How to Find Selling Designs for Redbubble Using a Free Etsy Method

As a Redbubble seller, one of your most important jobs is to find out what will sell the most for you! 

And one of the best tips I can give you that will help you find designs that are already trending and are selling is not using Redbubble for this type of research.

If this sounds a little bit confusing to you, let me explain it. 

There is a marketplace, with over 400 million monthly visitors, in fact, they are not visitors, they are buyers, and this marketplace is called Etsy. 

What is Etsy

Etsy is a wonderland for all those who are passionate about custom-made items, vintage, or those who are into creating personalized stuff themselves. Etsy has around 82 million active customers and it is the next logical step you should make when selling your artwork on t-shirts, mugs, or pillows.

I love Etsy as a customer, and right now, I’m starting to upload my best-selling designs from Redbubble on this platform too.

However, in this article, I want to show you a little trick that helps me find designs people are buying on Etsy. 

But before I get right into the article and show you the Etsy trick to finding selling designs, if you are new to NechEmpire, then you should subscribe to my YouTube channel, because, on this channel, I like to talk all about print-on-demand business models, and helping people to create this interesting side hustle. 

How to Find Selling Designs on Etsy

As I already said, Etsy is a huge marketplace for people who are selling custom-made and original items. It is the second-largest marketplace after Amazon and a huge opportunity for all designers. 

Similar to Amazon, Etsy also has its own search engine, that is helping people to find the right item in a second. 

Let’s go to Etsy. You can see, there is a search box at the top of the page with the label Search for anything.

Just clicking into the box field will show you trending items on Etsy. Although this is a cool trick to find trending products, I want to show you how to find selling products.

Let’s type a funny shirt into the search bar. 

At the top of the page, there are always advertised designs. This means sellers are paying Etsy to advertise their best designs. So, let’s click on this seller and go to its Etsy shop.

When you click on the Etsy shop a seller, scroll down, until you can see something interesting under one design. 

Under some design is a red sentence with simple words… Over 20 people have this in their cart. When you click on the design to get more details, you can see that under the Add to cart button, there is a cart icon with a sentence… Other people want this. Over 20 people have this in their carts right now. 

In simple words, this design is interesting enough that more than 20 people are buying it right now. 

And this is what you want. You want to find a design that other people are willing to buy. 

Now, it is your turn. Don’t copy the design, create something similar, but be unique. Add some graphics, or change colors. 

And don’t forget to look at the title of this shirt. It has all the keywords you need to target in your title and description.

So, this is a free Etsy method, I like to use to find designs that sell. I know, it takes lots of time, but research is one of the most important parts of any successful print-on-demand business. 

So, do your research, find something trending, and create a similar design from it. Don’t copy it, instead create something unique, add some graphic elements, use different colors, and so on. 

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Here Are Some of My Favorite Tools For Print-on-demand

As a graphic designer and POD seller, I’ve had the opportunity to discover different helpful products and tools that can be time-saving and make the process of creating your designs a bit smoother.

DESIGNS: Kittl (best for t-shirt designs), Vexels (for professional designs), Placeit (for unique product mockups)

AI IMAGE GENERATOR: Leonardo (best free account)

GRAPHICS: Creative Fabrica (cheapest marketplace), Envato Elements (more variety)

SELLING DESIGNS: Freepik (for beginners), Creative Fabrica (for advanced graphic designers)

SELLING LOW-CONTENT BOOKS – Book Bolt (budget option)

ETSY:

• Research – Alura (best), EverBee ( beginners), Sale Samurai (cheap)
• Fulfillment – Printul (beginners), or Printify (advanced).

Disclosure: Some of the links above may contain affiliate partnerships, meaning, at no additional cost to you, NechEmpire may earn a commission if you click through to make a purchase.