Valentine’s Day trends and insights to help you increase your sales this year

Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales

A big part of being successful with ecommerce is looking ahead and planning accordingly.

You need to keep track of upcoming holidays and events for which you might want to create designs or run promotions. If not, you run the risk of planning too late and missing out. 

And while it may feel like we JUST finished with the holiday season, Valentine’s Day is already around the corner. So if you want to optimize your sales for this occasion, you need to start planning now. 

Valentine’s Day isn’t as big as Christmas, but it still offers a lot of selling opportunities. And if you want to do things right, there are a number of Valentine’s Day trends, in terms of timing and design ideas, that are worth paying attention to.  

Below, I talk about those trends in more depth so you can make this year your best Valentine’s Day yet. 

Let’s take a look…

Get the timing right

According to Etsy data from 2017, people start searching for things including the term “Valentine” as early as December 19th, with the weekly search volume really starting to accelerate at the beginning of January.

Searches peak after January 16th and before February 13th, as you can see in the graph below.

Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales

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So even though we just got through the holidays, people already have Valentine’s Day on their minds.

If you want to optimize your Valentine’s Day sales, you need to get your stores ready now.

Keep your inventory stocked with Valentine’s Day design trends

Valentine’s Day gift-giving has changed over the years. People now look for a broader range of gift ideas aside from those applying to only spouses and significant others. They look for gifts for their friends, themselves, and even gifts that show love for pets, which is great for you because it helps you tap into more niches and add even more designs to your inventory.

And a lot of people do NOT search “valentine’s day mug”. They search “gift for boyfriend”, “gift for wife”, or even just “accountant mug” or “lawyer gifts”.

In fact, many people specifically do NOT want Valentine’s Day-specific gifts because they won’t make sense for other times of the year.

Part of the way to win is just to add more designs overall, because more designs should help you make more sales.

With that in mind, here are a few of the more popular gift-gifting trends to emerge recently – they can sell for Valentine’s Day, but also throughout the year.

“Treat yo’ self”

If you were a fan of the TV show Parks and Recreation, this is where this phrase comes from. You obviously don’t need to have seen the show to understand the concept, though.

Indulging in self-care and self-celebration is important. And in addition to giving gifts to their loved ones, people also enjoy spoiling themselves.

Designs related to promoting relaxation and self-love and being your best self embody this mentality. Here are some examples: 

Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales

Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales

Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales

Give love to your friends

Romantic love isn’t the only kind of love worth celebrating around Valentine’s Day anymore.

Valentine’s Day has evolved to include expressions of love and appreciation toward friendships, family members, and even co-workers in some cases.

Celebrating female friendships has become especially popular, in part thanks to the inception of “Galentine’s Day,” another idea popularized by the show Parks and Recreation.

Celebrated on February 13th, Galentine’s Day is aimed at girls and women as a way to show their love for the important female figures in their lives.

Here is some Galentine’s Day specific design inspiration:

Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales

You could also just sell general year-round designs that celebrate friendship. Here’s some inspiration for that:

So, again, don’t limit your design ideas to just spouses and significant others. Include designs that celebrate friendships and other types of relationships as well.

Empower girls and women

And speaking of female relationships, another trend is to celebrate women’s empowerment.

Being in a relationship and celebrating that is amazing. But people, especially women, also want to celebrate feeling comfortable in their own skin and standing on their own feet.

So other design ideas you might want to try include inspirational messages related to strong women and feminism. Here are some examples:

Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales

Celebrate singles

The day after Valentine’s Day is Singles Awareness or Singles Appreciation Day. And since Valentine’s Day itself is no longer about celebrating just romantic love, it’s a great idea to incorporate designs related to being single as well. 

Some people may have recently gotten out of a relationship so they’re looking for items that promote self-love and being enough on your own. While other people enjoy their single status so they want to find items that celebrate that. 

Here are some examples to give you inspiration: 

Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales

Don’t forget pet lovers

There are so many people who have pets they adore or who just love animals in general and so, pet-related gifts are really popular. 

Giving a gift that relates to someone’s pet adds a personal touch, especially if the gift includes a customized photo of that person’s pet or their pet’s name.

So when you’re thinking up Valentine’s Day designs, don’t forget to include some that relate to animals and are customizable. 

Be alternative 

Not everyone is interested in giving Valentine’s Day gifts with sweet or romantic designs. Some people prefer expressing their love in a quirkier or more humorous way. 

This has given rise to two offbeat design trends in Valentine’s Day gift-giving: the anti-valentine and what’s been coined as “valentude.” 

Going anti-valentine 

Anti-valentine designs still express love but they do so in a more ironic, sarcastic, or tongue-in-cheek way. Check out the two examples I found below: 

Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales

Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales

Showing “valentude”

“Valentude” designs are similar to the anti-valentines. But they are typically more playful, involving puns and a sillier vibe. Here are two examples: 

Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales
Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales

Run Valentine’s Day promotions – they pay off!

