Could you really start an ecommerce business for under £20 with zero stock? Nigel Wymer walks through exactly how to build a print on demand business on Etsy from scratch, covering niche research with AI, store setup and branding, sourcing manufacturers, pricing for healthy margins, and working the Etsy algorithm. A complete step-by-step guide for beginners who want to start selling online with minimal investment.
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Could you really start an ecommerce business for £15($20) and no stock? Nigel Wymer has been doing exactly that for years. After nearly two decades in ecommerce, Nigel pivoted to print on demand during lockdown and hasn't looked back. Last year, while renovating a house and doing very little active work on his stores, he still cleared almost 40k net. Nigel was promoting this idea on Channel 4 recently (a big TV network in the UK). It even came top in their investigation into the easiest side hustles to generate £10,000 a year.
Nigel's background gives him an interesting perspective on what works. He was importing products from Europe when Brexit threatened his supply chain, so he used lockdown to research alternatives. What he found was a business model with almost no barriers to entry, no inventory risk, and a built-in audience of 86.6 million active buyers on Etsy. He's been perfecting his approach ever since, and in this episode, he walks through exactly how someone starting from zero would build a print on demand business.
For anyone unfamiliar, print on demand is beautifully simple. You create a design, list it on a marketplace like Etsy, and when someone buys it, a manufacturer makes the product and ships it directly to the customer. You never touch stock. You never buy inventory upfront. You only pay for the product after you've already been paid for it.
"You will never buy anything until you've actually sold it," Nigel explains. It's similar to dropshipping, he says, "but without most of the disadvantages."
The product range goes far beyond the mugs and t-shirts most people associate with print on demand. Nigel sells calendars, wrapping paper, compact mirrors, and all sorts of products across multiple Etsy stores. The variety is part of what makes the model work.
One of the first decisions is where to sell. Nigel's answer is unequivocal.
"My recommendation is always to start on Etsy," he says. "With Shopify, you have no traffic. So you've got to start paying for ads."
Etsy had 86.6 million buyers last year, people who actually purchased at least one item. That's a built-in audience you don't have to pay to reach. No ads budget needed. No social media grind to generate traffic. The customers are already there, searching for products.
Setting up an Etsy shop costs a one-off £15 ($20). After that, it's 20 cents per listing. Add a Canva Pro subscription for creating designs and you're looking at a total startup cost that most people spend on a single takeaway.
Nigel recommends the free Etsy shop over the paid "plus" option. "All of mine are free shops. You really don't need it."
Can you move to Shopify later? Absolutely. But start on Etsy to learn what sells, build a following, and generate revenue before investing in your own platform.
This is where most people go wrong, according to Nigel. They conjure up a design from their own head and hope someone will buy it. The successful approach is the opposite. Research first, design second.
"A dog or a cat is not a niche," Nigel is clear about this. "We have to dive right down into sub niches."
During a live session with his students, someone suggested sports as a niche. Using AI, they identified ice hockey as underserved with high potential. But even ice hockey is too broad. They went deeper, targeting ice hockey goalkeepers specifically, then using AI to research the slang and terminology that goalkeepers actually use. The result? Totally unique products that speak directly to a passionate, underserved audience.
The key insight is that you don't need each micro-niche to be a bestseller. You stack lots of them together. Ice hockey goalkeepers, ice hockey wingers, ice hockey forwards. Each niche might be small on its own, but collectively they add up to serious revenue over a year.
During the episode, Matt actually ran a live experiment, typing prompts into Claude to test the process in real time. He asked for 20 print on demand niche ideas for Etsy that are underserved with high potential.
The results were genuinely interesting. Adaptive clothing for neurodivergent and disabled communities. Grief and memorial keepsakes, a category most sellers avoid because of the emotional weight. Niche outdoor micro hobbies like gravel biking, bouldering, and disc golf. Cultural celebration decor for Diwali, Lunar New Year, and Eid.
Matt then ran a second query specifically for crochet, since his daughter is into it, and got back targeted sub-niches within that hobby. The whole process took minutes.
Nigel uses ChatGPT for 90% of his work, from niche research to image generation to writing product listings. The AI handles the research grunt work, freeing you up to focus on creating products that actually sell.
Two styles consistently perform well, according to Nigel.
Funny sells. Get AI to generate humorous sayings related to your niche. People love buying products that make them laugh or that perfectly capture something about their hobby or personality.
Retro sells. Vintage and nostalgic designs consistently perform well. As Matt put it, "My kids are like, dad, I don't know what to get you for your birthday. I'll be like, retro 80s t-shirt is cool."
You can also cross these styles with your niche. Instead of just "cats," think retro cats or anime cats. It's another way to niche down while targeting styles that have proven demand.
What doesn't work is copying. "A lot of people will tell you don't copy what someone else is doing, change a couple of words. And that's the worst thing you can do," Nigel warns. If someone already dominates a bestselling design, Etsy's algorithm will always favour the established listing. Your path to sales is through creating something genuinely unique.
Nigel treats each Etsy store as a brand, not just a listing page. The key elements he recommends for a new store are surprisingly simple but important.
A banner created in Canva that you can update seasonally. Change it for Christmas, for relevant events throughout the year. It keeps the store feeling alive.
A simple logo on one side of the banner, and a head-and-shoulders photo on the other. Over 90% of Etsy sellers are individuals, and buyers want to know who they're buying from. A survey found that a large percentage of buyers are influenced by the "about me" section in their decision to purchase.
An SEO-rich "about me" section. This is one of the areas Etsy's algorithm uses for search ranking. Nigel recommends getting AI to write it, but making sure it sounds human and has your keywords built in naturally.
For individual listings, the same SEO principles apply that work anywhere in ecommerce. Keyword-rich titles, descriptions with the right terms, proper meta text, keyword phrases (not single words) in your tags, and alt text on images for Google's text-driven search crawlers.
