0:51

Welcome back to the Print On Demand cast On this

0:53

episode . We're going to talk about six reasons

0:55

. You're not getting any sales on

0:57

Etsy . Let's get into it .

1:06

Radical . Welcome to this week's

1:08

episode of the Print On Demand cast

1:10

. Each week , join the gnarly , travis

1:12

and Josiah as they provide insight into

1:15

the print-on-demand industry and equip

1:17

you with the totally tubular tools

1:19

, advice and strategies you need to achieve

1:21

success and , hopefully , have a few

1:23

laughs along the way . Now on

1:25

to this week's totally tubular show .

1:32

Welcome , welcome , welcome back

1:34

to the Print on Demand cast

1:36

cast . It is great to be with you all once again

1:38

here at your go-to

1:41

, the epicenter of information

1:43

, dad jokes , entertainment , podcast , professionalism

1:46

and all of the above . Joining

1:48

me this week , as every

1:50

week , is travis ross from make your mark

1:52

design travis happy tuesday . Uh , good to see that we all survived the impending . This week , as every week , is Travis Ross from Make your Mark

1:54

Design Travis happy Tuesday . Good to see that

1:56

we all survived the impending doom

1:59

. That was the solar eclipse that apparently

2:01

everyone was a little concerned . I

2:03

heard people were letting school out

2:05

, like the states were letting schools out because

2:07

of it . I don't know why . It was going to get

2:09

dark for seven minutes . That was dumb . But here

2:13

we are . We're on the other side of it . What are you going ?

2:15

to do . We're all alive . It

2:22

wasn't as cool as the last one here in Colorado , because

2:24

we weren't in the totality zone . It

2:28

was kind of one of those things . It's like oh , it's

2:31

darker outside , that's right . There's an eclipse today

2:33

. Let me go out and not look at the sun

2:35

, but like take a picture of it with my phone

2:38

. Um , and

2:40

okay , I got a picture

2:42

. Um , I'm

2:44

going back inside and that was it that was my

2:46

uh experience with the uh

2:48

with the eclipse ?

2:50

yeah , I , I was in a meeting . We had

2:52

an in-person work meeting yesterday at a

2:54

restaurant in Westminster and we were there from

2:56

like 1130 to like 230

2:58

. And so we were inside when

3:01

all this was happening . There was no noticeable

3:03

difference , but the last solar eclipse that

3:06

happened in 2017 , my hometown

3:09

in Wyoming was directly in the path

3:11

of totality , so you would

3:13

see 100% of the eclipse

3:16

happen . So I remember you know it's a . It's

3:18

a town of 10,000 people . There was like 30,000

3:20

people there that week . Um , people

3:23

were just descending upon this tiny

3:25

town . But I will say , um

3:27

, that seeing 100%

3:29

totality in person is probably one

3:31

of the most beautiful things that I've ever seen in

3:33

nature . And it was a very bizarre

3:36

experience because , you know the the

3:38

sun was getting covered up and then you hear crickets

3:40

start chirping and birds flying back to their nests

3:42

and like and it gets colder , it gets colder

3:45

. It's the wildest thing , um

3:47

, so I , I understand where people go within

3:50

that path of totality to see it , because it's it's

3:53

, but how else have you been

3:55

this week ? I know we've got a lot to get to , including

3:57

six reasons why you

4:00

may not be getting any sales on Etsy , and I know people are

4:02

like I need . It seems like any time we talk

4:04

about Etsy they're like , hey , they're probably not even listening

4:06

to this , they're just fast-forwarding until they hear the bumper

4:08

for the main event because they just want to know those

4:10

six reasons . But

4:17

before for the main event , because they just want to know those six reasons , but before we get into everything , all the segments that we have for the show um , how's

4:19

your week been ?

4:20

how are you ? Let's cut a little bit of a waffle and then we'll go from there . Yeah , I'm good

4:22

. My wife's out of town this week , so I'm kind of pulling super

4:24

dad , yeah , super dad duty

4:26

, and I'm running kids around

4:28

and picking them up from school and dropping them off at

4:30

school and taking them to sporting events

4:32

and just all that fun stuff . Um

4:34

, there's not . I don't have a night

4:37

this week that isn't free

4:39

, so , um , but that's

4:41

okay , you know , that's why it's . Uh , it's

4:43

good to have an awesome wife , you

4:45

know , so we can share those duties when she's

4:47

around . But , um , it's her dad's 80th

4:50

birthday today , uh , tuesday

4:53

, it's her dad's 80th birthday

4:55

today , tuesday , april 9th , and so she's in Florida with her dad and her mom and

4:59

her younger brother came down , flew down

5:01

from Massachusetts , and

5:03

they're all hanging out and , yeah

5:05

, I think they're having a great time

5:07

and I would not take that away

5:10

from her . So you know , here

5:12

I am . I'm going to soldier

5:15

on and be dad for

5:17

this week , and next week I'll go back to just being

5:20

the lazy guy that you know sits

5:22

in front of the computer all day and then sits on

5:24

the couch all evening . So that'll be great . I'm

5:26

looking forward to that .

5:29

That's a great yeah . What aspirations

5:31

those are to doing that . That's great , yeah . What aspirations

5:33

those are To doing that . That

5:36

is awesome . What

5:42

that noise is means that Google Chrome

5:44

sucks .

5:47

So you get nothing .

5:49

About to play the same thing . So

5:53

, yeah , so we're back back

5:55

a little peek behind the curtain . My chrome completely froze

5:58

and so I had to restart everything . I know travis was talking

6:00

about looking forward to getting back to . Uh

6:03

, just what would you say like sitting

6:05

in front of a computer all day , couch at night

6:07

, nice

6:10

, nice , uh , that is

6:12

peak . Is peak fatherhood

6:14

, maybe is it , I don't know . You

6:16

decide I don't know yeah

6:18

, I wouldn't say it , I don't know probably

6:21

not too much , but we're gonna go straight . Speaking of fatherhood

6:23

, let's go to the weekly dad

6:25

joke time for the weekly dad

6:28

joke .