Research shows that people who shop for Valentine’s Day respond well to special deals and offers. 

According to the National Retail Federation…

Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales

So to get people to spend more this year, consider running a promotion. And be sure to check out RachelRofe.com/etsyonsale (using that gets you free credits for Etsy’s Sales Event Manager). 

I hope you got a lot of ideas out of this post! What do you think of this list of Valentine’s Day trends? Do you have any other thoughts or insights? Leave a comment below and let me know!

Here's a compilation of useful insights and trends to boost your Valentine's Day ecommerce sales

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2018 revenue numbers + Valentine’s Day 2019 plan

With 2018 over and Valentine’s Day just around the bend, I thought I’d do a review of how last year went and how I’m going to prep for the next upcoming sales spike.

I know many people like viewing these posts and glean some useful information from them.

In this post, I’m going to be completely transparent about…

  • My sales numbers for Amazon and Etsy
  • Which products sold best
  • And how I’m preparing to make 2019 even better.

This post is specifically about Amazon and Etsy, not my other things like marketing courses, eBay income, warehouse, stocks, etc.

Time sensitive: If you want to supercharge your holiday season sales, click here to watch the Jumpstart webinar replay.

That said, let’s jump into the review…

Here are my 2018 sales details

In 2018 I earned $438,052.93 on Amazon.

This could have been a bit higher but the FBM portion of my account was turned off from August through the end of December, where income peaks the highest.

Either way, considering this is highly passive — I’ll take it.

For Etsy, stats have been thus far:

Store #1: $30,365.25
Store #2: $15,652.47
Store #3: $5,789.86
Store #4 – $1,960.59
Store #5 – $16.95
Store #6: $177.90
Store #7: $17,258.71

That’s a total of $71,221.73.

My Amazon + Etsy income for 2018 was $509,274.66. Not bad!

I feel like I’ve figured out a good formula for how to do this (more on this later on) and I’m excited to share with you the 20% of actions that get the 80% of the results.

Before that, let’s dig into my bestsellers:

For Amazon, my best-sellers are:

Best-seller #1 – 15oz white mug (1770 orders)
Best-seller #2 – 11oz white mug (1731 orders)
Best-seller #3 -15oz white mug (968 orders)
Best-seller #4 – Travel mug (924 orders)
Best-seller #5 – Travel mug (911 orders)
Best-seller #6 -11oz white mug (683 orders)
Best-seller #7 -11oz white mug (557 orders)
Best-seller #8 -11oz black mug (518 orders)
Best-seller #9 -11oz white mug (456 orders)
Best-seller #10 -11oz black mug (445 orders)

There were 26,707 orders on Amazon total and these top 10 make up 33.56% of all orders (or 8963 sales).

I was selling thousands of items until August, but in Quarter 4 I was *only* selling FBA. At that point I had 146 items in Amazon and made 39.7% of my total sales for the year.

That is VERY promising actually, because it means the other 60% were spread throughout the year. And it tells me there’s a lot of opportunity for Valentine’s Day!

Here’s how Valentine’s Day went last year

Last year, from January 1st 2018 through February 14, I grossed $35,405.80 on Amazon.

As you can see, sales took a big jump up as we got closer and closer to Valentine’s Day.

I’m *very* glad I had FBA (items pre-sent to Amazon) available on February 12th, which was a peak day where FBM (items printed on demand) wouldn’t have cut it.

Here’s what I’m doing to make 2019 Valentine’s Day Season even stronger

Last year was great, but I think this year can be better. I’ve been doing this long enough to know the 80/20 rule, or what 20% of actions yield 80% of results.

I’ve distilled down to the top 3 actions I’ll be taking this season:

#1: Send more items to FBA.

You saw the graph – sales jumped up that last week. On Feb 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 – all the Prime Eligible Days – there were 626 orders.

More than 1/3 of my total February sales were made in that 7 day period – and the bulk was sent with FBA.

When you send items into Amazon, they store them in their warehouses and make them eligible for “Prime” shipping. Having this label means shoppers can wait until the last minute to shop – and they definitely do.

That’s why in my Jumpstart Program one of the components is giving you 5 boxes of mugs to send to Amazon. The Jumpstart was set up to give you as much success as possible, and I believe this is a big piece of it.

That part alone can pay off Jumpstart, by the way.

#2: Make more designs.

Designs are always helpful. The more you have, the more opportunity you have to make sales.

Designs don’t need to be Valentine’s Day specific. People still shop things like “gift for accountant”, “gift for engineer” on Valentine’s Day. It’s just that the more buy buttons you have available, the more chances people have to buy from you.

In the Jumpstart Program we give you 200 done-for-you designs (100 designs in both black and white text) to get you started. You can put these designs on mugs, shirts, and whatever else you want, and they are all crafted the same way my bestsellers work.

#3: Make the RIGHT designs.

When I say the “right” designs, I mean… you want to go after the niches that people are actively searching for.

