In this post, I will share with you some relevant information that you can use to get even more sales during Q4(October, November, and December).
Preparing your print on demand Etsy shop for Q4
Now is a great time to start prepping. There is always so much to do, the earlier you start the better.
As I look at it, if you will not be ready, well at least you will have something ready for the next year😉.
Each year with practice and consistent improvement you will be able to catch up and do better.
This has been my approach for years.
Halloween and Christmas are every year🤯!
Cassiy Johnson shares her HQ tips on prepping your print-on-demand store for holidays.
I will use her super duper great tips for this post & combine them of course with my personal experience 👌
Is it going to be easy? Are you going to make money fast?
In most cases probably not, but you can try to do your best.
In the holiday season, you may make sales if you prepare pretty things that people want to buy on time so Etsy’s own algorithm can pick up on your stuff.
You need to be selling what's selling right now and be ready for the big holidays. -Cassiy Johnson
Shirts to make for holidays
This is the list of examples Cassiy shares in this video and I will add pictures to be clear on what she means.
Side note: T-shirts here are examples. DO NOT COPY other people’s designs.
1| Matching couple shirts
Halloween couple shirt ideas to sell on holidays
Christmas couple shirt ideas to sell on holidays
2| Pregnancy announcement shirts
Halloween pregnancy announcement shirt ideas to sell on holidays
Christmas pregnancy announcement t-shirt
3| Group family shirts
Group family Halloween t-shirt ideas to sell on holidays
Group family Christmas t-shirts
4| Group shirts
This one was not on the list, but I’m sure that you will come up with some designs that will drop into this group.
Halloween group shirts
Christmas group shirts
5| Group punny shirts
Group Punny shirts
6| Most likely to
Most likely to – Halloween shirts
Most likely to Christmas shirts
7| Teacher shirts
Teacher Halloween shirts
Teacher Christmas shirts
8| Nurse shirts
Nurse shirts Halloween
Nurse shirts Christmas
9| 9 graphics 3×3 Pattern
3×3 Graphics for Halloween tee
To be exact here in my opinion it doesn’t matter that much if you have 3×3, 3×2, or whatever, but it is the general look of the design.
10| Collage of graphics
Halloween collage shirt
11| Trends of the year
Halloween shirts – Trends of the year
What this means in 2022 is to take a retro font and bring it into Halloween and Christmas.
What not to do
Just in case you are not sure, do not use any branded, copyrighted or trademarked ideas to create designs.
DO NOT COPY designs created by other people.
Some people create Disney, cartoons, Marvel, Starwars, Grinch, Starbucks, and other stuff in digital and physical form and sell on Etsy and on other platforms.
Even if some people do that it doesn’t make it right or legal. They are either ignorant or don’t know about this being illegal.
You want to avoid suspension and legal acts and monetary losses that will come with that.
To check trademarks you can use sites like Trademarkia or TMSearch. Use these tools to check the words you are placing on your design, on the Etsy title, Etsy description, and Etsy tags.
How to use TMSearch
How to create stuff people will want to buy when you compete with popular brands
This is my personal opinion.
I think that some buyers on Etsy are not aware that they are purchasing copyrighted or pirated stuff so to speak.
When they become more aware of this hopefully things will change for the better.
Secondly, people come to Etsy when they are looking for something unique and personalized.
By offering personalizable and customizable items you will most likely avoid customers who are seeking mass-produced stuff on Etsy.
Etsy is not for mass-produced items, and Disney and Starbucks are not selling there, their brands are just taken advantage of by ignorant people who want to make a few bucks.
Prepare the Etsy store for Holidays and add what people want: Unique and personalized items.
Prepare the Etsy store for Holidays and add what people want: Unique and personalized items.
Make Research
Research to find out what’s selling and get inspiration.
Cassiy used the keyword term: Halloween shirt for this example to dive into results and find smaller sub-niches to design for and to find different sayings to put on shirts as well.
She came across the skeleton and funny ghost designs which are good candidates for Halloween t-shirt designs.
Keyword Research Tools
Cassiy is using a tool called Ever Bee. I am currently trying this tool out and it is the best tool I have tried so far.
I like the interface, chrome extension, and the information I see.
The second best tool is Alura in my opinion. They have a free plan that is very good.