New stores face the inevitable challenge of having no reviews and no track record. Nigel's advice is straightforward. There's no shortcut for reviews. But consistency with the algorithm makes an enormous difference.
When you list a new product, Etsy's algorithm gives it a temporary boost for 24 to 48 hours to test whether anyone is interested. By listing something today and something else tomorrow, you're drawing more attention to your shop. But more importantly, regular listing tells the algorithm you're an active seller, and it ranks you higher as a result.
"This is where people put a couple of listings up, nothing sells, and they say it doesn't work," Nigel explains. "But you need to keep going. Once you've got to perhaps 10 sales, the algorithm knows what you're about and who to show your products to. From that stage, it starts to grow."
Once established, you can ease off. Nigel barely listed anything during his house renovation last year and still generated consistent income from his existing catalogue.
Finding manufacturers is a straightforward search. Type "print on demand manufacturers in the UK" and you'll find plenty of options. Start with one that covers the basics, mugs, t-shirts, sweatshirts, and expand from there.
You can link multiple manufacturers to a single Etsy store, one per product. As you grow, you can source more unusual products that command higher margins. The big print on demand companies have manufacturing outlets in different countries, so a US order gets made in the US, keeping shipping costs and import duties down.
On pricing, Nigel pushes back against the race-to-the-bottom instinct. "The answer is not to discount. The answer is to create your totally unique product. Then you can push your prices up because people will happily pay for it."
His example is clear. A mug costs him around £4.50 plus shipping from the manufacturer. He charges the customer £10.99 plus shipping. That's a healthy margin, and he passes shipping costs directly to the customer. "People have tried all three shipping methods," he says, "and it really doesn't make any difference."
Nigel cleared £38,000 net last year doing relatively little active work on his stores. The Channel 4 programme that featured him set out to find the easiest side hustle to earn £10,000 a year, and print on demand came out on top.
The numbers depend on your research and effort. But the beauty of the model is its flexibility. It works as a full-time business or as a genuinely passive sideline once your stores are established. You don't carry stock, you don't handle shipping, and the total investment to get started is minimal.
Today's guest: Nigel Wymer
Company: POD Launch Pro
Website: podlaunchpro.com
Read the complete, unedited conversation between Matt and Nigel Wymer from POD Launch Pro. This transcript provides the full context and details discussed in the episode.
Matt Edmundson (00:04)
So welcome to the e-commerce podcast. My name is Matt Edmundson. It is great to be with you on this bright and sunny day here in the UK for you know, enjoying it. I think it's the day we get sunshine Nigel, isn't it really here in the UK. It's a rare occurrence.
Nigel Wymer (00:20)
It's a rare occurrence isn't it?
Matt Edmundson (00:23)
It's a little bit. Now if this is your first time with us, warm welcome to you. We just talk about all things e-commerce and try and help you guys and myself if I'm honest with you because I run my own e-commerce businesses. I'm just here to learn like everybody and figure out how to make more online. Really, it's just fun. It's just it just is what it is. So if it's your first time with us, this is what you've turned up to.
And a very warm welcome to you. Of course, we have the usual stuff which you can check out. We've got the website, ecommercepodcast.net. You'll see all the past episodes there with all the show notes and everything per episode. It is a cracking website, even if I do say so myself. We have updated it a lot recently. So the functionality of it now is so much better if you want to find out information and topics. We also on the website have something called Cohort, which you...
may want to check out because if you're in e-commerce cohort are just these groups that we have where we just meet up together online on zoom once a month is totally free and you get to talk with other e-commerce entrepreneurs who are trying to do what you're doing and it's just great community great camaraderie so do go check that out they are free like i say it's at e-commerce cohort.com or in fact at the website ecommercepodcast.net forward slash cohort either way it will get you there now
We're going to do something a little bit different today, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, we are. And I'm excited for this. We've got Nigel on the call today, recording the podcast. And when Nigel and I were doing the pre-call, which is, I always talk to guests before I bring them onto the show, listening to him and his business and what he does and where his expertise lies. I thought it would be fun.
to do something a little bit different. So I'm hoping this turns out all right. Because it's the first time we've done it, but I feel with Nigel I'm in safe hands. Nigel is an expert in print on demand. And so we're going to be talking about that and how to make money from that. And I am going to be sitting in the seat of my daughter. And the reason why I'm doing this, Zoe, my daughter, I've not got her permission, by the way. It just is what it is. I'll just give her the episode when it's finished.
Zoe, my daughter, is going to university, possibly in the next few months, trying to figure out what she wants to do. Does she go to uni? Does she not go to uni? And she's sort of that phase of life. And I thought, I wonder if, between Nigel and myself, we can create an idea for her, a business plan, a strategy, a methodology to get her from where she is to having a reasonably good chance at doing print on demand. So Nigel.
Welcome to the show, man. It's good to have you.
Nigel Wymer (03:12)
Thank you. Good to be here. I'll let you know at the end.
So I've been doing print on demand. Well, I've been doing e-commerce for nearly 20 years. But with the threat of Brexit back then, I had a problem because I was importing a lot of my items from Europe. So I knew I was going to have a problem. And so during lockdown, I looked at what else I could do.
And settled on print on demand and I've been doing it ever since and it really is a fantastic business in as much as you don't need any software and things like that.
So I've just kind of been perfecting it ever since and so that, well, I worked on it all through lockdown and so that I was ready to launch when we were released back into the real world, doing it ever since.
Matt Edmundson (04:26)
Fantastic. So just for those that might not know, for the three people on the planet that don't know, what is Print On Demand?
