#+title: S02|LO7 - how to research and spy on winning print designs
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#+OPTIONS: H:6
* Links
#+attr_html: :class links
- [[../../toc.org][TOC - ecomm clubhouse]]
- [[https://jellyfin.ronnyabraham.com/web/index.html#/details?id=3c02cfe8e995fd98caeeaaca35599e32&serverId=99488804638e465693eed17924c57b60][video]]
- [[https://teespy.com/][Teespy]]
* Notes
- don't drive yourself crazy trying to be perfect, just do it
- launch designs, keep trying
- let the market decide
** 20 designs
- start with 20 designs
- designs can have multiple products
** combining niches
- dogs + coffee
** places to research designs
1. isntagram
2. pintrest
- also shows products and you can see what is popular
- popular quotes, objects, etc.
*** facebook
- type in niche plus something related to a product, e.g. "shippping"
- look in past 6 months + public
*** tspy
- product research
- shows sales
- look for products iwth a higher social engagement
- be careful about trends
* Tutorial Notes
** intro
In this video lesson, you’re going to learn how to SPY on winning Print On Demand designs & products, and to then use them as inspiration for creating your own ones. And yes, we said inspiration. It is very important that you do not copy them pixel for pixel, as this would be infringing on their copyrights. But, we can still make our own updated, BETTER versions!
Print on demand is an awesome way to add products to your store without buying them in advance. There’s a downside to it however, unless you a naturally gifted artist or designer, how are you going to get images to place on your products. That’s what we are going to talk about in this video.
I will teach you how to find winning designs and find a freelancer in Fiver.com. You can create your own versions of the winning the designs that we are going to find.
You can create lots of products with just one design. You can put in a pair of shoes, hoodie towel, etc. You can also mix match products from other sources other than print-on-demand providers.
** mugdom
Sourcing products from different sources is called a flex store. Here’s an example of flex store – Mugdom.
#+caption: mugdom store
#+attr_html: :width 1000px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex01.png]]
As you can see, they’re selling products from print-on-demand services but they also have mugs from Aliexpress.
** etsy
*** intro
So let’s start spying winning products that you can create your own version of.
The first site that I love to use is Etsy. What we want to do is to take our niche is see what products are selling in it. All you have to do is to type your niche in the search bar and do a search. I’m going to be using coffee as this is what I’ve been using on my tutorial videos as a sample store as well the previous videos in this course.
#+caption: etsy store coffee search
#+name: fig:blah
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex02a.png]]
*** look for "bestseller" in the description
One thing to note, when you are looking for products on Etsy is to ignore the products with the word Ad on it because people have paid Etsy for their products to appear there. What you want to do is to come to the products after the ads. Etsy’s algorithm is that every time a product makes a sale, it will jump in the search results.
Something that you should also be looking for in Etsy is the best seller badge. This is very pretty rare and not much products get this. So this indicate that this is hot product that is regularly selling.
#+caption: product with the bestseller ad
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex02b.png]]
It’s most likely that if you create your own version of this poster that people will like it as well. Printify offers posters and canvasses so it you have a store in the coffee niche, this would be a great product to get inspiration from and to add toy your store because we know that there is a market for coffee posters.
*** checking reviews
Now, let’s check this shirt that’s joking about needing coffee in the morning.
#+caption: tshirt about needing coffee in the morning
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex02c.png]]
Then scroll down to the reviews section to see if the product has a recent review for the product in the last month. Even just one review is a fantastic sign. You can definitely take this design and make your own version.
*** searching for a popular phrase
If you will do a search in Etsy of the But First Coffee shirt, you can see that there are a lot of listings for it. It’s a popular phrase so that means that there is a lot of mass appeal for that.
#+caption: searchign for "but first coffee"
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex02d.png]]
Another example is this shirt – it’s combining multiple niches together. Dogs and Coffee. Now, I’m a big believer in combining multiple niches together to create a custom product to appeal to specific individual.
#+caption: searchign for "but first coffee"
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex02e.png]]
For this particular design, I was not sure if there would be enough people that this would appeal to. So what I did was to check the reviews to check whether or not this is an occasional seller. And there were not many reviews for this at all and the reviews were not within the last month. For me, this is an indicator that there is not a huge amount of demand for this. Perhaps, crossing three niches together is just a little bit too specific.
*** searching for two niches
Now, let’s take a look at an example with two niches together. Not everyone may appreciate this T-shirt message, but I think we can all appreciate the play on words. When I saw this, I was certain that this sort of design is going to be selling well. And I wasn’t wrong, when I checked the reviews and it has a lot of reviews within the last six months. This is a great sign that this T-shirt has an ongoing regular sale.
#+caption: crossing coffee and weed
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex02f.png]]
If you can create a visually appealing, interesting looking design targeting one passionate niche, you can be very successful.
#+caption: girl with "dog mom" tshirt
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex02g.png]]
** instagram
*** intro
The next place were going to go to research ideas is Instagram. All you have to do is come in to Instagram then type in your niche plus the word meme.
#+caption: instagram "#coffeememes"
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex03a.png]]
*** look for funny posts
#+caption: funny post
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex03b.png]]
You would want to find pages that are dedicated to posting these quotes. You want to find pages that are dedicated to pages like coffee and funny pictures works really well in Facebook. When browsing images in Instagram, you have to pay attention which ones did better. One way is to check the number of likes, of course the more the likes are only means that the image is popular.
The first posts you’re going to see are the top posts. These are the posts that have performed best. You will see some funny quotes in there. Like this one over here.
** pinterest
*** intro
Next place we are going to look at is Pinterest. It’s a great place to get inspiration for simple, great looking illustrations and artworks. What you want to do is to type in your niche plus stickers and do a search.
#+caption: pinterest - search for coffee sticker
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex04a.png]]
Sticker arts are simple and clean and performs really well. This is one is a good example, targeting coffee lovers and bunnies.