Ever bee Keyword tool will sort information for you and make it easier to make decisions based on data.
You can sort information by Est. total sales to get an idea of what has sold the most over time. Or Est. mo sales (Monthly sales).
This of course depends are you selling evergreen items or seasonal. In evergreen items, you want to look for high monthly sales and seasonal probably on sales over time.
Take notes on mockups, design style, shirt colors, font styles used, graphics used, etc from the overview of best sellers to come up with your own designs.
This is very important. You have to create designs that are what people like and buy, not something that you just come up with.
Using a tool that helps to find best sellers will only show you what has sold in the past well for other people.
What we don’t know is if they have established a community and if they actually have made any profit.
As far as I know, the Ever bee tool does not show you what keywords are in high demand or have low search volume.
And that is the information you need because it will not help you to design in bestsellers niches if competition is over the top + Youtubers showing up trending things for everyone.
If you get into a niche before YouTubers share them you may have a competitive advantage.
I would suggest using Keyword tools like SaleSamurai or Erank to find these keywords.
Salesamurai is only $9.99/month Erank is $5.99/month.
Should you create what you want or what people want?
But of course, as a creative person, you will probably want to do you.
Maybe do you part of the time and please others part of the time, to make sales.
Or Express your creativity, but first make research. It can still be fun, I promise you.
I personally struggled a lot with this. Should you please others or do what you want? Just decide something and execute it.
Creating designs for print on demand to sell on Etsy
There are many ways to make money with print on demand and many ways to get designs made.
This post is about shirts, but you don’t have to limit yourself to shirts only.
You have to know yourself, your strengths, and your limitations.
If you have designing skills, you are a graphic designer, illustrator, artist, or creator then maybe you will want to make your own designs.
If you are not a designer, you may be looking for free or cheap options to get designs.
When I started I didn’t have all the fancy tools I have now and the options were not that great for getting graphics for free, for commercial use, and for even print-on-demand use 🤯
Nowadays You can get designs for cheap from one of these places.
Vexels – I don’t personally use this, but they have a subscription-based service.
Youtubers like Ryan Hogue and Shimmy Morris have both recommended it.
If you sign up, you really want to get a lifetime subscription to make it easy for yourself.
Creative Fabrica – CreativeFabrica is a super awesome place to get graphics, printables, kdp templates, etc.
They have a lot of stuff for many different projects. You may want to look into that.
And they do have a subscription-based plan which is only $29/month(First month $1).
The best part is that they have designs that you can directly use for print on demand without even editing them.
I recommend always altering designs somehow if you know how to do so. These designs would work best for your own Print on demand store rather than uploading directly to pod sites or Etsy.
If you are in the hurry, you can put them on products and sell on Etsy.
Learn designing skills
If you want, you can learn design skills. By doing so you will have the edge over the competition.
Most people will just upload s*it. Then they get free stuff and thing made by others and upload that without altering.
Some will even upload branded, trademarked, or copyrighted designs that they are not allowed to use.
If you can learn at least basic skills. It is great, but if you are to make money fast then the fast route is to get POD designs or hire designers.
The designer is not necessarily the same as Print on demand seller and vice versa.
In this video from Juna, Detour shirts create trendy Halloween design with Canva and Affinity designer.
Here is another video you may want to check out to create trending designs with wrapping text.
MAKE MONEY Faster
One way to make money faster is to invest some money in tools, education, or hiring a designer.
If you are interested to find out more about the tools I prefer using for my print-on-demand projects, check out this post:
Make profit
The thing is that you will probably have costs and you do put time into your print-on-demand business. Profit is what will be left after all the costs are covered.
Printful has a video on how you should price your products for profit. I highly recommend watching it.
You can also use calculators. Alura has one, it is for pricing your items profitable on Etsy.
If you don’t make calculations, you may be even losing money. Especially with Printful.
Their products are highly priced and most of us will price them too low on our Etsy shops.
Don’t be that person.
Be a winner. Find a way to be profitable.
Wrap Up
Consistent improvement. Making research and sell what people are buying, but something that is not too saturated.
Consider selling other products too, not just t-shirts.
Figure out keywords that have low competition, but have high search volume.
It will increase your an opportunity to make sales.
I do hope that this post will help you to prepare better for holidays.
Good luck!
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