Nigel Wymer (04:32)
Print on demand is a business where basically you design your own products and there are a huge number of products. Those who are familiar with it probably think of mugs and t-shirts, sweatshirts maybe, but there are so many different products which you can diversify into. So I do things like calendars, which are a great seller. I do wrapping paper, I do compact mirrors, all sorts of million.
Products and what you're actually doing is creating a design and you then get a product on demand manufacturer to make and print your item and ship it direct to your customer. So you will never buy anything until you've actually sold it.
Matt Edmundson (05:19)
Very good. This is very helpful because there's lots of things in my head straight away, right? So let me overcome some of the objections maybe that Zoe might face. Does she need any money to get started?
Nigel Wymer (05:34)
Very very little at all so Etsy will charge you £15 which is the one-off fee to set up an Etsy shop after that they will charge you whether a US company so they charge you 20 cents to list an item but you're not actually as I said not buying any stock anything like that your only other things is you will need a Canva Pro account so that you have the ability to download in high quality, et cetera. And maybe you're not in the program, you're talking a couple of little programs, that's all really, just to generate your images and to create mockups, et cetera. So it's a very, very cheap start.
Matt Edmundson (06:28)
Very good. And Zoe's going to be happy because she's a big fan of graphic design. This is her whole thing. This is right up her street. Now, that said, I'm assuming I don't need to be a designer to get started.
Nigel Wymer (06:34)
No, absolutely not. I mean, I'm not a designer. So really you, you have the option of course now to use AI with Canva where we do bulk of the design work. You can use their stock images, but I personally find it much nicer to generate images because they are then unique.
And you can of course get AI to create the whole design by actually doing anything if that's the way you want to go.
Matt Edmundson (07:11)
Yeah okay so I don't need to be a designer which is great. Let me just circle back because you said here start in terms of cost Etsy so that's the platform I'm using I'm not using Shopify I'm not using any I'm just going straight to Etsy.
Nigel Wymer (07:28)
Shopify is great and my recommendation is always to start on Etsy. So with Shopify, you have no traffic. So you've got to start paying for ads, which obviously is the first thing, because we were just talking about cost. So you have got to drive all your traffic either through ads or by doing crazy amounts of social media. With Etsy, was...
the latest biggest 86.6 million buyers last year, people who actually bought the minimum of one item.
Nigel Wymer (08:02)
So you've got potential customers there, which is why you start on Etsy. If you want to go on to Shopify, then that's something I recommend that you go on to later. Once you know what sells because you've got the audience there now that you can try it with if you like on Etsy, but you don't ultimately need to go on to Shopify.
Matt Edmundson (08:23)
Okay. You can make a lot of money on Etsy itself. Okay. So this is where the e-commerce guy in me comes out now, Nigel, the dad. I remember years ago, we had Nancy Bodeo on the podcast. She was talking about selling digital products through Etsy. Nancy's great.
I guess one of my questions would be, like if I sell a product on Amazon, for example, that's Amazon's customer and Amazon's customer data. I don't know who that person is. I don't know their email. I can't market to them later on. So it really is just like a con. I mean, they've got the customers, but it's in effect. I don't know who those customers are. It's their customers, part of the deal. Is that true on Etsy? Is it the same principle or do I find out the customer's details?
Nigel Wymer (09:17)
You do get a certain amount of the customer's details. The other thing of course is that people will follow you. So you can, as you are putting new items on things like that, then they will get notified. So it's a little bit different.
Matt Edmundson (09:35)
Okay, but I don't get their email address.
Nigel Wymer (09:39)
There is a way of getting it usually.
Matt Edmundson (09:45)
But again, I guess it becomes a little bit dubious about marketing and GDPR, I would have thought.
Nigel Wymer (09:51)
Yeah, exactly.
No, we don't do any of that. That's the reason why we use Etsy because the audience is there. Something I didn't mention as well when we were talking about cost was that there is an option on Etsy to have what they call a plus shop, which allows you to have a revolving banner, some bigger images, things like that. But my recommendation to everyone is to have the free shop. All of mine are free shops. You really don't need
Matt Edmundson (10:36)
Okay. You mentioned something that is a free shop and then you said all of mine are free shops. So it sounds like you've got more than one Etsy store.
Nigel Wymer (10:46)
No half, yep.
Matt Edmundson (10:48)
Okay. Do I need more than one Etsy store?
Nigel Wymer (10:52)
No, it depends on the individual. I mean, the majority of people will perhaps only need one shop. The reason for having the multiple is a couple of possible reasons. Let's say you wanted to create a t-shirt brand and later take it on to Shopify. Then obviously you would create a shop which was just t-shirts. The other reason...
really is that you have the option to have a general store, which would have all sorts of different types of products, but also be targeting lots of different niches. Targeting niches is very, very important.
The other reason is to have a shop which is entirely for a niche. And that way, of course, you build a very, very good following because it's somebody's hobby, their interest, the type of pet they've got, sort of thing.
Which is a big interest for them. It's something they spend money on and you are creating products for them if you like and they're more likely to follow you.
Matt Edmundson (12:03)
You said niching is important. So I'm assuming that this is where we need to start in terms of how to figure out what the niche is that I need to be, well Zoe needs to be working on. Right. So we've got the basics. We're going to do Etsy. We don't really need to think about email marketing because it's Etsy. I don't need to think about payment providers. I don't need to think about any merchant accounts. I'm just literally, I just need to put a store on Etsy and I need to do that, I guess there are settings and things I need to think about.
But it sounds like the first place I need to start is understanding what my niche is going to be. And that's going to help determine what my Etsy store is going to be called, look like I'm assuming.
