Over the last decade, the LGBTQ+ scene has really grown into a worldwide movement of its own. But what is the case for products related to individuals who identify as such on the Etsy platform?

Is there space for Etsy sellers to target this category of people, what is the profitability of the niche, and what are some of the best-sellers doing right?

We attempt to answer these questions here, so stick around to learn how you can target this group on Etsy.

How big is the market for LGBTQ+ items on Etsy?

When conducting a quick search on Etsy, we get over 1,700 stores that offer gay and pride related items. This already means that the platform attracts individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ and that there’s a pool of like-minded merchants to go along with that.

Furthermore, our search on Sale Samurai reveals that there’s not only a plethora of shops by and for LGBTQ+ people, but that there’s also an abundance of such products on the market.

We take a look at handmade, craft supplies and tools, as well as vintage items to see where there’s potential for profits to be made.

Handmade

Searches for handmade LGBTQ items on Etsy go into the thousands (1,835), while on Google they reach over two million.

More precisely, the top tags and their corresponding Etsy search volume look like this:

• love is love (3,435)
• LGBTQ shirt (3,307)
• rainbow (2,531)
• pride (1,863)
• LGBT (1,376)
• gay pride shirt (1,086)
• lesbian shirt (996)
• queer shirt (925)
• gay pride (774).

But what about the actual products being sold on the platform that cater to this niche?

We found that items such as LGBTQ pin received a total of 2,973 monthly searches on Etsy.

Other products that have made it to the top of the list include: LGBTQ G (2,534), LGBTQ cups (40), LGBTQ gifts for her (19), LGBTQ anniversary (17), LGBTQ baby (10), LGBTQ pen wrap (14), LGBTQ plant shirt (17), and LGBTQ pins enamel (17) and LGBTQ embroidery (16).

Perhaps one of the top sellers in this category would be CuTeesCustomShirts, which offers a t-shirt with the following title: “Equality Hurts No One Shirt, Black Lives Matter, Equal Rights, Pride Shirt, LGBT Shirt, Social Justice, Human Rights, Anti Racism, Gay Pride”. This item has made an astonishing 16,713 sales and is priced at $13.67. Meanwhile the average price for these items is $11.10.

Craft supplies and tools

The craft supplies and tools market for LGBTQ items is quite small as evidenced by only one entry that we found on Sale Samurai, which indicates a search volume of 34 for the keyword  “lgbtq pride crafts”. The average price for this search query is also a low $6.17.

This could serve as a strong signal to sellers that there’s room for exploration here, as any crafts and tools related to pride and rainbow-themed items can be presented to this huge audience. What’s more, both Google and Etsy competition is considered low on this front, opening up the opportunity for you to fill in the gap.

Vintage

The vintage market for LGBTQ+ items fares a bit better than craft supplies and tools. It must be remembered that to be classified as vintage on Etsy, an item needs to be at least 20 years old.

The LGBTQ+ movement has gained traction over the past two decades to say the least. As a result, some of the items that we find in the vintage category include distressed vintage-style t-shirts to “Protect Trans Kids”, as well as art.

Average prices for this category is $25.48, while search volume on Etsy is at a low 84. Therefore, while the vintage LGBTQ+ niche has low demand as yet, if accurate keywords are used and listings are optimized, sellers could enter this low-competition niche with only 6,846 listings on Etsy, and compete more effectively.

What are some of the best-selling merchants doing right?

T-shirts, pins, cups, bracelets, and art seem to be the top-selling LGBTQ+ items on Etsy. By examining some of these listings, we can extract the best practices, which you can emulate in your own offering.

LAminiJewelry is an Etsy star seller with its “Pride Crystal Necklace, LGBTQ Genuine Crystal Jewelry, Bisexual Gemstone Gift, Gift for Her, Jewelry for Him” item. This necklace has a massive 6,295 sales at a price of $97.20. Indicating a strong customer service, the seller has received a whopping 7,509 reviews and has a stellar rating of 4.9 out of five stars. The keywords used in the title correspond to high-volume search queries such as “LGBTQ”, “bisexual” and “pride”.