#+caption: looking at a design
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex04b.png]]
You can find a very good illustrator and have this image revised and replace the bunny slippers with cat slippers or maybe add a hooded blanket with cat ears. Now, you’ve got a unique, original design that you can advertise with a targeted audience that are passionate cat lovers and coffee lovers.
*** using filters
You also want to pay attention to the number of times an illustration has been pinned.
You can also try and look for coffee mugs design. Pinterest has filter option on the top which makes it easy to check which ones are the popular quotes. All you have to do is to click on the filter that you want to see the results.
#+caption: filtering
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex04c.png]]
** facebook
Another place that we can go to find designs is, of course, Facebook. All you’ve got to do is to come to Facebook and type in your niche plus a call to action like free shipping and do a search. And you want to see the search results within the past 6 months so click on 2019. Then on the Post from, you want to choose Public.
You can find a very good illustrator and have this image revised and replace the bunny slippers with cat slippers or maybe add a hooded blanket with cat ears. Now, you’ve got a unique, original design that you can advertise with a targeted audience that are passionate cat lovers and coffee lovers.
#+caption: search "coffee free shipping"
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex05a.png]]
Scroll through and look for print on demand products. This one over here is good as it has no copyright and no trademark. It’s quite clever, looks good and meets our criteria of having more than 25 comments and 30 shares.
#+caption: example
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex05b.png]]
** teespy
One more tool that I recommend to find designs is Tee Spy. You can spy on some of the top selling products for T-shirts and Hoodies. You can make research based on sales numbers rather than having to guess based on social media.
#+caption: teespy filter
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex06a.png]]
What you want to do is to sort the designs based on sales in descending order. So scroll through and look for designs that relates to your niche. This one over here can work. “I’m an Engineer, I don’t fix stupid!”. It has 242 sales and 245 engagements. This one is good to use as an inspiration.
#+caption: coffee mug
#+attr_html: :width 800px
[[../../_share/media/img/step_02/lesson_01/ex06b.png]]
Don’t get too hang up on finding perfect designs, the best way is for you to put your designs out there and let the market decide. So go on and find some designs that you can use as inspiration for your own products!
You can also try searching for other niche like nurses. You can look for top performing designs for nurses. So you just have to look for designs for your own niche. You can find 5 top designs and create your own versions of these designs.
* Review
** Summary
This lesson explains how to research successful print-on-demand designs and use them as inspiration to create original, sellable products.
** Core Idea
Do not try to invent every design from nothing.
Find designs that already have traction, understand why they work, then create your own improved or adapted version.
** Print-On-Demand Model (Key Context)
Print-on-demand removes the need for inventory.
Old model:
- buy bulk stock
- store it
- ship manually
- risk unsold items
POD model:
- create product listing
- customer buys
- supplier (e.g. Printify) produces 1 unit
- supplier ships it
- you keep the profit margin
** Main Research Sources
- Etsy
- Instagram
- Pinterest
- Facebook
- TeeSpy
** Important Rule
Use winning designs as inspiration only.
Do NOT:
- copy artwork
- copy layout exactly
- reuse text word-for-word
- use trademarks or copyrighted material
** Etsy Research
Use Etsy to find products already selling in your niche.
Look for:
- first-page organic listings
- bestseller badge
- recent reviews
- consistent review activity
Ignore:
- ads
- obvious trademark traps
- purely seasonal spikes (unless intentional)
*** Etsy Signals
- Bestseller badge = strong consistent demand
- Recent reviews = current sales
- Multiple recent reviews = strong ongoing demand
- Few reviews = weak or inconsistent demand
Note:
Most buyers do NOT leave reviews → even a few reviews can imply many more sales.
** Social Research
*** Pattern Extraction (Core Skill)
Do not search randomly.
System:
Take a niche → view it through multiple design formats.
Example (coffee):
- coffee sticker
- coffee decal
- coffee mug
- coffee t shirt
Each format reveals a different layer:
- sticker → simple icon ideas (high clarity)
- decal → typography structures (phrasing + layout)
- mug → emotional hooks + short jokes
- t shirt → full compositions + trends
**** What You Are Actually Looking For
Not designs.
You are extracting:
- patterns
- phrasing structures
- emotional triggers
- layout styles
Example:
“but first coffee”
→ short repeatable phrase pattern
“I need coffee before I talk”
→ same structure, different wording
**** Why This Works
Each format filters noise differently:
- stickers remove complexity → only strong ideas survive
- mugs compress ideas → only clear phrases survive
- shirts show what people actually wear → market-tested layouts
So instead of guessing:
You are reverse-engineering what already works.
**** Output of This Process
After 10–20 searches, you should have:
- 5–10 repeatable phrase structures
- 3–5 visual layout patterns
- 2–3 strong emotional angles
That becomes your design input.
**** Rule
Extract patterns → then create.
Never:
copy → paste → sell
*** Instagram
Search:
- memes
Use for:
- jokes
- viral phrases
- emotional hooks
Look for:
- high-like posts
- standout engagement vs others
*** Pinterest
Search:
- stickers
- decals
- mugs
- t shirts
Use for:
- sticker-style art
- typography ideas
- illustration concepts
- product pins
Signal:
- number of saves/pins = popularity
Note:
Pinterest is more female-dominated.
*** Facebook
Search:
- + buying phrase
Examples:
- coffee free shipping
- dog mom free shipping
Filter:
- public posts
- last 6 months
Validation:
- 25+ shares
- 30+ comments
Avoid:
- copyright/trademark traps (e.g. Disney characters)
** TeeSpy Research
Use TeeSpy for sales-based validation.
Look for:
- high sales
- decent social engagement
- timeless concepts
Avoid:
- trademark infringement
- dead trends
- low engagement products (if planning ads)
** Cross-Niche Strategy
Combine niches to increase emotional connection.