Nigel Wymer (12:42)
Absolutely. Well, I, the place I always tell people to start is, is with research and it really is the most important thing. And this is where a lot of people go wrong. They will just conjure up a design, you like, out of them, out of their head and then create a product which they don't know if whether it's going to sell or not. So it's very, important to find out what's selling and to find niches. And of course, something like
dog or a cat is not a niche. We need to dive. People think it is. We have to dive right down into sub niches. I did a live session a couple of weeks ago, actually with some of my students and we were researching live different niches and somebody said, well, what about sports? So using AI, we looked at the 10 best sports niche which had the most potential. And one of them, which came up was ice hockey. That's probably not something you would think of, but it's underserved. But then, of course, is still relatively high level niche. I mean, a big target for the US, et cetera, et cetera.
So then we took the niche further down and we said, how else can we niche this down? So we then looked at targeting ice hockey goalkeeper and then using AI we can research all kinds of unusual terms like that the slang which is used by ice hockey players to generate totally unique products which are really targeted.
So that's the thing that you need to do. I will say to people, your pets is a big niche, people spend a lot of money on their pets. And as I said, dogs and cats isn't a niche, but then there are lots of other things. There are people who keep reptiles, people who keep corn snakes and bearded dragons, all these sorts of things. So you really want to go down into these smaller areas where you are being very specific in your targeting.
Nigel Wymer (15:03)
But also there is much less competition.
Matt Edmundson (15:05)
Okay. This is helpful. So let me ask a few clarifying questions if I can, Nigel. I like what you're saying about niching. We've said it a lot. You know, can't sell the ocean as it were. You need to think through what you're doing. There's a trade-off I find between becoming so niche and market size.
Nigel Wymer (15:12)
Sure.
Matt Edmundson (15:33)
Right. So you could go using your example, ice hockey, ice hockey goalkeepers, ice hockey goalkeepers who are left-handed, left-handed ice hockey goalkeepers who were born in Ireland. Do you know what I mean? It's like, you can keep going with that whole thing till you've got like two people on the whole planet and your market size isn't massive. So how do you balance that trade off?
Nigel Wymer (15:34)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Basically, what you do is you're stacking up lots of different niches. The thing is, it's very, very niche and obviously it's not going to become a bestseller in its own right. But what you can do is target lots and lots of different niches. And in that way, you're getting a small amount from each, if you like, but stacking it up over the year will add up to lot of money.
Matt Edmundson (16:23)
Okay, so I like that. Actually what you're saying is, okay ice hockey goalkeepers, if we're going to niche it down to left-handed ones, we can also niche it down to right-handed ones.
Nigel Wymer (16:32)
Yeah.
Matt Edmundson (16:33)
And we can then target both those. Collectively they might be small, but when you join them together, actually they're quite large groups.
Nigel Wymer (16:41)
Exactly, and it all adds up. It depends of course if putting them, if you were doing shops just for ice hockey then you would have other positions perhaps, you know, might have, don't know much about ice hockey, maybe ice hockey wingers if they have such a thing.
Matt Edmundson (16:55)
This is funny, two guys talking about ice hockey niches and neither of us know anything about ice hockey. We should stick to safe examples.
Nigel Wymer (17:02)
This is the beauty of AI.
You know, this is the future of AI that it could then give me all the things that they use and I can actually say like I know what I'm talking about when it comes to ice hockey.
Matt Edmundson (17:23)
So how do I, where does Zoe start with AI? I mean, what's your AI platform of choice? Are you agnostic?
Nigel Wymer (17:29)
I just tend to use ChatGPT, I'm afraid. It's perfectly good enough for what we need. I know people are saying that maybe Claude is better, et cetera, nowadays. But I'll use ChatGPT for image generation as well. And it is pretty good for image generation. Sometimes I'll use the platform just for image generation.
90 % of what I do is all on ChatGPT.
Matt Edmundson (17:56)
Okay. So you can do your research, can do your image generation, everything all on that one platform. Yeah, fantastic. Okay, so I guess I can just picture Zoe, going, this is great dad. What's the very first thing she needs to type into AI when she's thinking about niches? Is it, cause it's a, I suppose, does she think about things that she's interested in that she knows about? Does she think about none of that and just ask ChatGPT to go find some niches? I mean, how broad does she start at the beginning?
Nigel Wymer (18:33)
I mean, if she's got something she's interested in, then it is always a good idea and maybe start with that if it's something where she could explore niches within that. Because if you're interested in something, then it helps. But as we know, I'm not into ice hockey. So you can just go in and research. You could simply go in and say to...
ChatGPT suggest 20 niche areas which have high potential on Etsy. Then what you do is pick one and then dive down further in that particular niche. You'll find some, you'll get lots of really, really good ideas. Others you won't. So it's just a case of working your way through really finding which one will work.
Matt Edmundson (19:29)
I'm gonna try this right now so let me...
Whilst you're chatting away, if you hear the keyboard clicking, I'm not being rude. Everybody. I'm just actually so I'm on Claude. Give me 20 niche ideas for Etsy. What was this thing you said, the top 20?
Nigel Wymer (19:37)
Top 20 niches with you could say underserved on Etsy with high potential.
Interesting to see what it comes up with.
Matt Edmundson (20:03)
Yeah yeah and have... I'm really bad at spelling when people are... when I'm trying to do it like this... people and have high potential. I'm just glad...
Nigel Wymer (20:10)
When you're trying to do it quickly as well is the worst isn't it?
Yeah.
Matt Edmundson (20:30)
Okay, so I have typed into Claude, give me 20 niche ideas for Etsy which are underserved and have high potential. Spend some time on this please. I've not mentioned that it needs to be print on demand.
Nigel Wymer (20:47)
Yeah, I was going to say perhaps more print on demand products.
Matt Edmundson (20:53)
Okay, so give me 20 POD niche ideas for Etsy. Okay, let me put this in.
