Hi, I am new here. I love making my own designs, walking my dogs and a lot more. I home to get a lot of knowledge and a workable system for POD one Etsy here. Of you want to connect, feel free to message me. Baukje from Holland

How to find competitors when you don’t have any sales yet? The list Alek is using in the video is only available when you have 20 sales and I don’t because I am building my shop. So… how to go about this?

Happy Friday, everyone! I know many of you are still getting adjusted to Skool, so if you have any questions or need help learning how to use it properly, feel free to reach out! Today, I wanted to talk about the importance of not being afraid to fail or make mistakes - as long as you learn from them and continue improving. When I first started Etsy POD, I had a store with around 500–600 sweatshirt listings, and I was only making 3–5 sales per week. I was spending a lot of money on Etsy Ads, subscriptions, and other expenses, but I wasn't seeing much of a return. The product and niche weren't necessarily the problem. The biggest issue was how I was setting up my listings. My mockups weren't good, my SEO wasn't targeting the customers most likely to purchase my products, and my pricing was way too high to compete with other sellers. On top of that, my designs weren't backed by much market research, so there wasn't enough proven demand for many of them in the first place. Instead of giving up, I started binge-watching YouTube videos to understand why my listings weren't converting. I also analyzed 30+ successful stores selling similar products in the same niches and consistently generating significant sales. That's when I realized just how much I was doing wrong. My designs didn't stand out, my mockups looked generic because I was using basic Printify mockups, and my SEO was terrible. Eventually, I decided to delete all of those listings and completely restart my store. From there, I created a candle and mug store, but this time I made sure to do the research beforehand. I studied which mockups were converting, which niches had real demand, what SEO strategies were bringing in traffic, and how I could price my products competitively while still maintaining a healthy profit margin. Instead of giving up after wasting hundreds of hours and a lot of money, I told myself I was going to figure it out. If I had given up after that first store failed, I wouldn't be where I am today—teaching all of you the processes and specific details that can help you scale your stores faster while avoiding many of the mistakes I originally made.

Can anybody point me in the direction of how to update the trackers? The 'Daily Actions Checklist' mentions: 'Open the Master Tracker and enter your challenge start date' but I can't find that anywhere. Thanks in advance.

Welcome to Merch Makers! The community created to help POD sellers everywhere learn, create, and grow their online business! Put yourself out there, and connect with your fellow sellers as we all embark on the journey of growing our e-commerce business. Take a few minutes and introduce yourself by telling everyone: 👉🏻 Your name and where you’re from 👉🏻 Where you are in your POD journey 👉🏻 What products or niches you’re interested in 👉🏻 Your biggest goal for your business 👉🏻 One thing you’d love help with inside the community Once you’ve introduced yourself, scroll through the comments and welcome a few other Merch Makers! You may find someone working toward the same goal as you. We’re so excited to have you here. Let’s start selling some merch! 🤝