Examples:
- coffee → broad
- coffee + dogs → more personal
- coffee + dogs + books → possibly too narrow
Goal:
- more personal WITHOUT shrinking audience too much
** Humor Advantage
Funny designs can generate:
- shares
- viral spread
- free traffic
Even non-buyers may share → increases reach.
** Timeless vs Trend
*** Timeless
- coffee humor
- professions (nurses, teachers)
- pets
*** Trend/Seasonal
- holidays (Father’s Day, Christmas)
- viral memes
- news-related spikes
Use trends carefully → short lifespan.
** Product Launch Strategy
*** Minimum Store Size
- Aim for ~20 products at launch
*** Practical Setup
- 10 designs
- 2 products per design
Avoid:
- low-effort duplication
- “4 designs × 5 products” padding
** Flex Store Concept
You can mix product sources:
- print-on-demand
- dropshipping (e.g. AliExpress)
- other suppliers
This reduces pressure to create many designs.
** Research Checklist [0/8]
- [ ] Search niche on Etsy
- [ ] Ignore ads
- [ ] Check bestseller badges
- [ ] Check recent reviews
- [ ] Search Instagram memes
- [ ] Search Pinterest stickers/decals
- [ ] Search Facebook posts
- [ ] Check TeeSpy
** Design Inspiration Checklist [0/6]
- [ ] Identify why design works
- [ ] Identify target audience
- [ ] Identify emotion/joke
- [ ] Think of better version
- [ ] Try cross-niche variation
- [ ] Avoid protected content
** Validation Checklist [0/6]
- [ ] Recent reviews exist
- [ ] Social engagement exists
- [ ] Pins/saves exist
- [ ] TeeSpy sales exist
- [ ] Not purely trend-based
- [ ] Legally safe to adapt
** Store Launch Checklist [0/4]
- [ ] Enough designs to avoid empty store
- [ ] Logical product variety
- [ ] No cheap duplication
- [ ] Ongoing design creation plan
** Warnings
- Do not over-research
- Do not chase perfection
- Avoid trademark/copyright traps
- Trends can mislead
- Platforms may reject even legal designs
** Key Insight
You cannot predict winners with certainty.
You improve odds by:
- starting from proven demand
- launching multiple designs
- letting the market decide
** My Take
This is fundamentally a volume + iteration game.
Research improves direction,
but success comes from:
- producing designs
- launching them
- testing them
- repeating the process
** Bottom Line
Find what works → create your own version → launch enough products → let the market choose winners.
* Transcript
#+begin_example
00:00
Hello, and welcome to this video. In it, I'm gonna
00:02
be teaching you how to research winning print on demand
00:05
designs so that you can use them as inspiration to
00:07
create your own ones. Yes. If you've been watching our
00:10
videos inside the econ clubhouse, you'll know that as part
00:13
of it, we teach multiple ways to source products for
00:16
your store. 1 of the ways is by drop shipping
00:18
products directly from manufacturers themselves that we find on aliexpress
00:22
dot com. This is 1 great way to add products
00:24
without having to buy them in advance.
00:26
Another way is of course creating your own custom products
00:30
for your store using print on demand services.
00:33
With services out there like Printify, you can create your
00:36
own custom products like t shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, pillows, and
00:40
even shower curtains.
00:41
What you do is you take a piece of artwork
00:43
such as this image here, and then with the help
00:45
of Printify, you then place the artwork onto products. You
00:48
can then put these products on sale in your store.
00:51
Printify lets you create these products for free. Then each
00:55
time a customer comes to your store and buys 1
00:57
of your products, Printify's manufacturers will create it and then
01:01
ship it out to the customer for you. So this
01:03
mug here is an example of a successful print on
01:06
demand product. In the past, if you wanted to sell
01:09
this mug in your store, you had to buy 100
01:11
of them in advance and hope that they would sell.
01:15
But you don't have to do that anymore. The seller
01:17
for this mug is selling them for 13 dollars and
01:19
99 cents. When someone comes and buys it for that
01:22
price, all the seller has to do is go to
01:25
their print on demand provider and buy 1. Printify sell
01:28
black mugs for just 7 dollars and 50 cents. And
01:31
that markup you charged, you get to keep the price
01:34
difference yourself. And don't worry. Thanks to the awesome Printify
01:37
and Shopify integration I'm gonna help you install in step
01:40
3, the process of buying that mug from Printify and
01:43
having it shipped out to the customer is going to
01:45
be semi automated.
01:46
Want to check out Printify's product catalog to see what
01:49
types of custom products you'll be able to create in
01:51
your new store? Well, I'll have a link to Printify
01:54
on this page. Please note that it is an affiliate
01:56
link, which means we may get a commission if you
01:58
use it. Using it is optional, but we always appreciate
02:01
it and are thankful when you do. Print on demand
02:04
then is a fantastic way to add custom products to
02:06
your store that you can sell without having to buy
02:09
them in advance. There is just 1 downside to it
02:12
though, isn't there? Unless you are a naturally gifted designer
02:15
or artist,
02:16
how are you going to get the images to place
02:20
on your custom products? Well, that's what we're gonna be
02:22
talking about in this video. In this video, we're gonna
02:25
be researching
02:26
previous designs
02:27
and artwork that worked well on other print on demand
02:30
products.
02:31
Then, as I'm gonna teach in a later video in
02:33
the course, you can then create your own versions of
02:36
the artwork and designs that we find here using the
02:39
freelancer website fiverr dot com. The reason why I'm gonna
02:42
teach you how to find previously successful designs so that
02:45
you can then hire a freelancer
02:47
on fiverr dot com to make your own versions of
02:49
it is because in business,
02:52
usually the easiest way to be successful
02:54
isn't by inventing new things. It's by creating your own
02:57
better version of previously
02:59
successful things.