Away you go, Claude. Let's see what it comes back with. I'm genuinely quite curious. So, and this is where I feel like Nigel, if you're like me, this is where I could spend half my life just going down these rabbit holes, right? But I like how this is sort of where you started. You've gone, well, now what are the ones that are, and I suppose if I had an area, like my daughter, for example,
She in fact I could run a second command. Let me try this. I'll copy that same command. I'm going to put it in a new screen. Give me 20 print on demand ideas for Etsy that are niche and in the crochet area.
So what I've done there is I've just told it to go and look at a specific area because my daughter is into crochet. It's one of the things she's into and you just kind of associate that with that. Okay, so I'm liking this because you're just sort of starting at the top aren't you and you're then hammering it down. I suppose how do I know then that I found a reasonably good niche market?
Nigel Wymer (22:17)
What you can do is have a general store so you could create, if you find something that you think is a good niche, then you could create four or five products for it and list them and see what response you get. From there, of course, you can start tweaking depending on whether people are clicking on them, whether they're favoriting them, whether they're buying them. That will all tell you whether your customer's good area is
Matt Edmundson (22:43)
Okay and you've got access in Etsy to that data like who's favoriting them, who's buying them etc. Well I suppose sales you'll see but who's favoriting and can you see how many people have visited your page and things like that?
Nigel Wymer (22:51)
Yeah, yeah, you can see all of them. Yeah, yeah, you can see all the basic info, if you like, the stats. So you can see the number of visitors, the conversion rates, all of these type of things.
Matt Edmundson (23:05)
That's interesting. Now, I guess my next question then is talking about AI. Does Etsy have an API where you can actually plug ChatGPT into it. Me, I'd use Claude, but where you can plug the API into the AI. I'm hearing in my head what I'm saying, Nigel. Plug the API into the AI and have it analyze the analytics automatically.
Nigel Wymer (23:41)
I will quite often point ChatGPT at my store and say right analyze different things which of course it will do.
You can actually get it to analyze your own store, you know, look for improvements.
Matt Edmundson (24:10)
That's true, so you get ChatGPT to look at it, look at the data, and then make suggestions and tweaks. Is that right? So I've got my idea, my left-handed goalkeepers for Ice Hockey. In fact, let me see if I've got any data about this. Here we go. From Etsy. Yes, Etsy has an official API. So if you are a bit of a coder and you like your vibe coding in e-commerce, you could actually
connect to that API, which will get the shop stats, the listings, the orders, the receipts, the reviews. What it doesn't do, it seems, is for analytics dashboards. That's not exposed through the API. So you're still going to have to get at that manually. But of course, what you can get ChatGPT to do, I think you can get ChatGPT to do it. You can certainly get Claude to do it, is you can get Claude just to look at the web page now, because it will take over Chrome, and it will just pull the data down.
Nigel Wymer (25:10)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's what I do.
You can do it with a whole shop or a particular listing or even an individual.
Matt Edmundson (25:18)
Yeah, that's really interesting. And of course, we can always download the CSV as well, I'm guessing. And have AI analyze that. Okay, that's interesting. So answering the question, give me 20 print on demand niche ideas for Etsy, which are underserved and have high potential. It has come back with...
a list of 20 and then because Claude's been trying to be really helpful, it's gone. And these are the standout opportunities. Number one, adaptive clothing and sensory friendly. So neurodivergent and disabled communities are enormous, but massively under presented. Number two, grief and memorial keepsakes. Okay. So most sellers avoid... Sorry?
Nigel Wymer (26:07)
They are quite a big separate thing that I don't know, they are big sellers.
Matt Edmundson (26:14)
Big seller. Yeah. Well, it says here, most sellers avoid emotionally heavy topics. So I think if you're brave enough to go into that space, yeah. Niche outdoor micro hobbies, not hiking or camping, but gravel biking, bouldering, disc golf. Now there's a guy listening to this called Sean, Sean Dobbs. He's got disc golf Australia, actually. He's a great guy, part of cohort. Let me shout out to his website. If you're into disc golf, go to his website.
He's got a Disc Golf website, which I've got to understand a little bit more recently, Nigel, talking a lot more to Sean and it fascinates me. So it's come up with things like that, cultural celebration decor. So things like Diwali, Lunar New Year, Eid, et cetera.
Nigel Wymer (27:01)
You know, disc golf actually came up in that when we were talking about high potential new sport, it was one of the things that came up. And of course, all of the things like pickleball and all of these kind of new sports, if you...
Matt Edmundson (27:13)
Yeah that's awesome. I mean I won't read through the whole lot but Sean if you're listening you set up a Print On Demand store as a result of this. You owe Nigel and me a beer, that's all I'm saying. And so it's come back with niche ideas in the crochet area so the best Print On Demand product types for this niche.
Yarn chicken merchandise. I don't even know half of what these phrases are so I probably won't read them. But it's definitely saying the things that you should do are going to be mugs, tote bags, t-shirts, stickers, notebooks, wall art and mouse pads. Okay that's interesting. So we've got some ideas. I'm just going to pick a random idea off this. So let's say
I'm gonna go with, I won't do disc golf because I don't want to steal all of Sean's thunder. That would be really bad. Let me do gravel biking. Gravel biking sounds fun. Okay. So I'm going to choose something like gravel biking, Nigel. Zoe wouldn't, but I feel like I can talk a little bit about this, which is going to be useful.
So I've, I'm going to start with gravel biking. I guess my next question is then is where do I go from here? Do I set up my Etsy store first? Is there, are there things that I need to think about when setting up the Etsy store to help me be found by people on Etsy? Or do I start with product?
Nigel Wymer (28:56)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, the first thing is to do your research, which is kind of what we've what we've looked at. The other thing I would say just before we move on to kind of the SEO thing, if you like, is that funny sells. So you can then get ChatGPT to generate funny sayings to go with your designs, which will actually help you sell things.
