53 KiB
Executable file
53 KiB
Executable file
S02|LO7 - how to research and spy on winning print designs
- Links
- Notes
- Tutorial Notes
- Review
- Summary
- Core Idea
- Print-On-Demand Model (Key Context)
- Main Research Sources
- Important Rule
- Etsy Research
- Social Research
- TeeSpy Research
- Cross-Niche Strategy
- Humor Advantage
- Timeless vs Trend
- Product Launch Strategy
- Flex Store Concept
- Research Checklist
[0/8] - Design Inspiration Checklist
[0/6] - Validation Checklist
[0/6] - Store Launch Checklist
[0/4] - Warnings
- Key Insight
- My Take
- Bottom Line
- Transcript
Links
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
- isntagram
-
pintrest
- also shows products and you can see what is popular
- popular quotes, objects, etc.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you can create a visually appealing, interesting looking design targeting one passionate niche, you can be very successful.
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.
look for funny posts
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.
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.
Sticker arts are simple and clean and performs really well. This is one is a good example, targeting coffee lovers and bunnies.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
- 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
Search:
- <niche type> memes
Use for:
- jokes
- viral phrases
- emotional hooks
Look for:
- high-like posts
- standout engagement vs others
Search:
- <niche type> stickers
- <niche type> decals
- <niche type> mugs
- <niche type> 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.
Search:
- <niche type> + 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
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.