03:01
The Japanese
03:02
economic
03:03
post World War II miracle boom
03:05
was built on this. Their economy thrived because they took
03:09
previously successful products like TVs and made better versions of
03:13
it. So that's what I'm gonna teach you how to
03:15
do. I'm gonna teach you how to find designs that
03:18
are already using views, traction, and sales so that you
03:22
can make your own,
03:24
better versions of them. And just to be clear, when
03:27
we find previously winning designs, we don't wanna copy them
03:30
pixel for pixel. We want to use them as inspiration
03:33
to make our own better versions.
03:36
Copying it would be copyright infringement, so that's not what
03:39
we want. What we want to do is to get
03:41
an artist to come and to make a better version
03:45
of it. Let's take this t shirt here that is
03:47
so well for its print on demand store, Badass Mom
03:50
Clothing, as an example.
03:52
Well, what could we do to change it? We could
03:54
modify the font. We could add color so it's not
03:57
just a black and white design. We could switch up
04:00
the text sizing to be more exciting visually. We could
04:03
put a strike through the word can't, and we could
04:06
even see if getting rid of the word bunny and
04:09
replacing it with an image of just the bunny is
04:12
more visually appealing. There is a lot we could do
04:15
here. I also want to address something. Yes, if you
04:17
are talented at designing and you trust your own skills
04:20
in this, then that's absolutely fine. You can skip this
04:23
video. But for most people out there, including myself, we're
04:26
not super gifted at coming up with their own designs
04:29
and ideas, and that's absolutely fine. Everyone has their own
04:33
strengths. Something else I want to point out also is
04:35
that when you launch a store, you don't want it
04:37
to look empty and unfinished.
04:39
If it looks unempty and unfinished, then customers are less
04:42
likely to trust you, which is 1 of the reasons
04:44
why I recommend that when you launch a store that
04:47
you launch with at least 20 products. Now you might
04:50
be thinking 20 products. Sarah, I plan to source all
04:53
of my products with Printify. Does that mean I'm going
04:56
to have to come up with 20 different designs?
04:59
Not quite. At a stretch, you can get away with
05:01
having 10 different designs and then printing them onto 2
05:05
different products. So let's say you've opened a store focusing
05:08
on the 1 space, and your research indicated that galaxy
05:11
designs had sold well. Large scale, epic pictures like this
05:15
look very visually striking on shoes, so you could add
05:18
these. And you could take that same design and add
05:21
it to a hooded blanket as well. That would be
05:23
2 products for this 1 design. You can add even
05:26
more products, but my point here is that you shouldn't
05:29
cheap out and say, only create 4 designs, and then
05:32
slap those 4 designs onto 5 different products and be
05:35
like, voila,
05:36
20 products.
05:37
Doing that looks really cheap and unprofessional. You don't wanna
05:41
do that. Keep in mind though that you don't just
05:42
have to exclusively source products to sell with print on
05:45
demand. You can mix and match products from other sources.
05:48
So you could list products you were drop shipping from
05:50
AliExpress,
05:51
and you can create your own unique products. Sourcing products
05:54
from multiple different sources is called a flex store. This
05:57
is a successful flex store mugdom. These mugs here are
06:00
the products that they created with print on demand services,
06:03
but this mug here is 1 that they are drop
06:05
shipping from AliExpress,
06:06
so they are doing both in the same store.
06:09
And this mug here is pretty cool. So if the
06:12
idea of creating 10 different designs intimidates you, then don't
06:15
worry because you can source products in multiple ways. All
06:18
right. So with that out of the way, let's talk
06:20
about how you can spy on previously
06:23
successful designs so that you can make your own better
06:26
versions of it. The first place I absolutely love to
06:29
go for this is etsy dot com. If you don't
06:31
know what Etsy is, it's 1 of the largest online
06:33
marketplaces on the internet. People can post handmade, designed items
06:37
for sale. A lot of designers will post things like
06:40
mugs and t shirts on there. Some designers will manufacture
06:43
the products, but most use printing services like Printify. So
06:47
what we want to do is we want to take
06:49
our store's chosen niche that we picked in step 1
06:52
and see what products are selling well in it. Alright.
06:55
So come to Etsy. Now all you've got to do
06:57
is come to the search bar and type in what
06:59
your chosen niche is. So for the Ecom Clubhouse, you're
07:02
gonna see me throughout this video tutorial series build an
07:06
example store around a niche that I use a lot
07:08
on the Wholesale Teeth Teeth YouTube channel, and that niche
07:11
is coffee.
07:12
Lots of people are extremely passionate about coffee, which means
07:15
it has great potential as a niche. So
07:18
I'm gonna type that in now and do a search
07:20
for it.
07:22
First thing I want to let you know is that
07:24
when you're doing research on Etsy, you should ignore,
07:27
any listings here that feature the word ad on them.
07:30
People are paying to have their product listed here. So
07:34
that's not what we want,
07:35
to focus on. What we want to do is we
07:38
want to come to the products
07:39
after the ads. Now something about the Etsy search algorithm
07:43
is that every time a product makes a sale, it
07:46
will jump up in the search results.
07:48
Because let me show you something.
07:50
Check this out.
07:52
There are literally 250
07:55
pages of results for items that Etsy has found that
07:58
are related to the word coffee.
08:00
That is a huge amount of results, isn't it? So
08:03
Etsy literally has thousands of items,
08:06
that people have listed on its site
08:08
that it has to choose from, and it has to
08:10
put some on the first page of its results.
08:13
Now similar to Amazon, the biggest way that does this
08:17
is that it looks at a product sales numbers. And
08:20
for Etsy, it thinks, well, if a product has made
08:22
a sale recently,
08:24
then then that's a great sign that if we place
08:26
it in front of,
08:28
more people, that they will purchase it too. So any
08:31
products, any designs on the first page of results
08:34
are designs that you should take a look at and
08:36
see if you want to make your own version of
08:38
it because we know that these have sold recently.
08:42
Now something that you should be especially looking for on
08:45
Etsy is this best seller badge.