Matt Edmundson (29:10)
I like that, funny sells. Yeah, it definitely does for me.
Nigel Wymer (29:26)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
The other thing that sells is retro.
Matt Edmundson (29:30)
I buy retro all the time. Like my kids are like, dad, I don't know what to get you for your birthday. I'll be like, retro 80s t-shirt is cool.
So I've got Back to the Future. I've got 18. I've got all kinds of stuff, you know, and it's, so I guess that sells as well. Anyway, sorry, Nigel.
Nigel Wymer (29:45)
This is where you can, let's say, you know, we would say, you know, cats, if you like, is a high level category. So not something you could target, but then you can actually, instead of going down into, if you like what we were just now, you can then say, right, I want to target different styles. So could be retro cats, anime cats, et cetera. This is another way to take things and niche things.
Matt Edmundson (30:10)
Yeah, very good. And that's where you're going to spend hours on AI just finding something, aren't you?
Nigel Wymer (30:14)
Yeah, this is where it, I mean, what I started doing now is I put a certain amount of time each week and say, right, that is my research time because otherwise you can get completely lost in it. But once you've got a niche, then obviously you can kind of train ChatGPT to produce more and more in that particular niche without having to drive back into doing all the work you get if you like.
Matt Edmundson (30:45)
And how would I do that?
Nigel Wymer (30:47)
Basically, well, it will pick up on your product. So I will because I've got different shops. I need to tell it which shop I'm working on so that it knows the type of products which I want. So I have some stores. So I'll say, right, I'm working on this store. So I'm looking for design ideas for this store. And then I'll give it some more specific instructions.
Matt Edmundson (31:14)
Okay, very good. So, sorry, back to the question then. I've got my gravel bike idea. Funny sells, so jokes, humor, retro, all those kind of things, which are good. So I kind of know where I'm gonna head.
Do I now start, like say, am I working on the store? Does the store dictate the products or does the products dictate the store? How does that work?
Nigel Wymer (31:40)
It depends which way. I mean, if you've settled on gravel biking, then obviously you would build brands around gravel biking. If it's a store for that particular niche. I mean, this is one of the beauties of Etsy. Unlike if you're like Amazon or eBay, which are just another seller, that you can build brands. So your name obviously is your brand. And it's very, very important. But also you can
create your own banner which you can just do on Canva and by doing that, that is your branding but also you can change that banner throughout the year which is quite nice so Christmas in particular I will change my banner to something seasonal you could change it with different events throughout the year if it's relevant so you are kind of building a brand if you like and it's all about building
the SEO in store and the products. So for example, the the about me section on your store is very important. So you would be doing that all about your bike and how you got into gravel biking, why you started designing products for it, type of thing. And of course, could in your case, get AI to write that section for you, give it some basic facts. But
get it to write a human sounding thing, which is important because we know about the me section, but which has got SEO built in. Because that about me section is one of the sections in your shop that will count towards your SEO and getting found basically. Even the shop announcement will do that as well.
Matt Edmundson (33:27)
Okay. What else do I need to think about on the store?
Nigel Wymer (33:30)
So it's, once you've got your store set up, need, the other thing is you need a simple logo. You could say it's not important, but it's all part of the branding again. And it makes your store look professional, particularly when you're starting out. I will often recommend, because under your banner you can have your logo on one side. You can have a little head and shoulders photo on the other. And I strongly recommend.
Because such a huge percentage, over 90 % of sellers on Etsy are individuals and people, buyers if you like, are looking, they quite often want to know about you. I can't remember the exact figures at the moment, but there is a large percentage of people in a survey done last year said that they will be influenced by the about me section in their decision to buy. So...
They want to know about you if you want to know who they're buying from, etc. And that is influential in the decision. Also the shop name can be influential. So all of that is very important. That's really the visual side of things, if you like the branding. After that, of course, it's building the SEO into your individual products.
So your title, obviously, is very important. Your description, again, is very, important. And you have, of course, if you like, the meta, the bit which is shown by Google to set the view fix on your search results. So you want to have your meta in there as well, which, again, wants to have the correct keywords in right at the beginning.
After that, obviously you can build tags into your individual listings. So these are basically keywords or should we say keyword phrases because you don't want to be using single words. So always a relevant keyword phrase. Also, alt text. So the text which is hidden behind images. Etsy won't particularly pick up on this, but as you know,
the search engines like Google are text driven so they won't see the beautiful mock-ups which you've created that will see the text which is behind them. So again this is how SEO builds into it. Sounds complicated but...
Matt Edmundson (36:12)
Okay, so just standard e-com SEO stuff, isn't it? It's just all, there's nothing rocket science there, really. It's the standard stuff we do on an e-com site.
Nigel Wymer (36:14)
Once you know how to do it, it's very, very straightforward.
Matt Edmundson (36:23)
We'll come onto products in just a minute, Nigel, but how do I deal with the fact that I'm a new store and therefore will have no reviews? Is it just a case of there's not really a whole great deal you can do, you just need some people to buy and get reviews? Or is there a strategy I could have there?
Nigel Wymer (36:41)
You're very limited on what you can actually do to influence that. This is where creating this very professional looking store to begin with with the banner and logo etc
helps. But after that, it's really a case of listing regularly and that will get results. So you don't want to create 10 designs and throw them all on in one day. You want to do it regularly. The algorithm
will look at your new product you've uploaded, say is anyone going to be interested in this? Is anyone going to favourite it? Is anyone going to buy it? And they will rank that listing higher, maybe 24 or 48 hours. So by listing something today and perhaps another tomorrow or the following day, you're drawing more people into your shop if you like. But the important...
thing, listing regularly, is telling the algorithm that you're active and they will therefore rank you higher. So it'll take a little bit of time. This is where people, they'll put a couple of listings up,
the old, it's not sold, nothing sold, doesn't work, but you need to keep going personally and keep putting some more items up. Once you've got to perhaps 10 sales, then the algorithm knows what you're about, you know the super...