6:31

All right , man , this is you . You

6:34

. You had a really nice one . That is very

6:36

topical . I think it is .

6:38

It is I mean I can't do it , but I don't have

6:40

any descendants , so I

6:42

guess it is a joke anyway . Okay

6:44

, so in

6:47

this in this hypothetical

6:49

universe okay there you go .

6:54

You guys will get it in a minute , I promise

6:57

.

6:57

But right now you're just like why are these guys

6:59

being what the hell eating

7:01

around ? Let's just get to the joke , go

7:03

for it . So one of my kids asked me

7:06

you know , recently , since monday was

7:08

the big happening , we referenced it already . But

7:10

one of my kids asked me if I could tell them what an eclipse

7:12

was . And I said no

7:15

, son , there

7:19

it is . And if you're wondering why that was hypothetical

7:21

, because I have no kids and if my

7:24

shih tzu asked

7:26

me what an eclipse was , I

7:28

wouldn't be here . I'd be letting everyone who

7:30

I know and all the news outlets know that I have

7:32

a talking shih tzu . So that

7:35

obviously didn't happen

7:37

. So , moving on to we

7:39

don't always have a point of interest , but we do this week and I'm

7:41

super excited about it because

7:43

it's something we referenced a

7:45

couple of weeks ago . But you took it upon

7:48

yourself to dig a little bit deeper

7:50

, so

7:52

let's go to this week's point of interest .

7:55

Well , howdy partner . Welcome

7:57

to the point of interest part of the POD

7:59

cast .

8:05

So grab your hat and hold on tight because we got some learning

8:08

to do All

8:11

right , travis , last couple of weeks ago , our point

8:13

of interest we talked about or not even during the point of interest

8:15

, it was during a main event we

8:22

talked about TikTok shop and you are doing a little bit of an experiment with TikTok shop , so why don't

8:24

we update the people and let them know how that's going ? What are you , what

8:27

are you doing exactly for the experiment and how

8:29

are the results going ?

8:31

Uh , well it's , there are no results

8:34

. Um , just

8:36

, you know more work that I added to my plate . No

8:38

, I actually decided to , um

8:40

, jump into this whole craze , I guess

8:43

, and just um , apply

8:45

for a business account and get a Tik TOK

8:47

shop . Um , I

8:49

don't know , I don't even know what they call it , I don't remember , but it's

8:52

business something or um

8:54

, but I'm , I'm able to now

8:56

list products for influencers

8:58

to then use in their

9:00

tech talks , um , to get

9:02

people to buy on tech talk . And then obviously

9:05

it'll , uh , I would produce

9:07

, or you know , one of my partners , print

9:09

partners would produce the product and then send it

9:11

to the customer and then that influencer

9:14

would get a kickback

9:16

, you know , and I can set that percentage and all

9:18

that stuff . So I went ahead and set up the account and

9:21

my thought was let's just put

9:23

a bunch of stuff out here and see what happens

9:26

. The cool thing about the way I'm

9:28

set up is , since I use

9:30

order desk if you follow the show , you know

9:32

I use order desk to kind of consolidate

9:34

all my orders from all the different channels and then

9:36

push them out to , um , my

9:39

print providers . Right now

9:41

it's mainly Guten . I'm testing

9:43

another one out that has some unique products that

9:45

I'll . Maybe we'll have another point of

9:47

interest at some point once I get past the

9:49

testing phase on that . But , um , one

9:52

of the cool things that you're able to

9:54

do with TikTok shop is

9:56

you can upload in bulk . Now I'm in there like

9:58

trial period , you know . So I can . What

10:01

they've said is I can only upload a hundred products

10:03

per day , but I mean , as you can

10:05

imagine , that's a lot of products , you know , if you

10:07

do it every single day and

10:09

the spreadsheet that

10:11

we use to upload

10:14

it is so simple

10:16

to fill out , it's really really

10:19

easy . There's not a whole lot to it . And

10:21

so I have one of my VAs

10:23

just basically going to our master spreadsheet

10:26

, which I talk a lot about , and

10:28

then she's just pulling hundred products at a time

10:31

, you know . And so she

10:33

sets up like seven or eight , you

10:35

know , spreadsheets and then every day I'm going in

10:37

and just uploading . It takes literally

10:39

two minutes to

10:41

log in and upload the thing . And

10:44

so I mean , right now we

10:46

tested it and then I

10:49

just uploaded my third spreadsheet

10:52

today . So I have like 250 , 300 products

10:54

in TikTok

10:56

today . So it obviously

10:58

very beginning stages have

11:01

no sales . That you know , the challenging

11:03

thing , I think , for print on demand is how

11:05

is that ? A lot of the things that are

11:08

selling in TikTok shop or something that

11:10

somebody already has , and they

11:12

, you know , when they find , oh hey , this is available

11:14

in TikTok shop so I'm going to do a tiktok about it

11:16

and try to , you know , make some money . But

11:19

this particular , you know , these particular

11:21

products are unique and you

11:23

know , as you guys know , but

11:25

if you did have like a brand or something like

11:27

that and you wanted to jump in there , I

11:29

think you might have some success . If there's a specific

11:32

kind of niche or if you

11:34

actually have a TikTok already

11:37

, this would be a great

11:39

way for you to just go

11:41

in and , and you know , hold

11:44

your . You know , maybe you've got a return coffee

11:46

mug or something and you can hold it up and do

11:49

your little TikTok dance or whatever and

11:51

potentially get sales that way . I know I

11:53

think I think Printify or Printful one

11:56

of the two , I think they talked about having a TikTok

11:58

integration and a couple of the other ones , a

12:00

couple of the other fulfillment places

12:03

, have TikTok integrations . So

12:05

, yeah , if you're doing TikTok

12:08

shop right now , we'd love to hear from

12:10

you and see what your experience has been . So far , so good . Congress hasn't

12:12

shut . Your experience has been so far , so good . You know

12:14

, uh , congress hasn't shut down Tik TOK yet

12:16

either . So that's good , uh

12:18

, but it's , it's . So it's such

12:21

a low , uh amount of

12:23

work to actually do

12:26

. Um , it's just like let's just try

12:28

it and see what happens . And if nothing happens

12:31

, after a few months you know we've got a few

12:33

thousand products up there . Then you

12:35

know , maybe we'll stop or maybe

12:37

they'll lift my limit and I can upload a thousand

12:39

a day and then I can kind of really really

12:42

put some stuff out there , but for now , um

12:44

, a hundred a day , and we'll see how it goes . Just

12:46

really curious if any of any of our listeners

12:49

are actually doing it too , cause , um

12:51

, I think it can be viable

12:54

, if you know . I think , there's a lot of sales happening

12:56

. I just don't know if the print

12:58

on demand side of it kind of gives

13:01

it . It just makes it more difficult

13:03

. So I guess we'll find out .

