Imagine this – a sea of passionate shoppers racing against the clock to score the perfect purchase. But contrary to mass assumption, it’s not Black Friday, nor is it Christmas. Instead, it’s something like National Sock Day or International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day.

Yes, you read that right. The calendar is brimming with unofficial holidays that are stealing the limelight and charming consumers. In this labyrinth of unconventional celebrations, could these quirky holidays be the golden ticket for your Etsy store?

In this article, we unearth the possibilities of targeting unofficial holidays with your handmade products on Etsy. We explore whether it’s a treasure trove waiting to be discovered or a rabbit hole best avoided.

Are unofficial holidays a profit-making opportunity on Etsy?

When it comes to seasonal trends or holiday-related Etsy products, the majority of sellers set foot on the most popular road – official events.

Why? Because holidays like St. Patrick’s Day, Independence Day, or Christmas never fail to satisfy seller expectations. They are associated with big spending and active shoppers.

But perhaps it’s worth turning an eye to an alternative that would reward you with a real competitive edge.

Fringe holidays could be an untapped treasure that can catapult your sales to new dimensions. How do we find out?

With a sprinkle of detective work through Sale Samurai, we inspected a range of whimsical and unconventional holidays. As it turns out, there is a frenzy around days like Pillow Fight Day, National Tater Tot Day, Winking Face Emoji Day, or Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day.

While it’s true that not every quirky holiday will cause a tsunami in sales, there’s an undeniable charm to certain niche celebrations that beckon particular audiences. These offbeat holidays, though fleeting, can become the secret ingredient to boosting your sales.

The unofficial holidays that create the biggest waves

While Sale Samurai users can take advantage of vital Etsy insights and analytics, the software can also serve as a source of inspiration via its calendar. This module presents all official holidays in the USA, UK, and Germany. However, it also shows the unofficial holidays that can create waves among certain target audiences

Analyzing multiple unofficial holidays from Etsy’s calendar, we identified the following as potentially rewarding:

• Pi Day – 22 July
• Book Day – August 9 (Book lovers day) August; Read a book day – September 6
• Pet Day – 11 April
• Taco Day – 4 October

Let’s dive deeper to see how popular these niches are on Etsy.

Pi day

From all listed holidays, Pi Day generates the highest search volume on the platform. Around 467 users search for products related to the theme every month.

Admittedly, this demand is a far cry from that of some official holidays. As a comparison, the keyword “Christmas” stands out with a search volume of 26,181. However, there’s one very important note to be made here.

Christmas and other official holidays are incredibly competitive. This doesn’t come as a surprise, given that Etsy shoppers are more active than ever around long-awaited events, like St. Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve, and others. From a seller’s perspective, it’s inevitably challenging to outrank rivals, attract traffic, and secure sales in these niches.

But Pi Day, for example, is a holiday that creates unique openings. Its competition is 8,967 (compared to 12,986,219  for “Christmas”). Put otherwise, it’s a market segment that is much easier to perform well in, even for new sellers with less experience.

To top this up, the market is extremely diverse, allowing for creative ideas and appealing handmade items. From a total of 5,627 listings ranking for the phrase “Pi Day”, we noticed a multitude of product categories, designs, and styles.

For example, one of the top-performing gems on Etsy at the moment is “Gold Pi Lapel Pin- CC295G- Math Pins for Mathematicians, Math Teachers, Nerds, Geeks, Pi Day” sold by JimClift. The seller specializes in pins and has strategically exploited this fringe holiday to diversify their portfolio.

This specific item sells for $13.14 and has contributed to the shop’s 61,048 total sales and 11,933 reviews.

Although the seller doesn’t focus solely on Pi Day, this product enables them to provide an answer to more than 400 user searches.

Book Day

Another event that triggers user attention is Book Day. In this case, there are several unofficial holidays to explore, like Book Lovers Day and Read a Book Day. Regardless of which one you choose, there are a myriad of options to embrace.

Our research uncovered that book day-inspired t-shirts, photo frames, and bookmarks are among the many trending items.

Unlike Pi Day, the phrase “book day” accumulates a much lower search volume (46). While this search demand is not tremendous, it still depicts an opportunity to become successful in a smaller market segment.

The competition of this phrase specifically is 165,208, which is minimal compared to that of popular official holidays.

Despite the fact that there is less demand for “book day” products, Etsy’s search displays a total of 104,115 results for the phrase. However, it’s important to note that in this case (and many others, as we’ll conclude later) the results may be skewed.

