How To Make Decals That People Actually Want To Buy

People often tell me that they don't see any point in selling Vinyl Decals because the market is oversaturated.

I can kind of see why they think that, because when you look at selling sites, a lot of the products and designs out there look very similar, BUT…I personally don't believe that it's oversaturated.

I still think there's a point in starting a vinyl decal business even today, as long as you can find a gap in the market, and specific niche keywords with low competition.

I do cover more about how to find your niche in my first course “How to start a vinyl decal business” which has just been updated for 2022. If you haven't checked it out yet it's free for one month for all new Skillshare users (link below):

But in today’s post I'm going to go over a few different things that can help you when it comes to creating products that people actually want to buy and that will hopefully be more likely to sell!

You can either watch the video here…

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Or read the post below…

I am specifically talking about decals in this post, but a lot of this can be applied to many other different products, and a lot of this applies to selling on Esty specifically as well, but it can be transferred to other selling sites and even your own website too.

Erank

So there are so many tools out there that can help you with this kind of research, but the main one I use is E-rank.

I do pay for it because I use it quite a lot so some of the features may not be available to you on the free version, but it is definitely still worth checking out.

The best thing about it is it's feature for finding keywords for Etsy, and when you look for those keywords it comes up with so much information.

It gives you the average searches for that word, it’s Etsy competition so you can see how many other sellers are using that word to sell things, as well as when that word was popular.

What you're ideally looking for are ideas that have a good average amount of clicks so lots of people are clicking through, but also very low competition so there's not many other sellers using them. And also it’s good if they have been popular recently, or at a similar time last year if it’s a more seasonal design.

I’m going to use this chessboard one as an example:

It hasn't had an amazing amount of searches, but when you click through you can see it then gives you even more information, and gives you all these other related tags and keywords that if you were to sell it, you could put those in your listing. That might give you some more related ideas and will show you how much competition they have.

It also shows you other shops and other listings that are selling the same thing using those keywords, how popular they are, and what they're selling them for.

You can also look at the most popular shops on Etsy as well to see who's selling the most at the moment. This is great if you want to see your competition in your niche and get some ideas of what they're selling and what's doing well.

You can also look at what's trending on Etsy as well, which is useful if you just want a baseline of where to start and you need some ideas.

There's a tonne of other things you can do on Erank as well. It's a really useful tool.

Marmalead

Marmalead is also very similar to Erank.

I do only have the free version of Marmalead so there's actually not much I can do or show you here, but it gives you all the similar sort of stats to Erank, and shows you what's really popular at the moment. You can also do listing audits with this tool too.

Etsy Hunt

Another tool I have been using recently is Etsy Hunt.

This one is particularly good because of the product database.

If you go on there and put in the keyword that you're looking for, it will come up with all of the best sellers in that niche.

You’ll be able to see seven-day sales and total sales just for one item, as well as if it's going up in trending or not.

You can also click to see all of the tags that person has used and a bit more information about when the item has been most popular.

I think it’s great because you can see what types of things are really popular at the moment. Obviously, I'm not suggesting you copy any of these popular ideas, but it's just giving you an idea of what people are buying at the moment and what's doing really well, so that you can put your own spin on a product and do something along the same lines, in the same sort of niche

There’s also a keyword tool on Etsy Hunt that gives you Google search trends. Look for ones with high views and searches, and low competition.

One of the best features though, is the quick view extension. If you use Google Chrome, you can add that to your browser and then when you go onto Esty you will see little grey boxes with green writing pop up on each listing that gives you a general overview of how many items have sold.

And then when you actually click into a listing it gives you this box:

This is a summary of the tags that are used, how many searches all of those tags have had, and how many sales this item's had in the last seven days. It will also show it’s trends and if it's getting more favorites and more reviews.

It basically gives you an idea of whether that listing and that type of vinyl decal is actually selling well and if people are actually interested in buying it.

It also has an option when you search where it will give you the amount of views that those tags have had, and how much competition:

Here’s where you can just type in random things to give you ideas as well. It will take you back to Etsy Hunt if you click on it, and give you the full stats for that keyword.

So, once again this is basically just finding words that people have been searching for but not a lot of other people have been doing them.

Everbee

Everbee is another tool that’s similar to Etsy Hunt.

It requires you to add a chrome extension and it will come up with stats when you're on Esty.

Google Keyword Planner

You can also use Google keywords in a similar way as the sites I mentioned above, but using their keyword planner may mean you need to sign up for a Google ads account.

Once you're in there you can look for keywords again, and it will show you how many people have been searching on Google for different words and the competition level from other sellers.

Again, you want to look for words that have a lot of searches but also have either low or medium competition.

There are of course also plenty of other SEO tools out there that you can also use such as…

UberSuggest

This one is also just a keyword tool, with similar capabilites to Google keywords.

Answer The Public

This one gives you more types of questions that people have been asking, so it's not always that helpful when it comes to coming up with product ideas, but it's better for blog posts and content ideas. It's definitely worth having a look at though because it lists lots of product ideas and keywords that you could use.

Other tools to use are things like Semrush, and Ahrefs amongst many others.

The Next Steps…

Create your mock ups

Once you find these ideas that people have been searching for, they've got low competition, AND you're confident you can do a good job of making them, you do then also need to make them appealing to customers who are scrolling through Etsy or your website.

With decals specifically I always tend to do mock-ups so that customers know what their product will look like when it’s applied.

Always make sure these pictures are clear and bright and will stand out, and make sure that it’s obvious what you're selling. Check out my video below, if you want some tips on how to make your own…

Make use of your research

Be sure to add all of the keywords that you have found in your research in the description in the title, and in the tags, and always ask customers for feedback and reviews.

Once you start adding these designs and you start selling, you can look at your current search analytics to see what people are searching for to find your shop.

This can help you decide what else to offer or create different iterations of things that are popular.

For any listings that are being viewed but not purchased, there could be many reasons why this is. If you have improved your pictures, made sure that your prices are realistic, and you have some good reviews for example, then it may just be that people actually don't want to buy that design or product.

Do bear in mind that it may also be a seasonal issue, so perhaps put a time scale in place to see how it performs and if it hasn't become popular and started selling by a certain time then just remove it from your shop.

Summary

Although research is so important, there is a lot more to running a successful business than just finding those gaps in the market. Once you find those gaps and people are buying from you, you then need to be consistently sending out good quality products and giving good customer service, because without those your business will not survive the long haul.

I really hope this video has given you a good place to start or some ideas to improve your current setup!

Let me know in the comments if you have any other tools that you recommend, or which ones you're going to be trying out for your shop.

Please don’t forget to share this post with a friend who might find it useful.

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