13:05

Yeah , again , like Travis said , let us know if you have

13:07

been dabbling in the TikTok shop . We'd

13:10

love to hear from you , or even have you on a point

13:12

of interest to follow up and kind of learn about what you're

13:14

doing there too . So , with that being

13:16

said , we're going to go straight to this

13:18

week's main event

13:20

. Main

13:25

Event Main .

13:26

Event .

13:26

Main Event Main

13:28

Event Main Event Main Event

13:31

.

13:40

All right , six reasons

13:43

. You're not getting any sales

13:45

on Etsy Travis . I alluded to

13:47

this earlier in the show , but it seems like anytime we talk Etsy

13:50

, people want to know . It seems

13:52

like our highest listenership on

13:55

those episodes that we do , or our listenership

13:57

on those episodes seem to be among

13:59

the highest pretty consistently

14:01

, and I think that's because you

14:04

know etsy is certainly

14:06

, would you say , maybe one of the lower

14:08

barriers of entry between , maybe , an amazon

14:11

or a walmart in terms

14:13

of , I guess , seller of record

14:15

sites , uh , as opposed to like

14:17

a red bubble or a merch merch on demand . But

14:19

, um , what do you think the reason

14:22

is that the episodes that we do focus

14:24

on Etsy specifically seem to be of

14:26

so much interest to

14:28

those that are listening .

14:30

Yeah , I think you hit the nail on the head . I think

14:32

it really is the lowest barrier to

14:34

entry from anybody who may be coming

14:36

from a royalty-based site like Amazon

14:38

, merch on Demand or Redbubble

14:41

or Teespring or some of these other ones that we

14:43

reference that

14:45

aren't necessarily seller of record . It's kind

14:47

of an easy transition where you know

14:49

amazoncom

14:52

, you got to pay $40 a month for a pro account

14:54

. That's a little . You know , that's

14:56

kind of a barrier to entry . Walmart

14:59

, while there's no monthly fee

15:01

, it just seems like it's

15:04

hard to kind of get

15:06

into , even though it's . It's really not

15:08

Um , but there's just a lot of , there's a

15:10

lot more hurdles . So , um

15:13

, I think Etsy kind of seems

15:15

like the , the natural uh

15:18

, first , first store

15:20

or first shop . You know that people , a lot

15:22

of people that are in the print on demand game are creating

15:24

um . You know , if you don't go the

15:26

brand route and go shopify , then

15:28

you're probably starting on

15:31

etsy when it comes to the seller of

15:33

record , uh , sales channels

15:35

. You know you might have already done the , you

15:37

know the , the merch and all that other stuff on

15:39

those royalty-based sites , but if

15:41

you're just starting out with seller of record

15:43

, etsy seems to be be the easy one . So I think , yeah

15:45

, I think a lot of people are checking

15:48

out those episodes because of that fact

15:50

, because they're that's where they're selling . So

15:52

, um , that's kind of the demographic

15:54

I think that the show has . Um , there are a few

15:57

people that are doing some other things and we always

15:59

encourage , you know , if you've got all the assets

16:01

there from Etsy , let's

16:03

start moving to these other

16:05

channels , and sure , um , you know , repurposing

16:08

those assets the best way you can . That's what I'm doing

16:10

with the tiktok shop . You know .

16:11

So , yeah , yeah , totally all

16:14

right . When we're looking at the six reasons , the first

16:16

one we have on our list and I guess would you say these

16:18

aren't in any particular order necessarily

16:20

, or there's no hierarchy to to these

16:22

reasons , it's just kind of some

16:24

that we had in mind when we were

16:26

putting together the show or this particular

16:28

episode , um , number one

16:31

, the first one we have on there , rather , uh

16:33

, is one of the one of the

16:35

reasons you don't know or you're not getting any sales

16:37

is because you don't know who your

16:39

customer is . We've

16:41

talked about that in the past , like who

16:43

is your ideal customer ? Who ? Who is that

16:46

? What's that phrase ? Who

16:48

is the avatar ? Yeah

16:50

, your customer avatar ? Who is it that you are looking

16:53

to appeal to

16:55

? I mean , at the beginning and a lot of it

16:58

, I think people are like , well , I'm just going to throw

17:00

everything at the wall , so it's like spray and pray type

17:02

thing . But , um , you

17:04

know , that can work at scale , but in

17:07

the beginning you're going to want to niche down

17:09

and really define who it is , especially on

17:11

etsy , because I feel like etsy is a

17:14

lot of it is . These shops are so

17:16

, um , niched to certain

17:18

interests and certain , you know , focus

17:21

groups , rather , for lack of a better term and

17:23

everything is so , um in

17:25

line so far as a brand . It's not that , it's

17:27

not really a spray and pray platform , you

17:30

know what I mean . Yeah , um , like , like , maybe

17:32

an amazoncom is , or , or

17:35

, in our even a red bubble , or a merch on demand

17:37

, but edzy in itself

17:39

lends it , uh , lends itself to

17:41

, um , that really carefully

17:44

curated brand look

17:46

. So you really want to figure out who that

17:48

avatar is , right out of the gate .