Matt Edmundson (38:08)
And so it will then, from that stage, start to grow. So are you, in your existing stores, Nigel, are you still putting like a new product on every day? Or are you doing this to build till you get your 10, 20 sales and then you don't need to put on as many products?
Nigel Wymer (38:27)
You don't need to put as many products on at all. Once I always say the more product you put on, then the more you are going to sell basically. Last year I was, we moved house and I was renovating a house. And so I actually did very, very little work, in just a case of adding a new listing time to time, just to show that I was still active.
But obviously because my store is established, at this stage I'm getting sales coming in as well. So you can get to a certain stage and kind of take a step back and not do so much. But certainly when you're starting, it's all about listing regularly.
Matt Edmundson (39:10)
Yeah okay so how do I... I suppose then a big question now is, again, with AI, done a bit of research on products. I suppose I could look at people in the same niche or similar niches and see what's selling well for them. So for me now, the big question is how do I source the products? I mean, is it just a case of just go to Google, type in print on demand calendars, and I get a list of people and I contact them?
Nigel Wymer (39:40)
You would really want to do it. There are lots of manufacturers all over the world. So you can, if you're in the UK, so what I would say is go in and just type in print on demand manufacturers in the UK. I have got an email, you're welcome to download, break it down. The benefits from different manufacturers. You can just...
The thing is to pick one manufacturer you would like to start with and then produce somebody that does the basic products. So if you're targeting a niche, so if you're gravel biking if you like, you would want to not stick, probably not stick with one type of product. You'd probably want to do t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, these type of things.
So find a manufacturer who does those type of products. Later on you can find more manufacturers because you can link multiple manufacturers to your store. So then you can move into perhaps other products where you can charge an even higher price and make a greater profit.
Matt Edmundson (40:55)
Okay. So it's just literally a case of what I would call the old fashioned Rolodex, isn't it? You just, you're going through finding some suppliers that do what you do, but you're starting with the basics, the t-shirts, the mugs.
And then you're expanding out from there, right? And I'm guessing that the t-shirts and mugs are probably going to be the most competitive because I imagine that's where everybody thinks to start. So how do you start to find interesting product ideas? Well, I suppose the question is, how do I find niche products from my niche market?
Nigel Wymer (41:40)
Those products, I mean that type of product is all available. So really where it is going to niche in the product because you're doing something different, something which is totally unique, which is how you're going to get the sales. Why not? A lot of people will tell you don't copy what someone else is doing, change a couple of words. And that's the worst thing you can do to be quite honest, because if somebody's got a best selling item on them, they're probably
dominating, it's always going to show that product because they know it sells. If you're trying to sell something almost identical, that's not going to work. So that's why you're really targeting totally different ideas. And as I said, I'd be funny.
Matt Edmundson (42:25)
Okay, very, very good. And I take it the whole purpose of print on demand is I don't carry stock.
Nigel Wymer (42:34)
Yeah, absolutely. So you do nothing. When you link your Etsy to your manufacturer, the order will go directly from Etsy to the manufacturer. They will then make it and ship it. It's very much like drop shipping,
but without most of the disadvantages. Because you've linked your store, they will either mark it dispatched in your Etsy store and input the tracking number as well. So the only time that doesn't work is
if you're doing a personalized product in which case you have to stop the automation and as much as the order's got to come to you to add usually a name before forwarding to factory manually but it literally takes a couple of minutes.
Matt Edmundson (43:21)
And so is there a limit to how many suppliers I can link to in my Etsy store?
Nigel Wymer (43:27)
You can obviously only link one manufacturer to each product, but no, there's no limit to the number that you can link. So you get to a stage where you're going out and you're looking for more and more unusual products. Once you've got a niche and you know it sells and you've got a following, then more and more unusual
products are really going to work for you. Because a lot of people will just stick with t-shirts or mugs if you like.
Matt Edmundson (43:55)
Yeah okay that's interesting. One word that you mentioned there that I want to pick up on is personalization and we've talked about this on the podcast before, various people have talked about this actually, the idea of you get a product from a manufacturer and you offer some kind of personalization.
You're obviously going to need some mechanism to do that. I've seen people do it with 3D printers or laser printers or all kinds of things.
You can personalise it and that I think again makes it even more niche doesn't it but it makes it a bit more complicated.
Nigel Wymer (44:40)
Well, only in as much as you need to manually add the name. So you will have your site which you've created. And if it's a personalized item, you don't upload it onto the manufacturer's website. So when an order comes through, Etsy will send you the order.
The form, you can allow the form on your shop. You can allow the buyer of your element to put in the name or the text that they want. They simply add that information and that comes through to you. All you do is go to your original artwork and just type in the name if you like, download and forward to the manufacturer. So there's nothing
much more complicated than that really. The manufacturer is still dealing with it all in the usual way. It's just that little manual bit in between. There are odd manufacturers who, there's one I know of where you can pay them to kind of automate it all. But in reality, it literally takes just a couple of minutes to do so I don't bother.
Matt Edmundson (45:47)
And then you know it's done right then don't you as well?
Nigel Wymer (45:49)
Yeah, exactly.
Matt Edmundson (45:55)
How do I figure out pricing?
Nigel Wymer (45:58)
It's, it's obviously you, you, you can see the prices from the manufacturer. Some people like start fairly competitive, but you can make good, you can get a very good markup on items once you've got that niche because people want that product. So the answer is not, there's a lot of people will do, I'm not getting sales, I'll discount it, I'll go cheaper than everyone else. That's not the answer.
