Join eRank in welcoming today’s guest blogger: Jay De Souza from Jay’s Way!
Who the heck is Jay? He’s a graphic designer turned print-on-demand coach with 23 years of experience and a top 0.5% Etsy seller since 2013. He has built multiple six-figure shops and teaches others how to create designs that actually sell without the fluff. Jay currently lives on an island with sandy roads and no cars off the coast of Belize. He lives with his wife and their Great Dane. Jay strives to help people break free from toxic routines and build real freedom.
Learn more about Jay’s print-on-demand coaching group here
Q4 isn’t about hoping. It’s about executing. By now, your mindset should be dialed in and your systems should be in place. This is the moment to tighten the last bolts, double-check every process, and step on the gas.
Contents
- Finalize Your Backup Plan
- Streamline Your Listings for Speed
- Prep for the Customer Surge
- Work Your Evergreen Winners Harder
- Keep Yourself in the Game
- Final Word
1. Finalize Your Backup Plan
If you’ve been following along, you already know the “backups for your backups” rule.
Now is the time to make sure those backups are fully operational.
- Confirm your alternate printers have stock and can deliver on time.
- Place a small order with each one to check their current quality and speed.
- Keep your product settings ready to switch over instantly if one provider gets slammed.
In Q4, even a 48-hour delay can mean a lost sale, especially when everyone wants their package by yesterday!
2. Streamline Your Listings for Speed
When you’re in the thick of the holiday rush, you won’t have time to troubleshoot your listings.
- Swap any outdated or low-quality mockups with fresh, high-resolution ones — even if it’s only the first listing photo so that your shop looks better. First impressions are everything this time of year.
- Cut unnecessary variations that slow fulfillment or create stock risks. Less is ALWAYS more. Fewer options mean faster decision-making and less after-the-face size or colour changes. This means less work for you and a hassle-free transaction for the customer.
- Ensure every listing has your best keywords, accurate descriptions, and clear sizing info. Answering “Do your shirts run true to size?” five times a day is a pain in the butt. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked this…anyway, make it clear that your sizes are, for example, “…slightly more tapered for the Bella + Canvas 3001”, and “a boxier, oversized fit” for your Comfort Colors 1717 tees.
The simpler and cleaner your listings are, the faster customers will buy — and the fewer customer service headaches you’ll have to endure.
3. Prep for the Customer Surge
Happy customers in Q4 turn into repeat buyers in Q1.
To keep them happy:
- Respond to messages quickly, even if it’s just to acknowledge you’re on it. You can set up auto-replies, too. Just don’t forget to actually go into the convos and address the customers’ concerns. It can be easy to forget when you have auto-replies enabled. Ask me how I know!
- Double-check shipping addresses before fulfilling. Even a quick glance can save you a headache later when you realize that an order never shipped. Or, even worse, it got returned by the carrier due to a missing digit in the ZIP code. The good news is that some POD companies, like Printify and Printful, have put measures in place to make sure orders get flagged if they’re missing any pertinent information. Just make sure you check every day, even if you have everything set to automatically fulfill.
- Keep a few personal touches ready to add to orders, like a thank you card with a QR code on it that allows the customer to get a discount code for their next purchase in exchange for their email address. Build that email list. You’ll thank me in 2026.
4. Work Your Evergreen Winners Harder
In Q4, everything sells. But that doesn’t mean you should chase every seasonal trend.
Your evergreen designs are your moneymakers, and the extra boost they get in November and December can keep your sales rolling well into January.
- Feature your top sellers front and center in your shop. All those “Popular Now” and “Bestseller” badges show up at the store level in the app, not just in the listing, so make sure you’re leveraging all of Etsy’s free social proof markers as well as their urgency and scarcity text once they’ve clicked into a listing.
- Run small promos on proven designs to increase their momentum. Short sales show a countdown timer — use it to your advantage. Run ads on those same listings. Etsy ads are like pouring gas on a fire. Just make sure to advertise the listings that are actually selling. Pouring gas on something cold just makes it wet and smelly.
- If you add seasonal elements, make sure they won’t kill sales once the holiday is over. What this means is if you add holiday-specific elements to your designs, don’t lock them into being useful for only one day or one weekend.
For example:
A shirt that says “Spooky Mama” can keep selling in October, but it dies on November 1st. Instead, you could design “Witchy Mama” – something that still sells year-round to the witchy/spiritual niche while also picking up sales around Halloween.
A mug that says “Turkey Time” is done the day after Thanksgiving. But “Leftovers Are My Love Language” will sell long past the holiday.
Instead of “Christmas Pajama Squad”, you could do just “Pajama Squad” in winter themes so it works for Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s, or just family sleepovers in the colder months.
The goal is to think in evergreen first, seasonal second. Q4 is great because again, everything sells. But if you only pump out holiday-centric products, those listings crash as soon as the date passes. By building designs that still make sense in January, you’re giving yourself momentum that carries into Q1. Meanwhile, the trend-chasers are stuck in the “no sales” slump.
5. Keep Yourself in the Game
Your shop can’t run at full throttle if you burn out.
Pace yourself:
- Batch your design and listing work in focused sessions. Time-blocking is great for this.
- Take short breaks to clear your head. Fresh air never disappoints and a short walk can get the blood flowing and the ideas popping.
- Remember, Q4 is a marathon, not a sprint. You want to be sharp in January while everyone else is “recovering”. It’s easy to get caught up in the adrenaline of November and December and stay up until 3 am cranking out designs, answering messages and checking tracking numbers. But if you burn yourself out chasing every sale, you’ll limp into January with nothing left in the tank. You don’t need to list 200 or 300 listings a month. You do need to make quality listings that people actually want.
The sellers who win aren’t just the ones with big numbers in Q4 – they’re the ones who use Q4 momentum to set themselves up for Q1 and beyond. They’ve got evergreen listings that keep selling once the holiday hype fades, systems that run smoothly without constant firefighting, and enough energy left to keep building while others disappear for weeks to “recover.”
Play the long game. Pace yourself, keep your shop steady, and build for five years from now. That way, when other sellers are stuck in the January slump, you’re still collecting orders, stacking reviews, and getting a head start on next year.
Final Word
“We often overestimate what we can accomplish in six months, but we underestimate what we can accomplish in ten years.”
— Bill Gates
The work you put in now is what keeps you calm and in control when the orders start flooding in. Set yourself up so that when Q4 chaos hits, you’re not scrambling — you’re thriving, and you’re already thinking years down the line.