17:50

Yeah , I agree , I think you know Etsy

17:52

really more than

17:54

any other platform . I think people actually do

17:56

care about the brand or they come to your

17:59

page , like I have an

18:01

Amazon seller page . I

18:03

don't think anybody has ever seen it , you know , aside

18:06

from me . Every once in a while , you know , but it's

18:08

it's very rare that people will come to your seller

18:10

page . I know Amazon is making more strides

18:12

towards that , with some of the brand registry things

18:14

and some of the different things you can do on your page

18:16

, um , and they do have specific

18:19

shops , but most transactions

18:21

on Etsy are on Amazon and

18:24

Walmart , for that matter , are just made from

18:26

a search query in the search

18:29

bar and then choosing the product

18:31

in the list . They're not going to your store to look

18:33

at that . On Etsy , though , if

18:36

they see a specific product

18:38

and you can click on that name

18:40

and go to your store , and if you have things that

18:43

are all similar , uh

18:45

, targeted towards a similar type of buyer

18:47

, you may actually get more

18:49

than one sale , or they might

18:51

find one thing and go , oh no , but I like

18:53

this better , um , because you

18:55

have multiple , uh , multiple

18:58

products that are targeting that exact person

19:00

, and so that's why it's so important , specifically

19:02

on Etsy , to really know who

19:04

you're selling to . You need to know

19:06

your specific demographic . How old are they

19:09

? Are they male or female ? What stage

19:11

of life are they in ? What are their problems

19:13

? What are their challenges ? What are the

19:16

things they're excited about ? What are those things

19:18

that they want to present to the world

19:20

? Do they have

19:23

a high level of disposable income

19:25

? I mean , that's a great demographic

19:27

to target somebody who has

19:29

disposable income , because you

19:31

know it's disposable , they can buy

19:33

your stuff yeah , whatever .

19:35

Yeah , what's the ? It's the with the acronym dinks

19:38

dual income , no kids married

19:41

couple sourcing , which is they

20:23

have all the money , they have no children's , they're just buying

20:25

other things . So yeah

20:27

, right um .

20:28

So consider that when you're you know when you're , when

20:31

you're starting , or even if you've already started

20:33

um , consider really

20:36

focusing in on deciding who that

20:38

customer is and then , because that'll

20:40

, that'll like just really

20:43

form all of the

20:45

answers to the questions

20:47

that you have when you're creating a listing

20:50

, because you're going to be talking to

20:52

that particular person when you're writing your

20:54

description and your , it'll really

20:56

focus you and potentially and hopefully

20:58

lead

21:07

you to a better result in

21:10

your Etsy store .

21:12

Absolutely Next on the list . Another

21:15

reason you're not getting sales is

21:17

you're copying successful shops'

21:19

designs , and I can understand the

21:22

desire to do this in the outset , because if it's

21:24

working for them , it could be working for you . But overall

21:28

I think a good rule of thumb is just don't

21:30

copy other people's stuff . It's

21:33

not good to do , for a myriad of reasons

21:35

. Whose designs you're deciding to copy and try and you know , emulate

21:38

or just blatantly rip off ? They

21:46

could just come for you , uh , and

21:49

file a complaint and then you

21:51

have . You have no account um

21:53

to to sell

21:55

on . And that's the number one reason you're not getting sales on etsy

21:58

is because you , you gotta , you

22:00

got a violation or a cease and desist or

22:02

something . So just don't do

22:04

that . Look for inspiration instead

22:07

. So , travis , like if you , if someone were

22:09

to ask you like how do I do that ? How do I find inspiration

22:11

? Then , like , where should I look ? Where should I go ? What would you say

22:14

?

22:14

Yeah , I think you know we talk about a lot of

22:16

. There's a lot of great Etsy tools

22:18

. We talk about eRink and Everbee

22:21

and Sales Samurai

22:23

and you know these different products

22:25

. That'll help you kind of find out what

22:28

is happening kind of behind the scenes . And it's

22:30

been said they're not that accurate and it's probably

22:33

true , but they have at least some

22:35

data , more than you have , and they

22:37

can give you an idea of what

22:39

is trending , what is popular . But if

22:41

you're just going , oh , you know what Travis

22:44

Kelsey and Taylor Swift are dating , so I'm just going to put a whole

22:47

bunch of like Taylor Swift things you

22:49

know , you know in

22:51

my shop , or you know shirts and you

22:53

know , and it's not necessarily going to be Taylor Swift

22:55

, you know IP infringement stuff , but it's going to be a

22:57

I'm hinting at that . And

22:59

then , oh my gosh , now it's the eclipse

23:01

. I'm going to throw a bunch of eclipse stuff in there and

23:04

you're kind of going back to your the first

23:06

question who's your customer ? You know , you

23:10

know . So , but use

23:12

these , use

23:18

these like trends and things like that to get inspired for your niche . Take that

23:20

idea . Don't copy the idea . Don't word for word all of that stuff you know , actually

23:23

think about your customer

23:25

and the inspiration

23:28

that you're getting from these tools to actually

23:30

create something that's unique and

23:32

special and that's something that your customer , your

23:35

ideal customer , would like . And

23:37

if you're not a designer , that's

23:40

okay . You know , you can

23:42

give ideas to

23:44

a VA , to , you know , a designing

23:47

VA or a Fiverr person , and they can

23:49

take those ideas and , you

23:51

know , translate them into something that

23:53

actually , um , is

23:55

well , the only reason I copied is because

23:57

I don't really

24:07

have any good design skills . So I really need to

24:09

like , open Canva in one

24:11

, you know , open Etsy in

24:13

one tab and Canva in the other . And I'm just going

24:15

back and forth and just trying to match the fonts

24:17

and don't do that . You know , um

24:19

, really try to own

24:21

your thing . I mean , I think it . It really

24:24

does all go back up to that . First one know

24:32

who you are targeting and from there you can get inspiration from other people's designs

24:35

and you know the things that they're selling in their

24:37

shops . Um , but it's not . It's not going to go well

24:39

for you if you just , you know , try to copy

24:41

the most popular shop stuff

24:43

and put it in there , cause they're

24:46

those are already getting sales , they already have

24:48

the Etsy algorithm favor

24:50

In their favor . Yeah , and you're

24:52

just starting from zero , or starting from you

24:54

know , a small number , and so it's . It's not

24:56

. The scales are not going to tilt in your favor

24:58

. That person's just going to keep getting the sales , not

25:01

you , so you get nothing

25:03

.

