What Niches To Get Into With Print on Demand & Etsy: The Top 3 Profitable Print on Demand Niches and the 3 Niches to Sidestep"
Hello there fellow entrepreneur!
As a print on demand business owner and instructor, I get asked A LOT of questions. I absolutely love everything about Print on Demand and could honestly talk about anything and everything in this industry for hours (and with enough wine in my system, I could go on for days haha).
However, one of the most common and recurring questions I get asked by individuals who are new to POD or from my students of The Print on Demand Playbook is typically about niches. So in this post, I wanted to take the time to break down the Top 3 Niches you should get into with Print on Demand and the 3 Niches you should ABSOLUTELY avoid in order to boost your Etsy sales and achieve success!
In the crazy and exciting world of Print on Demand, Etsy is an awesome platform for POD owners to showcase their unique products/designs to a global audience of 180 million customers! There are MILLIONS of sellers on Etsy and as you begin to navigate the platform, you will start to notice a pattern. The same sellers constantly DOMINATE that coveted first landing page! You will constantly see their products pop up the first time and time again. These sellers have seemed to “crack the code” on how to get their products seen and purchased by THOUSANDS of customers.
So the real question is, what sets these sellers apart? How are they achieving that coveted “Top 1% Etsy Seller” status?
The answer is simple: their niches.
Among the millions of sellers on Etsy, the top 1% of sellers who are making well over six figures aren’t selling in tons of different categories, they are typically dominating in ONE niche of choice! When I first started my POD journey, I was making this common mistake. I had no focus and was making tons of products in A LOT of different niches and could not make any sales to save my life! It wasn’t until I really started focusing in on a SPECIFIC niche that I started making sales.
Creating hundreds of products in multiple categories will not get you the success you are looking for in the e-commerce game. You don’t need to create everything to appease everyone in order to be successful. You just need to create A SPECIFIC thing for SOMEONE SPECIFIC to gain success.
To do that, you must pick and make products in a PASSIONATE NICHE to appeal to potential customers. Think about it. Print on Demand products are not essential goods. People don’t NEED to buy them in order to survive. They aren’t like toothpaste or toilet paper. Print-on-demand products, when designed and made in a passionate niche, are items that people WANT to buy. It is the stuff that people relate to and when they see it, they just HAVE TO HAVE IT!
To create that drive, you must sell in a passionate niche! It truly is that simple.
So before we dive in and explore these passionate niches in a little more detail, let me introduce myself!
Hey there, I am Shay Lynn! I am a top 1% Etsy Seller, am the proud owner of a multi-six figure Print on Demand & Etsy Business, a six-figure Shopify Business, and creator of the Print on Demand Playbook and The Niche Navigator. In 2023, I did $250,000 in sales running my very own Print on Demand and Etsy business. Check it out 👇👇👇
I feel like I can comfortably say that I definitely know a thing or two about Print on Demand and Niches 😉 I want to make sure that you are set up for success and avoid the mistakes I made when first starting out!
So without further ado, let’s get into what the Top 3 Niches that the Top 1% of Etsy Sellers are commonly selling in!
The Top 3 Profitable Niches:
1) WHAT’S TRENDING: This niche is all about what is currently happening that is creating a need to buy. The subniches for this category would be holidays, seasonal items, events, or birthdays (the birthday niche is evergreen so it can sell year-round!). Although these specific subniches can be typically short-lived, they can be EXTREMELY LUCRATIVE.
For example, you can open a shop that JUST sells Christmas goods. Yes, half the year might be a little slow (Christmas season sales start in July if you can believe it!), however, you will have AN EXPLOSION of sales come the holiday season. Most sellers do most of their business and sales during holiday/seasonal events so this could be a wonderful niche to get into! Do not get this confused with pop culture (more to come on this later), the “what’s trending” niche is for products in a specific event or specific time of the year. There are TONS of shops on Etsy that only sell event gifts and products that do very well!
2) HOBBY: These niches are what people are passionate about doing in their spare time. Think gardening, sewing, fishing, heck even bird watching! These people live, eat, and breathe for their hobbies of choice and are happy to spend TONS of money in these niches. They are PASSIONATE about their hobbies and want every product known to mankind! They want the whole world to know what they are all about and want to express themselves with products. If you are looking for ideas on what to sell and what could sell year-round, the hobby niche could be an excellent idea!
