EP 4. The Underserved Etsy Gifting Occasions You Should Be Designing For Right Now

What if the best Etsy product ideas aren't the obvious ones? What if they're the ones nobody is designing for yet?

In this episode I share seven gifting categories filled with overlooked and underserved moments that represent a huge opportunity for print-on-demand Etsy sellers. From medical milestones to end of season celebrations, these are the specific, hyper-personal occasions that buyers are actively searching for and finding almost nothing.

I also share the story of how discovering the keywords "officiant proposal" early in my Etsy journey changed the way I think about product creation, and why text-based designs make this approach so powerful for sellers who don't have design skills.

Plus I share a free resource, 101 Moments to Design For, packed with even more ideas to spark your next product.

Free resource: Grab 101 Moments to Design For at melissacarroll.co/episode4resource

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hey there, and welcome to the Modern Etsy Seller, the podcast where busy women build, grow, and profit on Etsy. I'm your host, Melissa Carroll, a full-time teacher, a busy mom, and an Etsy seller who's built two successful Etsy shops in the small moments of everyday life. Here you'll find simple strategies to reel behind-the-scenes insight and the clarity you need to stop second guessing and start moving forward, one intentional step at a time. Let's get to it. Did you know that proposing to your wedding officiant is a thing? I did not. Not until I saw it while researching keywords. This was early into my second Etsy shop where I had decided to focus solely on print on demand with one product type. At that point, I had about 10 generic listings that soon got lost in what I like to call the Etsy C of sameness. At the time, I was just happy that I had started the shop. For me, that was a huge success. I'm such a procrastinator and an overthinker. It could have easily been another six months before I got the shop up. But I had set a goal of getting it live with listings before the new school year started, and I had done that. But I knew the listings I had weren't going to cut it. So I was researching keywords on e-rank. I was already an e-rank user from my digital shop and had recently moved to their basic paid plan, which gives me more searches each day. If you're not familiar with e-Rank, it's one of many keyword search tools that are out there. It has other features, but one of the main ones I use it for is keyword searches. Oh, and here's a quick fun fact. Have you ever heard an Etsy coach say they are a top 1% seller? E-Rank is where that comes from. They give you a rank based on the number of sales. So a top 1% seller has outsold 99% of all Etsy shops. Me, I'm a top 2.3% Etsy seller. It doesn't have quite the same ring to it as a top 1% seller, so I tend to leave it out of my bio. Okay, so there I was, recklessly searching random words now that I had 100 searches a day to burn through on the basic plan, and I came across the keywords officiant proposal, as in asking someone to officiate your wedding. I had never heard of an officiant proposal. I am far removed from the wedding game at this point, but the search volume was there and the competition was low, so I thought, okay, this is interesting. Let me try to make something. I created a few different design variations, all with text, so just words on a product. I created a few different message variations and listed them, and one sold within a couple days, and more sales quickly followed. Not long after that, I came across the keywords boss gifts. It had good search volume and relatively low competition. I created a few design variations, again, text-based, but this time I got specific. I designed one that was for a boss from a team, another for a boss that was retiring, one for a new boss, plus a few others. And pretty quickly they started to sell. In both of these instances, the item filled a specific need. It was meant for a moment. The moment when a couple asked someone to officiate their wedding, and the moment when a team wanted to thank their boss. And so over time, gifting for hyper-specific moments and unexpected occasions has become one approach that I use to create products that feel personal and ultimately get sales. Some of them show up in e-rank with real search volume and low competition, just like officium proposals did. Others might show lower search volume on paper, but when someone needs that specific gift for that specific moment, they are searching hard and finding almost nothing. And the specificity gives you an edge that has proven itself to me time and time again. So today I want to share more moments just like that. Moments like the efficient proposal. Specific, giftable, and often completely overlooked on Etsy. I'm going to walk you through seven broader gifting categories and then get really specific within each one. Because the more specific you get, the less competition you face, and the more your product feels like it was made for exactly the person who needs it. And here's what makes this approach so powerful. It works because of text-based design, words on a product. The pink floral notebook you create could be for anyone. But the pink floral notebook you create that also says plays to run next season, that's a gift for a coach at the end of a season. One small phrase turns a generic product into something personal. My hope is that by the end of this episode, you feel inspired to create for at least one of these categories. So let's get into it. First up is hosting gifts. This is the moment when you want to thank someone for having you. And there are plenty of generic gifts that could be given to a host. And you could create a generic gift too. Or you could create for specific hosting moments. Think game