Create Better than the other is sufficient for most of small business owners. You don’t have to be the best in your field. Look closely and you’ll see that most of you competitors are easily to surpass.

Let me explain “create better” a bit further. I’m selling digital designs on print-on-demand merchandise. Often the designs are not utterly original, they have been published in some form or another by other sellers. For instance people applying the Stars and Stripes theme on products for the last two hundred years.

So how can you sell in a market that is flooded with Stars and Stripes? The trick is to improve on the designs of your competitors. Make sure that your digital graphics are absolutely perfect. Prevent amateur mistakes, like not using a proper regular pentagram sized star. Make the colors what is considered correct for the flag of the USA.

Create Better Not Best

A next step is looking for products, in this case I will look what’s available on the Zazzle platform. What are the choices of other sellers and how did they apply the Stars and Stripes? Zazzle has a long list of products and is very flexible in applying digital content. Search for your theme of design and product and find out what is popular.

I can look at the first page of the most popular sneaker and figure out if there isn’t a pair of sneakers that I can improve. For instance these sneakers with my design are one in a couple of hundred examples at the Zazzle store. Already they rank on the second page in popularity. Which is not bad after a just a couple of weeks.

Another good trick is to look on Amazon what is popular these for the search term “Stars and Stripes”. Just go to this page and browse a little. Or google for Stars and Stripes designs on Converse sneakers, they should what they’re doing.

Use Pop Culture

Stars and Stripes is also the theme of Captain America. You already have the vector graphics. Therefor you might as well use them. In this case I can’t actually make a reference to Captain America in my Zazzle store. What I can do is mentioning it here. And on my Pinterest board. A similar idea is using Star Wars graphics is a whole new way, like in neck tie designs that I mentioned in this post.

This is just one example of how to get sales. This is what most small businesses are doing. They copy an existing business model and improve on it. Look what you closest competition does, copy and improve. You don’t have to be the absolute best in your field. Just create better stuff than the others.