New Product Help! Character design!

[AtlantiquesStore]

I already have two Etsy shops and I love the community. I have a vintage and antiques shop from my husband and my love for picking and antiquing and that one I began in November and is doing pretty well and I work on it everyday. Then I have my hand made items which right now are mostly jewelry on Attieco at Etsy which I can only work on when I have extra time. However, my life will be changing a bit and it looks like I will have a lot more extra time coming up and my daughter and I have developed these characters that we just love and everyone that we’ve told of love. 

We were thinking of developing a line of t-shirts first?? I am an artist but not a digital artist so I can’t right now produce any cartoons or such. Has anyone had experience starting a line of items with characters or should I go with books first? Merch first? Just not so sure what I should do with these great little guys. Was thinking of t-shirts with their drawings for children with great sayings and their names. Maybe build following that way? 

Any help at all would be appreciated! 

[NobbyandNice]

Hi there

Your drawings sound fun and I can tell you are passionate about your new product. First you need to find your customer and by that I mean who is it that would buy the product? What would the person who purchased it do with it? Does it fill a need of some sort?  For example what purpose does it serve? Would it be used for a birthday, a special event, how would they use it? 

 After you have thought about that then go on Marmalead.com and do some seo research. I am not an affiliate but I do use them for Seo research. Find out if anyone is looking for those kinds of shirts. By doing some search engine optimization research you will be able to see what people are looking for. Maybe your product would work on birthday cards, or pillows, or cups. Research what is selling and what is popular and then gear your product to that audience. This is important because family and friends love us and don’t always tell us the truth about our product and they don’t know what Etsy customers are looking for. Narrow your decision down to a niche or one theme for your shop. I hope this was somewhat helpful and I hope you do well. 

Good Luck