25:04

Let's see how many times I can use that in this episode

25:07

. Um the next reason challenge

25:09

accepted . What's that ? challenge

25:13

accepted uh

25:16

, the next reason you might not be getting any sales

25:18

your listings aren't

25:20

optimized . And that is a

25:22

multi-faceted thing and I mean , if you

25:24

listen to the show for any length of time , you know

25:26

that we've we've talked about listings on amazon

25:29

and and there's other episodes

25:31

. You can go back and kind of dive a little bit deeper

25:33

into what exactly we're talking about here . But

25:35

, travis , one of the first things that they can optimize

25:38

is tags . So

25:40

explain , like , what is a

25:42

tag , why it's relevant to them , uh

25:45

, as a seller , and what benefit it has

25:47

to optimize those tags .

25:49

Well , you know , obviously they

25:52

are Etsy's way

25:54

of trying to determine what your product is

25:56

about , and I believe they can be

25:58

20 characters long , including spaces

26:00

, so they can be phrases . They don't have to just

26:03

be words . You

26:05

can use 13 of them . You know , per

26:07

listing , um , and while

26:09

I don't believe that it is weighted

26:11

as high as the title

26:14

of your product , I think that

26:16

they are most likely the second

26:18

most important aspect

26:21

of the SEO searchability

26:24

, the search engine optimization for

26:26

Etsy , which is a search engine to

26:29

gather that information about what your product

26:31

is and then determine what

26:34

to present to that customer

26:36

who's typing in the search bar for that specific

26:38

thing . So they are very

26:40

important . If you're not filling out your tags

26:42

, you are probably

26:44

leaving money on the table , or you're at least leaving

26:47

potential searches that you could show up

26:49

for on the table and

26:51

then yeah , so I think that's super important

26:54

Obviously , your titles too . If you're

26:56

not doing your titles in a way that is using

26:58

specific keywords that your target demographic

27:00

, your target avatar would use

27:03

in Etsy to type in

27:05

for that search , Um , you're

27:07

leaving search results on the

27:09

table . You know , if you just say cool

27:12

, cool nurse coffee mug , you

27:14

know that that you're never going to sell

27:16

that , you know you . You you need

27:19

to use keywords , and that's another um

27:21

, another good reason to look into

27:23

the E-Ranks and the Everbees

27:25

and all of those other Etsy-specific

27:30

search tools , because they can allow you to

27:32

see okay , this is a very popular

27:34

listing and here are the actual tags that

27:36

they're using in their listing . You can now see the name

27:39

. You can see what keywords they're using there . That

27:42

can really go a long way towards

27:44

building out your listing , but that's not the only thing

27:46

that can make a listing

27:49

suck and

27:51

not make any sales .