08:48
This is, pretty rare. Not many products actually get this.
08:52
And so,
08:53
it very much indicates that this is a hot product
08:56
that is regularly selling. So, of course, if you think
08:59
about it, if people like this poster on here and
09:02
if you make your own better version of it, why
09:04
would people not like that 1 as well? And Printify
09:08
do indeed sell posters along with canvases. So if you
09:12
had a store in the coffee niche, this would be
09:13
a great product to get inspiration from, and to add
09:17
to your store because we know that there is a
09:20
market for this poster amongst coffee lovers.
09:23
Now, of course, not all items can have that best
09:26
sellers badge, but that doesn't mean that you want to
09:28
necessarily ignore those.
09:31
We can still figure out if a product is regularly
09:33
selling,
09:35
or if it's just a 1 off,
09:37
you know, trending product based on some sort of limited
09:40
time event.
09:41
To do that, let's take this product here and we'll
09:44
open it up.
09:46
Now this, of course, is a t shirt that's joking
09:49
about needing,
09:51
coffee in the morning. Well, if we scroll down, we
09:53
can come to the reviews.
09:55
Now,
09:56
what we want to do is we want to see
09:58
if there has been a recent review in the last,
10:02
month for this product. Even just 1 review is a
10:05
fantastic sign, But of course, this product has had more
10:07
than just 1 review within the last month. I am
10:10
filming this video on June 20 second and we can
10:14
see that there's been a review on June tenth. There's
10:16
been a review on June third, a review for this
10:19
t shirt on May 30 first, a review for it
10:22
on May 20 second. So this has had 4 reviews
10:26
within the last month,
10:28
which is a fantastic sign
10:30
because keep in mind that most people do not leave
10:33
reviews.
10:34
On Amazon, on average, only 3 to 5 percent of
10:37
customers leave a review.
10:39
So a lot more than just 4 people
10:42
have bought this item. We can't know for certain, but
10:45
we know that it's been a lot.
10:48
And if you think about it, there are many ways
10:50
you could come in and you could,
10:52
change up this design to make it even better. This
10:56
is a very simple design.
10:58
Now something I really did want to point out because
11:01
I noticed it here in the listings
11:03
is this mug here, this, Donald Trump mug. So obviously,
11:08
this has been selling really well. I mean, look at
11:11
this here. Wow. Like crazy.
11:13
But there is a reason why this mug has been
11:16
selling so well, and the reason is because it has
11:19
just been Father's Day here in the United States. Now,
11:22
well, here, sorry, over in the United States. Now,
11:25
I'm currently in New Zealand. I just got back from
11:28
the USA,
11:29
and in New Zealand, our Father's Day is actually September
11:32
first.
11:34
But, yes, this is why this mug has spiked because
11:37
this mug is a dressed up version
11:39
of, you know, the idea of having a best dad
11:42
mug.
11:44
So while this design is something that we can very
11:47
much learn from and you could very much potentially repurpose
11:50
this design for future holidays,
11:52
it is not as timeless
11:54
as this coffee shirt.
11:57
And so,
11:58
if you want to get more designs than if you
12:00
want to get more ideas, you can get far more
12:03
specific,
12:04
than just typing in your niche into the search bar.
12:07
We can look for specific,
12:09
products that we could come and we can take a
12:11
look at what are the top performing,
12:13
coffee shirt t shirts
12:15
on Etsy.
12:17
So I think that we can see here that, the
12:19
phrase, but first cough but first coffee. This 1 doesn't
12:22
count. It's an ad. But first coffee,
12:26
but first coffee,
12:28
but first coffee. You know, that is a very popular
12:31
phrase. So,
12:32
that means then that there is a lot of mass
12:34
appeal for that, which means that,
12:36
using it in our own design in a creative way
12:39
has a huge amount of potential, which is great.
12:42
There was a product that, really caught my eye my
12:46
eye, though. This product
12:49
here. Now,
12:50
this 1 is interesting because it's combining multiple niches together.
12:54
Dogs and coffee. Now I'm a huge believer in combining
12:57
different niches together to create a custom product that appeals
13:00
to a specific individual. So if someone is passionate about
13:04
both dogs, coffee, and books, this t shirt will feel
13:07
more personal and resonate with them because,
13:10
this is, you know, very specific to them than if
13:14
they had just seen,
13:15
a t shirt specifically about dogs or a t shirt
13:18
about books or a t shirt about coffee. They're like,
13:20
wow, this really truly is me. And so because of
13:24
that, they are way more likely to buy it.
13:27
The thing though is that when I saw this, I
13:29
wasn't really sure if there would be enough people out
13:32
there that this would specifically appeal to. So,
13:36
to check whether or not this was a regular salary
13:38
came down to the reviews.
13:40
And, there are not many reviews for this at all,
13:43
and the reviews were not within the last month. So,
13:47
to me, this is an indicator that there just isn't
13:50
a huge amount of ongoing,
13:52
demand for it. So,
13:54
perhaps crossing,
13:56
you know, 3 niches together
13:58
is just a little bit too,
14:01
specific.
14:02
But, you know, there was a niche, sorry, a t
14:05
shirt in here that I saw that very cleverly combines,
14:08
2 niches together rather than,
14:11
smooshing together 3, and it was this 1 here. Now,
14:14
not everyone will appreciate this t this, t shirt's message,
14:19
and I understand that,
14:21
but I think we could all appreciate the play on
14:24
words. So,
14:26
this here, pothead,
14:29
this is a pretty funny pun. Now when I saw
14:31
this,
14:33
I was 100 percent certain that this sort of design
14:36
was probably gonna be selling well, and I wasn't wrong.
14:39
Take a look at this here. June seventeenth, a review
14:42
was left and it's had multiple reviews within,
14:46
the last 6 months.