Another popular item is a gay pride rainbow flag with a premium quality guaranteed stamp. It’s offered by star seller lloydlabel. With 11,013 sales and priced at $17.30, the turnover for this flag amounts to $190,524.90. Also generating thousands of reviews (2,204), the seller has a 4.9 out of five star rating for the product “LGBT Rainbow Gay Pride Flag | Large Premium Quality Flag (5ft x 3ft) | Double Brass Grommets | Durable Stitching | UV Resistant Dyes”. Using keywords such as “LGBT”, “rainbow”, “gay pride”, and other descriptive features, this product is both popular and profitable.

What can we extract as best practices from these listings?

It all starts with the product you’d like to sell. How clear is your title in terms of indicating that you’re catering to “LGBTQ+” individuals? Do you mention the acronym or variations thereof? Some examples of variations could be “gay”, “lesbian”, “pride”, “rainbow”, “trans”, “queer”, and more. These keywords must be included in both the title and description of your listing.

In addition to this, how optimized is your description? Do you specifically indicate that your items on sale are targeted at LGBTQ+ people? What kind of customer service do you offer? How quick is your shipping (which is an average of three days on Etsy)? And have you generated a sufficient number of reviews to gain more traction for your store?

Think of all these questions as checkboxes. Once you have them all covered, sales should start pouring in.

We also need to consider the average price in the space, which comes at $11.83. The Etsy star-seller mentioned earlier is positioned just around this price point, which makes for a strong strategy. Pricing around the average is particularly advisable in cases where items are physically small and don’t have high production costs.

How profitable is this niche?

Taking a look at one of the bestsellers described earlier (LAminiJewelry), we can do a quick calculation by multiplying the number of sales (56,295) by the price ($97.20). Although this is much higher than the average price of under $20.00, the astounding amount that we get is a turnover of $5,471,874.00.

Naturally, we need to subtract the Etsy listing fees of $0.20, the shipping costs, and transaction rates that are associated with payments made online.

However, this is still a clear signal that the potential for profits is huge. It’s only a matter of ensuring that you use the right strategy to sell these types of items.

Other profitable sellers, although not reaching into the millions as the example cited above, are producing a turnover that’s upwards of the hundred thousand dollar mark. It’s evident that this niche is worthwhile to say the least.

What is our advice for sellers looking to sell LGBTQ+ items on Etsy?

The LGBTQ+ market presents multiple opportunities for Etsy sellers.

However, if you want to be successful, you’d need to apply some of the following strategies.

First, make your title as lengthy as possible. Use up as much of the 140 characters as you can. Pepper the title with adequate keywords, especially those pertaining to the LGBTQ+ scene such as “queer”, “gay”, “lesbian”, “transgender”, “pride”, and more.

Your description needs to lay out everything your customers need to know about your product. Don’t forget to add links to your social media handles, present what customer service the audience can expect from you, and specify your shipping terms and days.

Tags are a crucial factor in the Etsy search algorithm. They help bring back the most adequate results. You are highly encouraged to use all 13 spaces allocated for tags to optimize your listing. Wondering what words to use? Look at the best practices section of this article.

Etsy allocates a maximum of 10 spaces for images and you should use all of these. This is because online purchases are largely driven by images. This is where your creativity and the use of lifestyle photos should come to the fore.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is the price. The rule of thumb is to price around the average. But this doesn’t mean manually browsing through every listing to tally up the totals. Simply use Sale Samurai’s “Search” module to get the average price for a keyword.

In conclusion

Wrapping up our discussion of the LGBTQ+ scene on Etsy, we arrive at the conclusion that this is a highly lucrative market with ever increasing demand. Products for this niche are not priced too high, ranging in the region of under $20.00.

However, this amount can quickly grow exponentially with a multitude of sales.

If you’d like to study this niche even further, we highly recommend that you make use of Sale Samurai and its intelligent, user-friendly, and intuitive features.

Sale Samurai is available to Etsy sellers at only $9.99 per month.