27:53

The next one will be mock-ups , and again , this is something

27:55

we've talked about pretty frequently on the show , and

27:57

there's other episodes and there's

27:59

even tools that we have that we've recommended

28:02

in the past that can help you with this . This

28:04

is another one of those things of like , the excuse

28:06

can't be well , I don't have people to photograph

28:08

, or I don't have models , or I don't have

28:10

photography skills . Um

28:13

, obviously , mock-ups are going to be when

28:15

people are searching , um , the

28:17

thumbnail the mock-up is going to is going to be what

28:20

they see first , and so if yours isn't good

28:22

, they're just probably going to scroll past , and then your

28:24

, your descriptions don't even matter and

28:26

your tags have got them there

28:28

but not actually gone all the way

28:30

and brought them into the listing , because that's what the mock-up

28:33

does . So it's got to be engaging

28:35

, especially on Etsy , because Etsy

28:38

is so , as I said , curated

28:40

. You know , lifestyle mock-ups , models

28:42

wearing it , having it against something

28:45

other than just a plain white background , even

28:47

if it is , you know , I see a lot of um

28:49

like the wood , white wood paneling

28:51

with the shirts laid on it , and just anything

28:54

that's more engaging than just a

28:57

flat t-shirt mock-up with the design

28:59

and a white background . You're not gonna

29:01

, you're not going to , you're not going to attract a lot of people

29:04

doing it that way . So

29:07

you want to have something that

29:10

is engaging

29:13

visually . Now there's lots of tools that

29:15

we have that you can do that with

29:17

. So one of them , of course

29:20

, is place it . We've We've talked

29:22

about Placeit a lot here . So

29:26

printitamangascom slash

29:28

place is where you can go to use

29:30

or to get

29:33

that place software

29:37

. So Placeit will do things like place

29:39

your mock-ups on models

29:41

, t-shirt , people who are wearing a t-shirt it'll place your

29:43

design on that . They have videos , they can

29:45

do mugs , they can do all kinds of

29:48

things that really

29:50

enhance

29:52

your

29:54

mock-up and enhances then your listing

29:56

by default right and

29:59

enhances then your listing by default right . Another

30:01

thing we've used and talked about before is

30:03

Bulk Mockup Generator . It's a Photoshop plugin

30:06

. The good thing about PlayState is you don't really need Photoshop

30:08

skills . You just can drag

30:11

and drop your design , bring it in and

30:14

place it the way you want , choose the color of the shirt

30:16

, export it , so on and so forth . Mulk

30:18

, or sorry , mulk , that's

30:20

not the right word . Bulk

30:22

mock-up generator . You

30:25

can have

30:27

one blank right

30:29

, one blank design or sorry , one

30:31

blank mock-up T-shirts , multiple colors , place

30:33

the design on one , and then it all goes

30:36

and just in batches , goes

30:38

there . So

30:41

it goes on the mock-up . So it's a really handy tool

30:43

. But either way , mock-ups are huge

30:45

. You're going to want to use or

30:48

utilize some kind of software or

30:50

tool . Or even if you do , have friends that are

30:52

willing to rock and model a design and you

30:54

go out and do a photo shoot , that's awesome too

30:56

, but there's tools that you have at your disposal

30:58

. If that's something that you cannot use

31:01

, well

31:05

, we're back , and that other sad

31:07

trombone sound means that , uh

31:09

, this time it was travis , yep , uh

31:11

, technology is just destroying us

31:14

today . Um , which

31:16

is great . But here we are , we're back , we're

31:19

back on the roll . And so Travis

31:21

, right before your computer , decided

31:23

to take a lunch break . We

31:25

were just getting to descriptions

31:27

, when we're talking about the

31:31

listing , optimizing listings , and I talked

31:33

about mock-ups a bit . So

31:36

now we're at description , so you can touch on a little bit in

31:38

terms of description , optimizing that , how

31:41

that also lends itself to

31:43

an increase in eyes on the product

31:45

and then hopefully , ultimately sales .

31:47

Yeah , so anecdotal evidence

31:49

says that the first part of your description

31:52

is weighted more in the SEO

31:54

than the later part of your description . So

31:57

you want to get your keywords kind of towards the top

31:59

. But even beyond that , I

32:01

think if you

32:03

go and you look at really nice listings on Etsy

32:05

and you expand that description

32:08

section , a lot of people are doing

32:10

a really nice job of potentially even linking

32:12

to other products that are specifically in

32:15

that niche . Or if it's a digital product maybe

32:17

you're pointing to a bundle that has a bunch

32:19

of digital products or you know things like that they're

32:22

also encouraging people

32:25

to jump on their email

32:27

list to get you know news

32:29

and updates about their brand . There's a lot of things

32:31

you can do in that description . That's

32:33

just . That's beyond just SEO . But even

32:36

like the layout of it , you can use

32:38

, you know , different

32:41

characters to kind of like a line of characters to separate

32:43

sections when you're talking about shipping and

32:45

you're talking about policies and all of that stuff

32:48

. But um , all of that to say you

32:50

can use that description to look more professional

32:52

and just look better . But I think all of this , um

32:55

, what then the reason ? I'm my computer

32:57

crashed cause I was looking for the slide . But um

33:00

back in what , what was the episode

33:02

? Was it one seven ?

33:03

Uh , one , I want to say one 77 . I

33:05

mean , yeah , one 77 .

33:07

Yeah , back in one 77 , we talked about the print

33:09

on demand success pyramid and

33:12

you could see it here if you're watching on YouTube . Um

33:15

, and you know we talk about organization being on the bottom . Design

33:17

is obviously super important . If

33:22

you have bad design , none of the rest of the stuff matters . But then we're talking

33:24

about on-page SEO and this is the actual thing

33:26

that we're talking about right now with your mock-ups or

33:28

with your descriptions and your titles and your tags

33:30

. Mock-ups is even is one more

33:32

up from that , because

33:34

if they don't ever see your product

33:37

because your SEO is bad

33:39

, they'll never see your mockups either

33:41

. You know , the way

33:44

I see it is that getting them to your

33:46

page is the most important thing and

33:48

then from there on , your mockups

33:51

really are going to sell that product . Yeah

33:53

, your title and your description and your tags are important

33:55

to get them there , but I

33:57

think the mockups are really kind of

33:59

what is going to push that sale

34:01

over the top , as long as you've gotten all

34:03

that right . So just wanted to mention

34:05

that , as we're talking about kind of you

34:07

know , on page SEO and all of that stuff

34:10

, and you know all of the things that

34:12

go into an optimized

34:14

listing on Etsy .

34:19

Awesome . So , yeah , take advantage of that . You can see that

34:21

on youtube again . Episode 177 is

34:23

where we kind of dive a little bit deeper on all

34:25

of that as well . The next reason

34:27

on the list is your . Your listings

34:29

are priced too high , and

34:31

I wish we had the too damn high uh

34:34

soundbite that the guy talks

34:36

about , because that's so applicable

34:39

right now , but this

34:42

can also . There's a couple of things that

34:45

can contribute to this . One of them would be you're

34:47

using a higher price fulfillment partner , and

34:50

when you're doing that , obviously you have to mark up

34:52

a little bit more than maybe your competitor because

34:55

of your costs that you're

34:57

trying to cover . All that to say , you

34:59

know , this

35:02

kind of goes back to the discussion we've had multiple times of shop

35:04

fulfillment partners . See which

35:06

ones are best , most

35:08

reasonably priced , and just make

35:10

sure that you're getting the best deal as

35:13

well when it comes to your fulfillment , because

35:15

that can definitely affect your bottom line . And

35:18

the other thing you can consider again

35:23

is loss leaders , which I was thinking you alluded to a little bit earlier , but that's the thing

35:26

that you can discount , uh

35:28

, in order to get people into your store

35:30

and then see everything else that is

35:32

then around it related products or whatever

35:34

that looks like happens to me all

35:36

the time . Um with you know

35:38

, I get constant advertisements

35:41

on on facebook and instagram

35:43

for fanatics or lids . I'm

35:45

a hat guy , so I'll see . You know , a nuggets

35:48

hat that's discounted , on sale . I'll click

35:50

on it and then like , oh , that's cool too . Well

35:52

, that hat's full price . The one that I clicked on , second

35:54

, that one's full , that one's full price . So

35:56

it works . It gets them in

35:58

the door and then you get to show them everything else

36:00

that's in your store . It's kind of like when stores

36:03

kind of put the clearance rack outside their

36:05

front door and people are walking behind the sidewalk

36:07

and they start looking at the clearance and then inevitably

36:09

just kind of make their way into the actual store

36:12

.