nights, watch parties, or backyard brunt with friends. Then there are clubs like book clubs, knitting clubs, gardening clubs, groups of people who get together around something they love, and usually one person does the planning, prepping, and opens their home. Then there are events like networking nights, neighborhood block parties, charity fundraisers, someone put in real time and effort to make those happen. Then we have family functions, a relative who hosts the family reunion every year, or the daughter who was just past the torch and is hosting her first ever Thanksgiving. Each of these is an opportunity for a unique and personal product. Next up we have medical milestones. These are the moments tied to someone's health, like a surgery or a treatment, a procedure, where the people who love them want to say, I'm here for you. Rather than creating another get well soon product, some of the specific medical events you could create for are planned surgeries like a knee or hip replacement, hysterectomy, weight loss surgery. These are dates that are on a calendar and people know they're coming up. We also have unplanned procedures like a bypass surgery, an emergency appendectomy, a massectomy following a diagnosis that no one saw coming. Then there are treatment milestones, starting and finishing chemo or radiation, completing dialysis, coming home from the hospital after an extended stay. And then there's the often not thought about cosmetic procedures like rhinoplasty, liposuction, augmentations. These are still milestones that people often celebrate within their inner circle. And there's very little on Etsy design specifically for M. Specifically for them. Any of these medical milestone moments is a product waiting to be made. The next two categories I want to share with you are both academic. They're moments tied to someone's education. The first of the two academic categories is passing an exam. There are professional licensing exams like the CPA exam or the Series 7 or the BAR exam. Then there are medical and nursing exams like the BORS, the MCAT, and then there are the ones that people don't necessarily always think about: a driving test, a citizenship exam, the GED. To the person who is passing that test, these are a big deal. Passing these tests are a reason to celebrate, and there are products you can make for each of them. The second academic category is milestones outside of graduation. Graduation is only one moment in a much longer journey, and there are so many more moments that are worth designing for. There's getting in college acceptance or a vet school acceptance or med school and law school acceptances. Then there's some milestones within the journey itself, like studying abroad or finishing a dissertation or a nursing pinning ceremony, getting an internship. And then we have those finish line moments that aren't quite graduation. They're happening towards the end though, like residency match day, completing a fellowship, finishing a postdoc. Each one is a chance to create something that feels like it was made for that exact moment. Next up we have fresh starts. These are the moments that mark the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. They often don't show up on a calendar, but everybody recognizes when they happen. Some fresh start moments to design for include a divorce or a breakup. There's sobriety milestones, one year, five years, ten years. They represent something incredibly hard. There's moving to a new city, starting over after job loss, going to college later in life. These are the times when people want to feel seen and there are products waiting to be made for every single one of them. Next we have job and career milestones. These are events that occur throughout someone's working years. There are lots of work anniversaries to be celebrated. There are career transitions like the last day at a job, a first promotion into leadership, coming back to work after maternity leave. Then we have wins like starting a business or landing a big account or winning employee of the year. And then we have firsts in this category, like the first real job, the first big client, the first time leading a team. Each is a real moment that happens every single day. And finally we have end of season. This category is actually bigger than you might even realize because it happens on a predictable calendar year after year. There are sports seasons, and when they end, people want to market with coach gifts, senior gifts, team gifts. The last game of a high school athlete's career is a huge moment. Then there are activity seasons, dance recital season, cheer competition season, theater season. And we also have professional seasons like the end of tax season, wedding season, open enrollment. These are a big deal to the people who survive them. All of these seasons end and they come back around, and there is always something to create for them. Okay, so I just shared seven categories with dozens of moments, but I have barely scratched the surface. And I have more for you in a free resource called 101 Moments to Design for. It includes a few of what we covered today, plus so much more. You can grab it at melissacarroll.co slash episode four resource or click the link in the show notes. And then here's what I want you to do. Pick one idea you heard today and create something for it. Maybe it's a tea towel that says, in this kitchen we talk about books, or a notebook that says things to do between tax seasons. Whatever you do, just focus on one. The whole point of today isn't to overwhelm you with 50 new ideas. It's to spark something. And I really hope that it did. If this episode got your wheels turning, share it with another seller who needs to hear it, and make sure you're following the show on your favorite podcast platforms so you don't miss future episodes. I'll see you next Tuesday.