14:49
So this is a great sign, that this t shirt,
14:52
is, getting ongoing regular sales. And, of course, the t
14:56
shirt is doing well because it's targeting people who are
14:59
passionate about 2 things in a funny way. It's targeting
15:03
people who both love drinking coffee
15:05
and, well, people who enjoy smoking pot.
15:08
Now, this is not actually a shirt that I'd recommend
15:11
mimicking if you plan to advertise with Facebook ads, which
15:15
I'm gonna teach you how to do in step 5
15:17
because the marijuana niche can be a little bit problematic
15:21
with Facebook's rules. But this shirt highlights something that I
15:24
think is quite important, and that is the idea of
15:26
creating a design that crosses 2 niches together.
15:29
If someone who loves coffee sees a shirt that makes
15:31
a joke about coffee, they'll think, oh yeah, that's me.
15:35
And if an avid marijuana smoker sees this shirt, they
15:38
might laugh at the joke about hiding but not hiding
15:40
in and think, oh yeah, I can relate. But when
15:43
someone who is both an avid coffee drinker and an
15:46
avid pot smoker sees this, it feels more personal to
15:49
their interests, and they're more likely to go, wow. That's
15:52
totally me. Of course, you can have a lot of
15:54
success selling products that just focus on 1 niche and
15:57
don't cross niche. For example, many of you may recognize
16:00
this picture of a very successful print on demand product
16:03
featured on our YouTube channel. It was created by millionaire
16:06
print on demand store owner, Michael Shi, and it made
16:09
tens of thousands of dollars in profit. It only targets
16:12
the niche of dog owners and dog lovers, so while
16:16
cross niching can be helpful, it's not necessary to create
16:19
a winning product.
16:20
If you can create a really visually appealing, interesting looking
16:24
design targeting 1 passionate niche, as Michael has shown, you
16:28
can also be very successful. But back to this design
16:30
here. This is of course funny because it's a pun.
16:33
Funny images like this can be a great source of
16:36
product ideas.
16:37
And do you know where you can find images that
16:39
people find funny? Instagram. So that's the next place that
16:42
we're gonna go to research ideas.
16:45
Alright. So all you've gotta do is come to Instagram,
16:48
and then come to the search bar, and then type
16:51
in, your niche plus the word memes. So for me,
16:55
my niche for this example store is of course going
16:57
to be coffee. So let's
17:00
type in coffee memes and then do a search for
17:03
that hashtag.
17:04
Now, the first post you will see are gonna be
17:06
the top posts and these are the most recent posts,
17:10
that have performed the best.
17:12
And then you'll come down here and then you'll hit
17:14
the most recent.
17:15
What we wanna focus on is these,
17:19
and some of these are, you know, pretty funny.
17:22
This is probably my favorite.
17:23
My favorite co worker is the coffee machine.
17:26
This quote really
17:28
is something I understand. This is exactly how I felt
17:31
when I worked my job job.
17:34
So this is 1 way to look for
17:37
funny
17:38
pictures and quotes to get inspiration from.
17:42
Another way is to come and find
17:45
pages that are specifically
17:47
devoted to this. So of course this page here coffee
17:50
memes is dedicated to posting,
17:53
funny pictures related to coffee. And funny pictures perform really
17:57
well on Facebook because you know, let's say,
18:00
that you have a t shirt,
18:02
with this phrase on it.
18:05
And people find that really funny when they when you
18:08
advertise it to them,
18:09
in their Facebook feed. And even if they don't necessarily
18:12
want to buy the t shirt,
18:14
they will very likely share that image with a friend
18:18
of theirs who also,
18:20
feels this way in the morning before they drink their
18:23
coffee because of the fact that,
18:25
it's really funny and they want to make them laugh.
18:27
And so,
18:28
funny products,
18:30
get free traction and they get free traffic just from
18:33
people sharing them with their friends for you.
18:36
Now something of course when you're browsing through Instagram pages
18:39
looking for inspiration, it's important to pay attention to which
18:43
images
18:44
performed better than others. So of course this 1 here
18:46
has 2000 likes,
18:48
whereas this 1 here has 1700
18:50
likes. So this was the more
18:53
popular phrase
18:54
and
18:55
it's it's a really good idea to browse through a
18:57
page like this and to look for pictures
19:00
that might have a disproportionate
19:02
number of likes and that are doing really really well.
19:06
Like here we go, this 1 here 4000
19:09
likes.
19:10
This is almost double well, it's it's more than double
19:13
what a lot of these are. And so this would
19:15
be an excellent image to take inspiration from,
19:19
when coming up, with your own design. Another great social
19:23
media website to look for when researching designs is Pinterest.
19:27
So here I am on Pinterest. Now, of course, you
19:29
can use Pinterest to search through so many different types
19:32
of popular pictures and get tons of inspiration for your
19:35
designs,
19:36
But something that Pinterest is uniquely good for is getting
19:39
inspiration
19:40
for great looking, simple illustrative artwork,
19:44
and there is a hack for this. So come in
19:46
here,
19:47
type in your niche,
19:51
and then type in the word stickers.
19:53
Sticker art is fantastic.
19:55
1 thing that you can do with sticker art is
19:57
you can combine it, with typography
19:59
artwork to create a really unique design.
20:02
Sticker artwork is simple and clean and performs really well.
20:06
Now there was a design on here that I got
20:09
a lot of inspiration from actually.
20:11
So something like this here, you could be potentially targeting,
20:15
coffee lovers and people that love bunnies.
20:18
But of course, think about this here. Let's say, you
20:20
know, that you've got a store that targets cat owners.
20:23
Well, you could get inspiration from a design like this.
20:26
You could give this to a Fiverr illustrator and say
20:28
to them, you know, make something similar to this, but
20:32
replace the slippers with cat slippers
20:34
and have them be wearing a hooded blanket with cat
20:37
ears. And now suddenly
20:39
you've got a really unique original twist on this design
20:44
that you can
20:45
advertise towards the hyper targeted passionate audience of cat lovers
20:49
or cat owners that also love drinking coffee.