This stems from the fact that “day” is often used in other combinations in product titles and descriptions. We identified a lot of products that include words like “birthday” or “father’s day”. For example, titles like “birthday gift for book lovers” will be featured in the results as Etsy’s algorithm will identify them as relevant to a “book day” search.

One great example of this is the “World Book Day Cute Graphic T-Shirt Gift For Teacher, Book Lover Teachers Day Novel Literacy Gift Non Fiction Tee Book Club Top All Sizes” listing sold by MogPrint. It’s one of the well-performing products on the platform, selling for $16.86. Although it includes “book day” in the title, it’s also marketed as a gift for teachers for teacher day.

As a seller, this opens up the doors to disparate audiences simultaneously, through a single listing. Why is this a valuable strategy? Because it will increase your chances of discoverability and higher sales volumes.

Pet day

It’s no secret that pet products are a hot topic on Etsy. Typing in “pet” in Etsy’s search box, we are presented with a total of 1,372,938 results. But best of all, there’s a certain time of the year (April 11th) when you have the chance to pamper pet lovers with something special.

Pet Day may be an unofficial holiday, but it’s among the ones that influence shopping behavior the most. After all, there are a few things that most shoppers won’t do for their furry friends.

At the same time, identifying this trend with a data-backed method is difficult. Why? Because few listings include the specific phrase “pet day” in titles and descriptions. Instead, they prioritize other, more popular words and phrases, like “pets”, “pet gift”, “pet lover”, and others.

In fact, “pet day” only has a monthly search volume of 34. Despite this, the Etsy competition level of the keyword is 215,175 (much higher than our previous two examples). This only proves that this is, after all, a well-developed market as sellers are actively competing in it.

It’s a matter of positioning your listing properly and using highly searched-for keywords. In addition, promoting your pet-related products around a month before Pet Day is likely to double your chances of scoring more sales.

Let’s see one of the best-loved listings that appear in search results when browsing for “pet day. The “Watercolor Pet Portrait, Custom Cat Portrait, Animal Portrait, Pet Memorial, Cat Memorial, Pet Gift For Her, Personalized Father’s Day Gift” listing by Furrlio sells for $28.15 and has helped the seller land more than 34,000 shop sales.

As you can see, the listing doesn’t include the main keyword in the title, yet it’s targeted at pet lovers and ranks among the first items for a “pet day” search. This is an example of a golden opportunity, where you can take advantage of an unofficial holiday to grow your portfolio in fruitful niches.

In this case, the listing attracts people looking for animal portraits, pet memorial products, gifts for her, Father’s day gifts, and of course, Pet Day items. By positioning the item in so many diverse niches, the traffic and sales potential of the listings doubles.

Taco day

The final unofficial holiday that we’ll look into is Taco Day, a mouth-watering occasion that presents vast opportunities for sellers.

This is the least competitive phrase when compared to all others on our list. With a competition level of only 8,050, the Taco Day scene on Etsy is welcoming even to those with no experience. Why? Because ranking for such searches is a lot easier than ranking for “St. Valentine’s Day”, for example.

While the search volume insights are not thrilling (only 25 monthly search volume), you can exploit this low-hanging fruit and grow your popularity as a seller in the niche.

The low competition can also be seen from the total number of listings that appear in search results for the phrase “taco day” (only 5,023). In addition, similarly to previous examples, the results are not strictly limited to Taco Day items.

For example, “It’’s Taco Chew-Day Hoodie – Mexican Funny Food Hooded Sweatshirt – Cinco De Mayo by QuriousShop” is one of the bestsellers that Etsy displays. Instead of “taco day”, it includes other, more popular phrases, like “taco chew-day”. It sells for $56.24, potentially securing a satisfactory revenue stream for the sellers.

The beauty of Taco Day handmade goods is that there are numerous ways to approach product creation. Some of the trending phrases from the space include “Taco Tuesday”,  “every day is taco day”, and others. You can make use of these ideas to create goods and listing titles and descriptions that grab user interest.

Wrapping up

Official holidays can, without a doubt, prove to be a profitable road to walk on as an Etsy seller. However, they go hand-in-hand with aggressive competition.

Embrace unofficial holidays, create a winning strategy, and separate yourself from the rest. Stand apart by satisfying smaller, yet less competitive niches, and enjoy the results.

The fringe holidays from this list are only a few of the possibilities out there. Use Sale Samurai to discover more ideas and source the insights you need to make the right decisions.