, it lets me know I'm providing you with value and helps other people find this content more easily. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your support. Have a great day and see you next time.