A big mistake I see people make is that they make designs that they think are clever versus designs that people are actively searching for.

Remember – people are actively typing in what they want to buy:

All you have to do is give it to them.

In the Jumpstart Program we give you access to SpotNiches. This tool has 3 components:

a) It looks at how many monthly searches there are for each phrase

b) It shows you how many results there are on Amazon, Etsy, and eBay for those phrases

c) It gives you an “opportunity” score that shows you the “money” niches with the most searches and the fewest results

This tool is GLORIOUS – and a major help.

If I had to add any other actions, I would say:

#4: Make things as simple as possible.

The easier you make things on yourself, the more likely it is that you’ll succeed.

Having integrations, while not necessary, are wildly helpful.

They allow you to create a product, hit the “upload” button, then get items sent over to Amazon, Etsy, and eBay on your behalf. Whenever you make a new sale, the customer information gets sent back into GearBubble’s warehouses. The warehouses create and ship the order for you, then GearBubble sends the tracking number to your customers. These are meant to help you have passive hands-off sales (though I recommend still checking up on your orders to make sure all is good).

This simplifies things and makes the entire process easier (and – surprise, they’re also included in the Jumpstart Program).

The more you can simplify overall, the better your likelihood of things working.

#5: Learn from people who know how to do things well.

Personally, I have purchased several tools and invested in courses to learn how to do things better.

I now pay $2500/month for an Amazon rep (started recently), bought courses on Etsy, etc, so I could learn for myself as well as give you the best info possible.

I would much rather save time by learning from people who know how to do things, or using processes that make things easier, than wasting time with trial and error.

This is part of the reason I think our LHS Facebook group is so helpful. People can talk with like-minded folks and get help from people who have been there, done that.

That’s why in the Jumpstart Program we offer weekly coaching where you can ask me as many questions as you want.

This program was 100% designed to help you jumpstart your success and start doing really well.

What about you? How would you like to do this Valentine’s Day? 

As you see, I’m re-launching my Jumpstart Coaching Program this week. Jumpstart is a high-end package that gives you everything you need to make your fourth quarter a success. The package includes…

  • 200 done-for-you designs
  • free mugs shipped to Amazon for you
  • SpotNiches software (!)
  • GearBubble credits
  • planning resources
  • laser coaching
  • accountability
  • and some behind-the-scenes looks at advanced strategies I’m testing out.

If you’d like to get a lot more sales this Valentine’s Day, I highly recommend you click here to learn more.

Jumpstart is available for a limited-time only, so I’d recommend you go through that replay ASAP — even if you’re just a little bit curious.

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November + December 2018 Brags

This will wrap up my 2018 brag posts. I actually just went through the other months to revisit some of my highlights from the past year, and it was so much fun!

I’m making this post a 2-in-one since I was so busy at the warehouse in December that I never wrote my November one.

Here are my wins in no random order:

1. I was on Facebook and saw this post:

It prompted me to ask my assistant if this was a thing in school districts near us. It turns out it was, so I paid for 3 elementary schools’ worth of lunch.

I don’t really post about this stuff on Facebook anymore (although I know a lot of people say it’s motivating), but it was probably my favorite win of the past couple months so I’m sharing it here.

2. The warehouse CRUSHED IT this holiday season. We were up 54% in December, 224.95% in November, and crushed records from last year. There were a few days we produced 8.000+ items a day and several that were 7,000+.

After hearing a little more about some numbers from other companies, I think we’re the 3rd biggest mug warehouse in North America at this time, which is crazy since we’re still relatively new.

3. OMG. Low Hanging System. People inside there are doing PHENOMENALLY.

 

 

 

That feels AMAZING to see.

4. I filled out my gratitude list 57 days out of 61 in November and December and my “clarity” list 39 days.

5. Don and I went to Wichita for Christmas which is always really fun. I enjoy seeing everyone there. I was a little sick this trip, but I am still “bragging” about spending time with loved ones.

6. We had a super fun holiday party at the warehouse! It was so nice to see so many people show up. We all let out so much of the build-up of stress that came up throughout the season and had a super fun night that I think everyone enjoyed. It was a blast.

7. I did a much better job eating healthfully during this holiday season than in years’ past, thanks to my assistant ordering food for me and keeping it in the fridge. I had plenty of pre-cooked veggies and low carb food around so that I didn’t need to resort to processed food as I have in past years. 

8. The warehouse processed a TON of orders in November and December. I gave % increases before, but in terms of numbers, we made 105,000 items in November and about 163,000 in December.

9. We started making doormats on a bigger scale for one of our clients, which was fun.

10. So many Jumpstart students have been KILLING IT!! Some of the testimonials above are also from Jumpstart/LHS people. We’ve had so many people talk about how much the Jumpstart has been helping them and so many have been reporting sales. That is wonderful to see.

11. We had another workshop with the consultants we hired for my warehouse, and it went very well. 

How about you? Any brags you’d like to share? I’d love to read them!

 

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