3) IDENTIFY: This niche is all about how people see themselves or what they associate themselves with. Some excellent subniche examples in this category would be occupation (think nurse, teacher, etc.), Mom/Dad, or a sports fan. For example, you could open a shop that JUST sells products to teachers. All different types of teachers with a variety of products. There is a massive demand for products in the identifying niche because people have a NEED to express themselves about what they are PASSIONATE about! There are a ton of top sellers that are in this niche category (myself included).
Ok, now that you have a good idea of what niches and potential subniches the Top 1% of Etsy sellers are in, let’s go over what Niches to completely AVOID! The following niches are extreme pitfalls that I see new sellers falling into time and time again so please, do not make these rookie mistakes!
Top 3 Niches to Avoid:
1) POP CULTURE: I would personally avoid this niche like the black plague! What do I mean by pop culture? I mean anything to do with a celebrity, Disney, Universal, Harry Potter, any book series, or movie quotes. I already know what you’re probably thinking. You’re probably thinking “I see TONS of this kind of stuff on Etsy why would I want to avoid this?”
Yes, you will see other sellers selling these types of goods. Heck, you might even see some sellers selling these types of products and those products might even be best sellers. But trust me when I say this, this will land you in a world of hurt. These sellers are selling on borrowed time. This is a surefire way to land in a HEAP of legal trouble. These items are HEAVILY trademarked and copyrighted. These companies and celebrities have TEAMS OF LAWYERS whose jobs are to specifically find these products and have them removed from selling platforms. You could be kicked off of Etsy or worse, sued for trademark, copyright, or intellectual property infringement. So please for the love of God, if you take anything away from this post, DO NOT even think about going near this niche!
2) CREATING YOUR OWN “UNIQUE QUOTES”: Although you might think a certain saying or quote you found on the internet to be funny, these “quotes” typically don’t create best-selling products. I am a victim of this. When I first started, this is exactly what I was creating. I was making products with funny quotes and although people were clicking and viewing my products, they weren’t actually buying them.
That’s because there was no real PASSION or DRIVE behind the sale. Yes, people found it funny to look at but they didn’t really want to spend their hard-earned cash on something that was just kind of funny. I have personally found that customers ultimately don’t identify with this so when designing, keep this in mind.
However, I will say, that the only time you could use a funny quote is if you could potentially tie in a funny quote WITH a passionate niche (like a birthday product with a funny quote).
3) EMOTIONAL: Don’t get this confused with the passionate niche. What I mean by emotional is using items like “a happy face”. Although you might think this is a good idea, a lot of these items, like a happy face, are trademarked. (Yes, the happy face symbol is trademarked). Try to avoid positivity items because a lot of these are trademarked and there is really no passion behind the sale.
Motivational quotes on the other hand could be an excellent alternative because you can tie them into so many other passionate niches! So just keep in mind when you are designing that emotional items are trademarked and not to confuse them with motivation!
Conclusion:
Choosing a niche can make or break your shop. It is probably the most difficult decision you will face when you are first starting your business. Trust me I know. It takes HOURS of market research and a whole lot of ingenuity to figure out what niches to sell in, what is lucrative, and what is an absolute bust! You can’t just make something and hope somebody buys it. As a business owner, you must make calculated moves to figure out where the demand lies and if there is potential for a successful product to be made! That is why I made “The Niche Navigator” 👇👇👇👇
This guidebook is my baby! It took me years of selling POD products to compose this book and is an absolute game changer for anyone struggling to pick a niche. This guidebook has 30 EVERGREEN (sells year round) NICHES, HUNDREDS OF SUBNICHES, SEO, OVER 1,000 KEYWORDS, and all of the BEST SELLING PRODUCTS in each niche! So if you are really struggling to figure out a niche to sell in, what products to sell, or are new to POD and don’t want to spend HUNDREDS of hours doing market research, then this is the guidebook for you! I am running a deal right now where this is only 10$. Yep, just 10$. So if you are interested click the link to get started!
Phew, well I covered all the points I wanted to make. I truly hope this helps point you in the right direction and makes you feel a little more comfortable about what niches to pick!
Happy Designing Rockstars! See you soon,
-Shay Lynn ❤️
Hi there, I’m Shay Lynn!
If you had told me that a few years ago when I was pregnant that I would be running my own multi 6 figure print on demand buisness, I would have outright laughed in your face! And then would have asked, “What the heck is Print on Demand?”
I’m a proud Mom, Etsy shop owner, Print on Demand business owner, and POD educator. I help women (and Mom’s like myself) start their own Print on Demand businesses and gain financial freedom so they can ditch their 9 to 5 grinds! Check out my course and blog to learn more!