36:12

That's the same kind of concept here right

36:14

, you know , and if you're , if you're planning on using

36:16

this , um , you know it is a good idea because

36:19

it not only gets people into your store but

36:21

it also creates

36:23

sales . And while you may not make profit on

36:26

those products , the

36:29

Etsy algorithm , like

36:31

its favorite thing is sales . That

36:34

is the one that's the thing that's going to move the

36:36

needle the most on your particular site . So if you get more sales , then they're going to

36:38

move you up the most on your particular site . So if you get more sales

36:40

, then they're going to move you up in

36:42

the search rankings , which means that you get more traffic

36:45

and then you get more sales and you see how that a

36:47

beautiful cycle would continue

36:49

to grow , hopefully on your Etsy

36:51

account . The one thing , last thing I'll say about

36:54

loss leaders is that you don't have to . Just while

36:56

I think it's good to have certain products

36:59

that are absolutely loss

37:01

leaders , you could also . A

37:03

lot of people on Etsy are using

37:06

this loss leader strategy on a specific

37:08

size or color of their product

37:10

to lower that price

37:12

on the search page to

37:14

where you're like , oh my gosh , that's

37:17

a Bella canvas for $90

37:19

. And they click in

37:21

and they're like , oh no , that's the

37:24

onesie for the newborn

37:26

that has mama

37:29

on it or something . It's never

37:31

going to be sold Lower that

37:33

price Again . It's kind of a little

37:35

bit of a trick , a little gray hat , but a

37:38

lot of people are doing that too . You

37:40

could use it a little more ethically . I guess if you

37:42

wanted to say , hey , you know what , I'm

37:44

going to sell my small , all

37:46

my smalls , for way less

37:48

at a break even point , just to show

37:51

that and get people in there . And then

37:53

you know , if you sell one , that's fine . But other

37:55

people are there again . They're

38:09

getting into your shop . They have the option to buy that product

38:11

or they can look for other things that are

38:13

in your shop that they might

38:15

like more . And , if you have targeted your demographic

38:17

correctly , all of my

38:19

customer . And how do I get them to click

38:22

something in my store and

38:24

to see all the things that I've created for them ?

38:26

Yeah . Next thing on the list is

38:28

you're not scaling your winning products

38:31

. So if you sell a product targeted

38:33

to a certain demographic , you can copy that

38:35

listing and target a similar demographic

38:37

with the same product . So , for

38:39

example , let's say you have a school related

38:41

mug that you are targeting at a teacher

38:44

. Well , that could be repurposed to target

38:46

a school administrator , a principal , a

38:48

guidance counselor , kind of saying that in a

38:50

Venn diagram like where do these two demographics

38:52

overlap and how can I use this to target that

38:54

? So that's one thing that you can look

38:56

at doing in terms of kind of maximizing

38:59

the things that are working for you . How

39:02

can you get other eyes on that ? That's

39:04

still related . You don't have to come out with a new design

39:06

. Use the same thing to

39:08

target different segments of the

39:10

overall demographic , which is educators

39:13

, right . So how do you kind of pinpoint

39:15

those differently ?

39:16

Yeah , and so I mean this would people

39:18

, uh , people are asking like , well , what do you mean by that

39:20

? Well , you would literally copy the listing

39:23

, change the title , change the tags , um

39:25

, and target that towards a

39:27

similar , a similar , uh

39:30

, target customer , um . So

39:32

it'd be basically mostly

39:35

the same pictures and everything , but they're

39:37

going to show up in different places on Etsy and

39:39

, yeah , you're going to pay an extra 20 cents for it , but

39:41

now you've got twice the potential

39:43

reach for the same product

39:46

. It's the same SKU , it's the same everything

39:48

, but now there's

39:50

more than one demo

39:52

actually looking at it , because

39:55

you've found out people like

39:57

this . So I don't want the principals to

39:59

not see this , because I put

40:01

teacher and I didn't put principal

40:03

in my title originally . So

40:06

, yeah , it's an easy win . If

40:08

you are getting sales , you can just duplicate

40:11

those listings and target similar

40:13

demographics with them .

40:15

Yeah , absolutely the last one we have

40:17

on the list . Our number six would

40:20

be you're saying no to

40:22

customization requests . That's

40:25

an Etsy . You're

40:28

gonna want to find out a way to

40:30

make that work . And again , in past episodes

40:33

here on the show we've talked about workflows

40:35

that you can kind of implement to make that

40:37

process easy for you , easy for your

40:40

fulfillment partner . Um , if you're using

40:42

, if you're not doing production in-house , and easy

40:44

on your designer to to make those customizations

40:46

so it's really efficient and flows well , um

40:49

, it'll take a second to establish because it

40:51

is . It is a separate workflow , but

40:54

you open the door to

40:56

the potential of so much more in terms

40:58

of sales , because etsy

41:00

is again one of those places that's kind of

41:02

, I feel like , carved

41:04

out its , its stake in or its

41:06

its space in the market , because it is

41:08

where you go to get customizable stuff . Amazon

41:10

now does customization , but etsy was first

41:12

, you know . So , um

41:14

, I think you

41:16

you're gonna want to say yes to

41:19

those types of things .

41:21

I mean , most of the people that are on Etsy have

41:24

probably bought a personalized item on Etsy

41:26

, and so if you

41:28

aren't doing that , you are

41:30

definitely limiting your

41:33

scope . So , yeah

41:35

, you can sell just regular t-shirts that

41:37

have , you know , whatever design you want

41:39

, non-customizable . But

41:42

I would highly consider

41:44

creating some listings

41:46

that do have the ability to be customized

41:49

. And to Josiah's point , yes , that means

41:51

some of the workflow has to change

41:53

. It can't flow directly to your

41:56

print partner , but if

41:58

you have the ability to

42:00

check every day and make sure that

42:02

when a sale comes in within

42:05

a reasonable amount of time , you're

42:07

able to quickly open up Photoshop or Canva

42:09

or whatever and recreate the art and then upload

42:11

it and tag it to your print partner

42:13

, it's absolutely

42:15

going to be worth it . And as you continue

42:17

to scale that , you can put systems around

42:20

it to where other people in your organization

42:22

your virtual assistants , you know , for example

42:24

, can just log in every night

42:26

, you know , or check it every night , and so you

42:28

can even have those emails , those messages

42:31

. You can open that up to , not

42:33

just coming to your email address , you know . You could

42:35

give them access to some of that stuff and

42:37

make it a lot easier on you

42:39

. So there are ways to scale that and

42:44

it's working for a lot

42:46

of people . On Etsy , I know somebody who

42:49

does six figures

42:51

in sales , like high six

42:53

figures every year , and

42:55

this year his target is to do seven figures

42:58

in sales and all he does is etsy

43:00

customized stuff , yeah , so

43:02

, um , he's

43:04

obviously figured it out . Why

43:06

can't we right ?