20:52
And while that is hyper targeted, it's actually quite a
20:56
large audience, so there is a lot of room to
20:58
scale it. Now what you want to do is you
21:00
want to pay attention to the number of times something
21:02
has been pinned. This has been pinned,
21:04
over 900 times.
21:06
You know, let's come here and check this 1 out.
21:08
This one's been pinned,
21:10
113
21:11
times. So that's how you can gauge which designs are
21:14
more popular than
21:15
than others. 1 way that you can also another great
21:18
hack is to search for niche,
21:20
decals, and then you can get some really great word
21:23
art to get inspiration from. But Pinterest isn't just good
21:26
at looking up designs and artwork.
21:29
1 of the other really great things about Pinterest is
21:32
that people will regularly post
21:34
actual products,
21:37
and people will pin and comment on these as well.
21:40
So,
21:42
this way you can actually see, you know, what designs
21:44
people are truly interested in buying on buying when they
21:47
are put onto a product. So, you know, if you
21:49
come to this 1 here, we'll see this 1 has
21:52
been,
21:53
saved 2000
21:55
times. And of course, you don't just have to search
21:57
for, t shirts on Pinterest. People post all sorts of
22:00
different products on here.
22:02
We can come, we can look at coffee mugs. And
22:04
Pinterest also makes it really simple,
22:07
to,
22:08
filter them, you know. If I wanted to come and
22:10
look at the most,
22:11
popular
22:12
quotes that I've, put on coffee mugs, I've just got
22:14
to come and click on the filter up here.
22:17
And so, Pinterest is a really great way to browse
22:20
through and find products and designs that are getting a
22:22
lot of traction and interest.
22:25
Something to keep in mind with Pinterest though is that
22:26
it is predominantly
22:28
a female site. With Instagram, it's more fiftyfifty.
22:31
Another place that we can do research for previously successful
22:34
winning designs is Facebook. We can go through the public
22:37
posts on Facebook and see if we can see any
22:39
successful
22:40
advertisements
22:41
for print on demand products.
22:43
You may remember back in step 1 when we were
22:45
selecting our winning niche, we went through Facebook to see
22:48
if each of our chosen niches had at least 10
22:51
products that had been successfully
22:53
advertised on Facebook. They had to meet the criteria of
22:56
having 25 shares, at least 30 comments, and having been
22:59
posted within the last 6 months. So we want to
23:02
look at the same criteria as well. Here's how to
23:05
use Facebook to research previously winning print on demand design
23:09
ideas.
23:10
All you've got to do is come to Facebook and
23:12
come to the search bar and type in your niche.
23:17
And then a really great idea is to type in
23:19
a call to action that you would expect to see
23:22
on a post for a print on demand product.
23:27
So something like free shipping is a great example.
23:31
And then come and do search.
23:32
Now what you want to do is you want to
23:34
come today posted. You want to select a year that
23:37
will let you go back 6 months.
23:39
So 2019
23:41
is perfect because it's currently,
23:43
getting towards the end of June. So that will give
23:45
me 6 months worth worth of post to go back
23:48
by. And then you want to come to post from
23:50
and you want to select public.
23:54
And then all you've got to do is, scroll through
23:57
and look for products that are very clearly print on
24:00
demand products.
24:02
And you might not find them,
24:04
for quite a bit. You might have to scroll down,
24:06
and that's absolutely
24:08
okay. Just keep scrolling.
24:10
Now
24:11
alright. So this 1 here, it does meet our criteria.
24:14
I'm not going to lie.
24:16
But this product here, I would call a trap.
24:19
The reason for that is because take a look at
24:21
it. What is it? This is Mickey Mouse. Everyone knows
24:24
that this is Mickey Mouse. It may not be
24:27
the black silhouette, but,
24:29
this here is a trademark infringement
24:32
of,
24:32
the mouse himself.
24:34
So perhaps they're willing to risk it, but I cannot
24:38
recommend to you that you do that. And infringing on
24:41
trademarks and copyrights, it's really short term money. It's not
24:44
a long term strategy.
24:46
You should look to create your own designs that you
24:48
can trust and that you can invest in. And take
24:51
a look at this 1 here. This design performed even
24:54
better,
24:55
yet
24:56
this infringes on no copyrights at all and no trademarks.
25:00
So,
25:01
that shows to you that you don't need to,
25:04
do illegal things to have designs that,
25:07
that connect really well. You just gotta have something really
25:09
clever, and this is quite clever,
25:12
and it looks great,
25:13
and it meets our criteria. So that is how you
25:16
find,
25:17
designs that are performing well,
25:20
with Facebook.
25:21
And there is another tool that I recommend for design
25:24
research,
25:25
and that is TeeSpy. With TeeSpy, you can spy on
25:27
the top selling products, mostly t shirts and hoodies, across
25:30
some of the biggest shirt launching platforms such as Teespring
25:33
and Represent.
25:34
I absolutely love TeeSpy because you can do product research
25:37
based off of sales numbers
25:39
rather than having to make guesses based on social media
25:42
data and shares.
25:44
And ultimately, it's sales that are what make us actual
25:47
money. T spy does have a free account, but to
25:50
do what I'm gonna do, you will need to have
25:52
a starter plan. You don't need any of the more
25:55
expensive plans. Now I will have a link to TeeSpy
25:59
in this video page. Please note though, that it is
26:01
an affiliate link. So let's do this. Once you've logged
26:04
into TeeSpy, come up to the search bar and type
26:07
in your niche.
26:08
Of course, mine is coffee.
26:10
What we want to do is we want to sort
26:12
these designs in descending order for sales. So come and
26:15
click on sales,
26:17
and now we've got our top performing designs at the
26:20
very top, and so scroll through these.
26:22
So this one's had 1800
26:25
sales. That's a huge amount of sales,
26:27
but check it out, it is infringing on the Starbucks
26:30
trademark. This is not something I would recommend.
