Losing a pet is painful. This is why many pet owners are looking for ways to lay their furry friends to rest with respect and dignity. Whether it’s a memorial stone or a pet urn, Etsy truly delivers in the category of pet loss products.

If this niche aligns with your specialty and you want to know how to make the most of it, this post is for you.

How big is the market for pet loss products?

To determine the size of the market, we headed over to Etsy and Sale Samurai. On Etsy, we discovered that there is a large listing count for “pet”-related products at 1,351,643. But when narrowing down the search for “pet loss”, we get 87,695 listings.

Other related keywords in this search niche and their associated listings count include:

• “Pet memorial”: listings count – 306,020
• “Pet urn”: listings count – 247,330
• “Pet memorial gift”: listings count – 153,219
• “Pet loss gift”: listings count – 60,420

Therefore, out of the 1.3 million listings for the broad category of “pets”, “pet loss” and related searches account for over 700,000 listings. Before you throw in the towel and say this niche is not worth entering due to its high saturation, let’s explore the keyword searches and their associated search volume below.

Listings saturation and search volume

Looking at the search volume for pet loss-related queries, their associated search volume, and the listings count on Etsy will help us see the prospects of this niche. Here is a brief outline of what we picked up from Sale Samurai (while limiting our enquiry to search volume at 100 and above):

• “Pet memorials”: search volume – 996; listings count – 306,034
• “Pet memorial”: search volume- 976; listings count – 306,020
• “Pet remembrance”: search volume – 193; listings count – 14,804
• “Pet bereavement”: search volume – 190; listings count – 7,614
• “Pet headstone”: search volume 180; listings count – 1,253
• “Pet cremation”: search volume – 177; listings count – 29,372
• “Passing of a pet”: search volume – 108; listings count – 1,562
• “Passing of pet”: search volume – 100; listings count – 1,562
• “Pet gravestone”: search volume – 100; listings count – 1,120

From this, it’s clear that apart from “pet memorials” and “pet memorial” related searches, there is actually a low listings count in this niche. This is a strong signal that despite the earlier assumption made that the niche is oversaturated, if you target the right keywords, you can make it on Etsy.

Also worth noticing is that more complex associated words in the keywords such as “bereavement” and “remembrance” have a lower search volume at just under 200 each. However, you may wish to use these words in conjunction with other higher search volume ones in your listing’s title to help you rank higher.

For more on this, take a look further down.

Tags

The 13 tags that Etsy allocates you should be used wisely. There should be no repetition of the keywords in your title and those in your tags. The aim of this is to help your audience find your products better. As such, we went ahead and explored some of the most common tags and their associated search volume.

Here is what we found:

• “Urn”: search volume – 26,133
• “Dog memorial gift”: search volume – 3,622
• “Dog memorial”: search volume – 3,433
• “Sympathy gift”: search volume – 3,379
• “Sympathy card”: search volume – 3,378
• “Memorial gift”: search volume – 3,378
• “Memorial”: search volume – 2,724
• “Sympathy”: search volume – 2,721
• “Ashes”: search volume – 1,866
• “Pet memorial gift”: search volume – 1,128
• “Sorry for your loss”: search volume – 1,107
• “In loving memory”: search volume – 1,089
• “In memory of dog”: search volume – 1,087
• “Pet memorial”: search volume – 976
• “In memory of”: search volume – 959
• “Bereavement”: search volume – 941
• “Loss of pet”: search volume – 926
• “Loss of dog”: search volume – 925
• “Pet loss”: search volume – 696
• “Pet urn”: search volume – 580

This is quite an extensive list that indicates a couple of things to us. Many sellers are using the word “pet” in their tags to try to catch a broader search volume instead of using “dogs” or “cats” separately, although there is a smaller search for these keywords.

In addition, there are many ways to express one’s search for bereavement-related pet products.

There also appears to be a broad diversity of pet loss items including cards, frames, headstones, and grave markers (not all are displayed on this list, as it was too long to publish).

Prices

As a critical part of any market analysis, we must also talk about prices. Fortunately, Sale Samurai can do this automatically.

Here’s the breakdown:

• Lowest price: $0.20
• Highest price: $299.00
• Average price: $36.25

These prices speak to the keywords and tag search volume above, because we can find pet loss related cards for under one dollar, and also get headstones and urns for nearly $300. However, the average price is what we’re going to be looking at because most sellers are aiming for that golden mean.

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

Despite the diversity of pet loss products, two sellers in the average price category are considered Etsy starsellers.

Here they are:

Starseller one:

• Seller: TrueWillowPrints
• Title: “Dog Memorial, Pet portrait with dog, Best friends dog gift, Dog remembrance gift, Dad dog gift, Mum dog gift, Mothers day dog gift, Pet Loss”
• Price: $31.45

Starseller two:

• Seller: FusionMM
• Title: “Pet Memorial Gift Custom Pet Portrait In Memory Of Dog Memorial Gift Loss Of Dog Mom Pet Sympathy Gift Personalized Pet Remembrance Gift”
• Price: $34.74

So, what makes these sellers stand out?

Keyword optimization

TrueWillowPress has opted to cater to pet loss for dogs in particular. They have included the words “dog memorial”, “dog remembrance gift”, and “pet loss” as their main keywords.

FusionMM, on the other hand, has used the following seed keywords in their title: “pet memorial gift”, “in memory of dog”, “memorial gift”, “loss of dog”, “pet sympathy gift”, and “pet remembrance gift”.

In both cases, it’s worth noting that there is no keyword stuffing and that both sellers have opted to use high-search-volume keywords in their titles.

Pricing

In addition to the above, both sellers have priced near the average which is around $36. This makes for a strong and effective strategy that gets more eyeballs on your product and more items placed in shoppers’ carts.

Images

What’s interesting about TrueWillowPress is that because their product is so unique, it needs to be thoroughly personalized. This means that they’ve used up their 10 image spaces on Etsy to help their customers choose the image that they want printed.

As for FusionMM, they’ve taken 10 pictures of the product from different angles and in different light and shadow settings to illustrate how the product works.

Both strategies are highly specific and particular to each seller’s niche. This makes them stand out above the rest due to incredible personalization.

Our tip-list for sellers seeking to enter this niche

With both sellers above performing incredibly well, it’s worth emulating their strategies to get ahead.

Here’s what we recommend:

1. Keywords: the beauty of this niche is that it is highly diverse and there are many ways to express the theme of pet loss. This means you can be creative both in your title and in your tags. Therefore, high-search volume keywords such as “pet loss”, “memorial”, “remembrance”, “rainbow bridge”, and others must be on your to-do list when creating your product title.
2. Price: when it comes to pricing, we see that there are pet loss products on Etsy that near the $300-mark. But this is in exceptional cases only, and for high-end products that few people can afford. To ensure you provide the affordability factor, consider pricing your product in the $36 region. Much like the two bestsellers identified above.
3. Images: use your images wisely. Your images will, of course, depend on your product type. An image of a pet loss gift that is highly personalized will do well to ensure that all types of instructions for personalizing the gift are included in the space for images for greater customer satisfaction. Meanwhile, a product that is self-explanatory and requires less personalization can be portrayed from multiple vantage points to help the buyer make the purchasing decision.

Final thoughts

Pet loss is not an easy topic to deal with for Etsy customers. This is why you need to give them the perfect listing for the best customer experience possible.

You can do this with Sale Samurai by ensuring you target the right keywords and prices to help optimize your listing. It’s a steal at only $9.99 per month.