The answer is to create your totally unique product. So then you can push your prices up because people will happily pay for it. So for instance, a mug I pay around £4.50 plus the shipping. So I will charge the customer a basic mug maybe £10.99 plus the shipping.
Matt Edmundson (46:48)
So you're passing on the shipping cost to the customer.
Nigel Wymer (46:55)
I pass on the shipping. People have tried all three shipping methods and said it really really doesn't make any difference.
Matt Edmundson (47:02)
And what about international markets? Do you ship just to the UK? Are you going all over the world? Do you not really mind?
Nigel Wymer (47:08)
All over the world. So the US is a massive market and I will ship to the US every single day.
But you'd ship to France, you would never believe to be quite honest. I shipped one to Greece today actually.
Matt Edmundson (47:25)
Very good. So the I guess then the question is, if you're thinking about US markets, I need to find a print on demand supplier in the US for US customers?
Nigel Wymer (47:44)
So you have different types of manufacturers if you like. We have, obviously there are UK based manufacturers here you could choose, but then you have the shipping cost which is going to be much higher. If you choose some of the big companies, they will have manufacturing outlets in different countries. So for instance, if an order comes in from the US, they will make it within the US.
Which keeps the shipping cost down and obviously the import duty.
Matt Edmundson (48:15)
And also the speed is quicker, which is also helpful.
Nigel Wymer (48:18)
Yeah.
Matt Edmundson (48:22)
Yeah. Very good. I guess my, I'm aware of time and I have a thousand more questions, but I suppose my final question here, Nigel, what's, and I appreciate this is a bit like how long's a piece of string, right? But what sort of income could my daughter hope to achieve by doing something like this?
Nigel Wymer (48:37)
Mm-hmm.
It's yeah, I mean it's the sky is the limit to be honest. It really is depending on on that research, which is so so important and how much effort you put in. So last year we were not doing much. I cleared net 38,000. So it's you know you can go way over that if you want if you really put the effort in or you can just use it as a nice little sideline.
People may have seen me on that Channel 4 program presented by Scarlet Moth earlier this year and they investigated all different types of side hustle and print on demand which absolutely came out top as being the easiest.
to make a 10,000 pound a year side hustle. That was their target was to see which was the easiest to make an extra 10,000 a year. And print on demand came back top.
Matt Edmundson (49:48)
This is fascinating. So challenge accepted. I'm going to talk to my daughter and we're going to do a print on demand business that will generate at least 10 grand a year for her as an income. Hopefully more, so 10, 20. I think if she's generating 20 grand, why not?
Nigel Wymer (49:53)
Yeah, it puts the effort in, the niche is there, it's easily done.
Matt Edmundson (50:05)
Yeah, I found this absolutely fascinating. Nigel, I know you do courses on this. I know you have a community or something, haven't you? How do people find you? How do they reach you? Find out more about that if they want to.
Nigel Wymer (50:21)
Okay, so the website is podlaunchpro.com. So you'll find me on there. You can obviously find me on LinkedIn, et cetera. Yeah, I mean, I offer a membership because I used to teach people via courses and I found that people get stuck, et cetera. So now I offer a membership for the community and we have...
two live sessions a month, etc. Because they just find people needed help ongoing and that's what really, really speeds things up if you like. Keeps people motivated and keeps them going.
Matt Edmundson (51:03)
Yeah, well, being part of the community is quite, we found that actually community is the most important thing in many ways. And figuring out how to do that is good.
We will of course link to Nigel's website in the show notes. We will link to his LinkedIn profile in the show notes as well. And so whatever podcast app you're listening to this on, you can just scroll down, you'll find the links there. If you're watching on YouTube, it will be in the description. And of course, if you signed up to our email marketing newsletter, it will be in the show notes that are going to be in your inbox. I mean, the easiest thing in the world to do is click the link. And if you're a Slingshot AI member, let me just say,
I'm really excited about Slingshot AI. I've not talked about it at all on the podcast. This is a very, very brief interlude. It will also be in there. More information coming soon. I am being deliberately cryptic. That said, Nigel genuinely really appreciate it. In closing, is there anything else I need to know or Zoe needs to know beyond what you've told me?
Nigel Wymer (52:01)
I don't, nothing in particular. I don't think. I mean talking about AI, the interesting thing is that I developed a prompt, which I keep redeveloping, which will generate everything for you. I'm sure you could do it for her. Obviously I have worked with people can use, I think it's about a nine thousand character prompt, but that will generate every single thing for the listing. It will generate
the description, the meta, generate the tags, the alt text. But of course the problem with AI is getting it to generate something which sounds human and is actually going to sell the product rather than churning out AI nonsense. That's what I keep perfecting if you like. So that kind of saved a huge amount.
Matt Edmundson (52:55)
Yeah, absolutely. Using AI like that. How do I get hold of that prompt, Nigel?
Nigel Wymer (53:00)
Join the membership!
Matt Edmundson (53:07)
Brilliant. Nigel, listen, I genuinely appreciate you coming on, man, and sharing the knowledge and the wisdom. I think you've made it sound remarkably straightforward, which in itself is quite a good skill and something that I think I can definitely give to my daughter and tell her to run with it. But loved it, man. Love the conversation. Thanks for coming on the show. It was a bit of an experiment. I think it worked. I quite enjoyed it. So lots of good stuff out of it. But yeah, thank you.
Nigel Wymer (53:35)
Thanks very much.
Matt Edmundson (53:37)
No problem at all. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us this week on the e-commerce podcast. Hopefully you enjoyed that. A little bit unusual. And maybe we'll do some more of these. Tell me what you think. Do you like these kind of things where I get people to come coach me on their business ideas? Genuinely interested. Anyway, that's it from me. That's it from Nigel. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a phenomenal week wherever you are in the world. I will see you next time. Bye for now.
Nigel Wymer
POD Launch Pro