26:34
This 1 here, absolutely fine. All I care about is
26:37
my German Shepherd and like maybe 3 people and coffee,
26:40
and it's within our niche as well. But even though
26:43
this has sold a huge amount, it's not something I
26:46
would prioritize
26:47
because take a look at the social engagement.
26:50
It's had very it's it's it's so far, t spy
26:53
has only been able to find 1 form of social
26:55
engagement for it.
26:57
And the 1 of the main sources of traffic that
27:00
I'm gonna teach you in step 5 is Facebook ads.
27:02
So ideally, we'd want to prioritize products that have a
27:05
higher number here.
27:07
Now this 1 here does 756
27:10
sales,
27:10
64 social engagements,
27:13
but it's not a product I'd normally recommend because this
27:15
is actually
27:17
a trend. Kanye West tweeted about dragon energy. Dragon energy
27:21
is something that's a part of the Tayist tradition.
27:25
The internet found it very funny and it became a
27:28
meme. So this person capitalized
27:31
off of
27:32
the,
27:32
trend for dragging energy at the time. But, you know,
27:36
they'd actually made quite a bit of money. Like, if
27:38
we come and, they sold this t shirt for 25
27:41
dollars
27:43
and they sold 756
27:45
copies of it, well, they made nearly 19000
27:49
dollars. So this person did very well capitalizing off of
27:52
a trend,
27:53
but we're looking for a product that could perform well
27:56
right now. So,
27:58
even though I'm very impressed with this person,
28:00
that's not what we want to focus on. Something like
28:02
this though is timeless. I'm an engineer. I can't fix
28:06
stupid, but I can fix what stupid does. This is
28:09
a mug that in my store with co with novelty
28:11
coffee mugs, I could create this and then target it
28:14
towards engineers.
28:15
And look, 742
28:17
sales,
28:18
245
28:20
social engagements.
28:22
So this would be a great product to get inspiration
28:24
from.
28:26
The fact that this is about engineers, though,
28:28
did make me think about something. So
28:32
there is a niche that's actually quite popular, nurses.
28:35
Nurses are very popular within the print on demand niche
28:38
because of the fact that nurses are extremely passionate
28:42
about their jobs.
28:44
So
28:45
we will look up,
28:48
some top performing designs for nurses.
28:54
And then we'll come and we'll sort it by sales.
28:58
Sometimes when you're using Tspy,
29:00
it might not necessarily be the absolute fastest. And the
29:03
reason for that is because it's got so much data
29:06
that it's having to process. It's constantly adding in new,
29:10
campaigns,
29:12
and then it has to sort all the data. Like,
29:15
see it found 4000 items and it has to sort
29:17
it by sales. So perhaps you've come here and you've
29:21
got a store targeting nurses and,
29:24
you've gone through these designs and you found some, but
29:26
you would like even more.
29:28
My advice to you is don't think that you have
29:31
to just look for top performing designs within your own
29:34
niche.
29:37
Teachers
29:37
are a very another very popular,
29:41
niche when it comes to,
29:43
professions.
29:45
Why? Because teachers are extremely passionate about what they do.
29:49
And so what you can do is you can come
29:52
and you can see what designs have been performing well
29:55
with teachers because there's a very strong chance that given
29:58
both of those are social good
30:00
occupations that a lot of the designs will cross over
30:03
and work together.
30:05
So this 1 here, I have to keep calm, I'm
30:07
a teacher. This could be easily repurposed to nurses. I
30:11
have to keep calm, I'm a nurse.
30:14
And,
30:15
this 1 here, 1800
30:18
social media engagements.
30:20
And it's for the outcome, not for the income.
30:23
So it's a little bit controversial because it's talking about
30:28
wages.
30:29
And clearly that,
30:31
being controversial
30:32
has resulted in a lot of social media discussion,
30:35
which will have been free advertising for this product, which
30:38
is,
30:39
probably helped it do much better in the sales department.
30:41
And this has been a very successful product. And you
30:44
know what? This 1 could be easily repurposed for nurses
30:47
as well because it applies to them. So don't think
30:51
when you're browsing through this set you just have to
30:54
look at your own niche.
30:55
You can find the top selling designs in other niches,
30:59
and then you can repurpose them for your own.
31:02
Alright. So before I go and send you off to
31:04
research your own designs, I wanna make something very clear.
31:07
Don't get too hung up on this process and try
31:09
and find the most perfect design because you can't.
31:13
As my good friend, Michael Shee from Print Profits said
31:16
in 1 of our Wholesale Ted video collaborations,
31:19
We can't figure out ahead of time which designs will
31:21
be winners and which ones won't. Instead, as he said,
31:25
we have to put our designs out there and let
31:27
the market decide. Take a look at the successful Etsy
31:30
print on demand store. They have sold nearly 2000000 dollars
31:34
worth of print on demand clothing in the past 5
31:36
years. And look at how many designs they have created,
31:40
over 1000.
31:41
And you know what? It will only be a very
31:43
small percentage of these that will successfully sell. The reason
31:47
why the store was successful
31:48
wasn't because they researched and found the perfect product and
31:51
launched it. The reason why they were successful
31:54
wasn't because they researched and found the perfect design.
31:58
No. They were successful because they decided that they would
32:01
keep creating different designs, keep launching them, and keep advertising
32:05
new ones until they found golden designs and products that
32:08
connected with their audience.
32:10
Most people give up after just a few products not
32:13
selling well, but this store was dedicated to making it
32:16
a success.
32:17
And now, well, over 1000000 dollars later, it is.
32:21
So don't get stuck in the research process. The most
32:25
important thing is getting some designs made, and then advertising
32:29
them in step 5, and letting the market decide.
32:32
So go on and start researching your designs now, and
32:35
when you've found some that you want to use as
32:37
inspiration for your own products, I'll see you on the
32:40
next video.
#+end_example