When searching for ways to diversify your portfolio on Etsy, you’ve probably brainstormed ideas around official holidays.

Handmade gems for Christmas, Mother’s Day, and St. Valentine’s Day sell like hotcakes.

But what about unofficial holidays? Can fringe holidays form attractive handmade niches of their own on Etsy?

Let’s find out.

Exploring some of the most popular fringe holidays

Although unofficial, some fringe holidays stand out in popularity and attract a lot of attention.

These events are often long-awaited and represent opportunities to give a gift to a loved one or celebrate a hobby, a passion, or an interest.

However, to determine if fringe holidays shape handmade niches worth entering, it’s crucial to analyze market data.

Using Sale Samurai, we delved into three popular unofficial holidays – Autism Day, Pi Day, and Pet Day.

Let’s find out if there is enough demand and sales potential in these categories.

Autism Day

Taking place on April 2nd, Autism Day raises awareness about Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and promotes understanding and acceptance of individuals with autism.

A quick search on Etsy reveals that there are a total of 11,665 listings ranking for the keyword “autism day”. Compared to other segments we’ve analyzed, this number is low and doesn’t represent a well-developed market.

However, based on Sale Samurai data, there are 84,430 monthly searches for the term “autism”. This suggests a substantial buyer demand that you can satisfy as a seller.

At the same time, however, the competition level of “autism” is 120,148. Considering that the demand is lower than the competition level, we would suggest that this segment is difficult to enter.

However, with a strategic approach and outstanding listing optimization, you can successfully compete for a market share.

Throughout our research, we discovered the following top-searched keywords:

• autism shirt – 97,494
• autism pin – 64,170
• autism sticker – 50,074
• autism sweatshirt – 25,717

The list reveals that the majority of shoppers interested in Autism Day browse for shirts, pins, stickers, and sweatshirts.

This is valuable information if you’re searching for a profitable product category as it can guide you towards making the right decisions.

When exploring the top-performing Etsy shops in the space, we noticed something interesting. In most cases, sellers have concentrated only a few of their shop’s offers on Autism Day.

This makes it difficult to assume the sales potential of the niche in numbers.

However, given the search volumes in the market, we can conclude that Autism Day handmade gems can be a fruitful opportunity to pursue.

Pi day

The second fringe holiday we inspected is Pi Day – an annual celebration of the mathematical constant that takes place on March 14th.

On Etsy, there are nearly 8,000+ listings displayed when searching for “Pi Day”. Again, this doesn’t indicate a substantial market saturation.

However, the keyword generates a monthly search volume of 84,024. Moreover, it has a tremendously low competition level of only 8,316.

This makes this theme one worth digging into.

When it comes to browsing behavior, some of the top keywords in the space are:

• pi day shirt – 119,381
• pi day teacher shirt – 80,604
• pi day decorations – 79,666
• pi day gift – 70,998

Just like in the Autism Day niche, t-shirts seem to dominate. We can also see that Pi Day products are often related to a specific audience – teachers and are frequently bought as gifts.

One example of a listing that takes advantage of this data is “Pi Day Shirt, Pi Number Shirt, Math Teacher Shirt, Pi Symbol Shirt, Math Lover Shirt, Mathematic Shirt, Teacher Shirt, Mathematic Gift”. Sold by SunShineApparelGifts, this item sells for $8.38. It contributes to the shop’s total sales of 15,378.

A look into the title shows that the seller strategically uses “Pi Day”, “Shirt”, “Math”, “Pi Symbol”, “Teacher”, “and Gift” to boost rankings. All of these trending words are specific to the niche and help improve the product’s visibility.

Pet day

The final fringe holiday that we offer insights on is Pet Day – a holiday meant to encourage people to appreciate and cherish the joy that pets bring into their lives held on April 11th.

In this market, the Etsy results were surprising. We found a total of 258,694 listings rankings for “Pet Day”.

However, we must note that the results are slightly skewed. A lot of the displayed listings only contain the word “pet” and exclude “day”. This means that we’re assessing data from the pet market as a whole.

These discrepancies become even clearer when identifying the search volume of “Pet Day”, which is only 34. Put otherwise, this is not a holiday that promises meaningful returns.

While the interest towards the main keyword is extremely low, it turns out that the following phrases accumulate more searches:

• pet valentines day shirt – 57,941
• pet valentines day – 55,030
• pet valentine day shirt – 48,679

It becomes apparent that a lot of the trending keywords in this segment are tied to Valentine’s Day.

This discovery points us in the direction that it may be better to enter official holidays, like St. Valentine’s Day as opposed to Pet Day.

Are fringe holidays worth your time?

What the results from our research showcase is that there is no right or wrong way to perceive unofficial holidays.

While some sellers manage to turn any fringe holiday into a success story, others struggle to attract consumers with handmade gems in the niche.

The potential of fringe holidays is ultimately dictated by the choice of holiday.

Earlier, we uncovered that some themes trigger shopper interest more than others. By placing your bets on a sub-niche characterized by high search volumes, diverse themes, and healthy levels of competition, you can reach the peak performance of fringe holiday sales on Etsy.

How to select the right fringe holidays?

If you’re planning to explore this avenue, we highly recommend making a list of opportunity-rich fringe holidays.

How?

Sale Samurai’s Calendar module offers data on both official and unofficial holidays in the USA and other markets. Use the tool’s Product search features to examine different holidays and extract key insights, including:

• Search volumes
• Competition level
• Market saturation
• Prices

Evaluate your options and select holidays where the search volumes are high, the competition levels are low, and the market saturation suggests room for new market entrants.

Observe the prices to predict whether your production costs will allow for fruitful margins.

This sale strategy will help you pinpoint the most profitable and promising fringe holidays on Etsy.

Conclusion

Ready to get started?

At $9.99 a month, Sale Samurai is your go-to tool for making informed decisions as an Etsy seller.

Gain access to valuable data and make market moves that will position you in front of all others.

With the right approach, you can turn your fringe holiday products into a successful model for outstanding profits.