43:08

right , yeah , exactly , exactly

43:10

. So that does it for our

43:12

list . Um , again , we'd love to hear

43:14

from you guys as well in terms of your thoughts

43:16

. Do you have another thing that maybe we missed , or

43:18

do you have some in some of

43:20

these ? Maybe you weren't getting sales and you tweaked

43:23

and optimized one of these areas that we're talking

43:25

about and experienced a growth in sales

43:27

. We'd love to hear that as well . One

43:29

thing that we always want to encourage you guys

43:31

to do if you want to know more about , or not more about

43:33

, the show , but if you want more information

43:36

, if you want more tips , tools , insights , tools , insights

43:38

, tricks and a bonus dad joke . Uh

43:40

, you go and you sign up for our vip

43:43

email list at print , print on demand , castcom

43:45

slash vip . It's

43:47

one email a week . We don't spam you . You're not

43:49

going to get obnoxious ads from

43:52

any of our affiliates or anything like that . It's literally

43:54

just a supplement to the show

43:56

. Every week comes to you on on wednesday

43:58

, thursday , travis . When do you usually try and get those

44:00

both ?

44:01

out one of those days , usually early

44:03

thursday morning . Okay , so

44:05

the show drops wednesday and then , like

44:08

midnight , I set it to go and then it delivers

44:10

for the next few hours yeah , um

44:12

one thing I will say . I was just gonna say one thing

44:14

because , uh , this last email I sent

44:17

last week , um , something

44:19

happened with . Uh , there's

44:21

a big thing with email marketing . Google and

44:23

Yahoo have changed these . There's all

44:25

these different rules now and

44:28

it affected the email last week

44:30

. So , if you didn't see it in your inbox , if you're

44:32

subscribed , go to your spam and dig

44:34

it out of there and then do me a favor

44:36

and like whitelist

44:38

it so you can get it every week . It's

44:41

fine if you want to unsubscribe , if it's not something you

44:43

want , but we just don't want it to go into spam , I

44:45

guess is what I'm trying to say and we

44:47

had a really , really low open rate , because

44:49

I think a lot of them did go to spam

44:51

for some reason . It's because I changed

44:53

some of the DNS on the back end . It's too technical

44:55

to even get into . It's too technical to even

44:58

get into , but

45:00

I've been talking to a lot of people who are in the internet marketing space that are having

45:02

crazy trouble with their internet marketing

45:04

because of some of these changes that Google's doing . So

45:06

do us a favor and go

45:09

into your you

45:11

know your spam email from this last

45:13

pot , this last week , and market

45:15

as not spam . Whitelist it

45:17

whatever you know system you have for like

45:19

, not labeling it as not spam . Whitelist it whatever system you have for not

45:22

labeling it as spam . That would be greatly

45:24

appreciated because our reputation

45:27

, when things come from

45:29

us and we continue to grow

45:31

the list , our reputation for

45:33

not sending spam is super important

45:35

. So yeah , I didn't

45:38

mean to hijack that from you , but I wanted

45:40

to mention that that's good information .

45:41

Yeah , that's good . It's good for them to know and

45:45

a good way for them to help us out as well . And

45:47

last thing I will say about that is when you do sign up for

45:50

the list , of course you get the design calendar . That

45:52

helps you kind of anticipate

45:54

what's coming up , holiday wise , which you should be prepared

45:56

to sell for . And if you haven't got one of those , if

45:58

you did sign up and you haven't got it , you can reply to

46:00

that email , let us know , and be like hey , my

46:02

calendar is not with or not here

46:05

. Where is it at ? Can I get it ? And we can remedy that for

46:07

you as well . So , travis , anything else

46:09

before we send this one home ?

46:11

Nope , I think you know , like we're saying it

46:13

really , I think a lot of these things come back to

46:15

figuring out who your ideal customer is . I think

46:18

a lot of people get into print on demand . They

46:20

just go I want to do products

46:22

and this is fun and we were making

46:24

. Look , I have a , I have a sales page

46:26

, you know a listing on Etsy

46:28

and and they share it with all their friends

46:30

and family and their friends and family go , that's amazing

46:33

and you get that dopamine hit and then no sales

46:35

and I you

46:37

know , and that that can be really , really discouraging

46:40

and I think a lot of people drop out because of that

46:42

. But hopefully , um , by defining

46:44

that ideal avatar for your products

46:47

to start , you can avoid some

46:49

of that down the road , hopefully . Yeah .

46:51

Yeah , absolutely Well . Thank you

46:53

guys so much for listening . We look forward to being

46:55

back with you again with new content

46:58

, new insight , new dad jokes all

47:00

of it that you guys love . It'll be there in

47:02

a new episode , all brand new . So

47:05

until then , for Travis , I'm Josiah

47:07

. We'll see you next time right here on the Print On Demand

47:09

cast . See ya .

47:13

Hey babe , thanks for listening to this week's

47:15

episode of the Print On Demand cast . We

47:18

hope you enjoyed the Totally Tubular Show

47:20

. If you've got a question or a suggestion for

47:22

the show , send Travis and Josiah an email

47:24

at info at printondemandcastcom

47:27

. Want to be wicked nice ? Take

47:29

a minute to rate and review the show on iTunes or

47:32

wherever you get your podcasts , and don't

47:34

forget to subscribe now so you don't miss next

47:36

week's episode . See you next time

47:38

, for sure .