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you the processes and specific details that can help you scale your stores faster while avoiding many of the mistakes I originally made.

Mindset is everything in business. Let's continue the chat here.

Hey everyone — Here's a prompt you can hand to Claude (or any AI) to write your Etsy title, description hook, and tags in one shot. Two things to give it: attach 1–3 screenshots of graphics similar to the design you're listing, and paste 4–5 competitor listings into the placeholders below so it can see what's already ranking in your niche. Then send it. I've tuned this on my own listings, so most of the headaches are already handled — it starts titles with Comfort Colors®, keeps the hook to two tight sentences instead of keyword slop, respects Etsy's 20-character tag limit, and avoids the dead phrasings that come back with a 0 search score. Still give the output a quick once-over before you paste it into Etsy (AI can't count characters perfectly and it's guessing at what's searched), but the competitor examples you feed it are what make it good — the more real, ranking listings you paste in, the closer it copies proven phrasing instead of inventing. Copy everything below the line, fill in the competitor section, and attach your graphics: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm listing a shirt on Etsy and I've attached the graphic(s) for my design. Act as an expert Etsy listing writer. Below are several competitor listings that are already doing well in this niche — use them to understand the phrasing, keywords, and style that actually rank, but write fresh copy for MY design based on what you see in my attached image. Do not copy their wording; match their approach. COMPETITOR EXAMPLES: Competitor 1 — Title: [paste competitor title] Description hook: [paste the first 1–2 sentences of their description] Tags: [paste their tags] Competitor 2 — Title: [paste competitor title] Description hook: [paste the first 1–2 sentences of their description] Tags: [paste their tags] Competitor 3 — Title: [paste competitor title] Description hook: [paste the first 1–2 sentences of their description] Tags: [paste their tags]

If you’ve been feeling unsure or wondering whether this will actually work for you, the fact that you’re here in this group already puts you ahead of 99% of people out there. You’re showing up, asking questions, attending the sessions, tweaking your shop, and applying what you learn both on Discord and on here. You’re pivoting when the situation calls for it instead of sitting back hoping one listing magically takes off. That’s work worth celebrating! Remember, the only way we fail is if we quit. You’ve got this, Q4 is coming, and that’s our time to shine 🙂✨

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! 🤝