Christmas Ugly Sweater: Niche POD Drives Profits This Holiday Season

Christmas Ugly Sweater: Niche POD Drives Profits This Holiday Season

Christmas is coming to town! This is an important holiday of the year and a golden time for sellers to boost revenues thanks to the soaring consumer demand. At this time, some products like gifts, costumes, or accessories with strong Christmas colors are always hunted, including Christmas Ugly Sweaters. They are unique, colorful sweaters with a strong personal mark. Leveraging the potential of this item can bring huge profits during this holiday season.

Today, we will give you an overview of the Christmas Ugly Sweater and its potential this Christmas. We will also share tips on increasing average order value to help sellers increase sales with this product.

Christmas Ugly Sweater Overview

Before delving into the potential of the Christmas Ugly Sweater this holiday season, let’s take a look at the concept and history of this ugly sweater.

What is Christmas Ugly Sweater?

Christmas Ugly Sweater is a sweater designed with typical Christmas motifs, from Santa Claus, reindeer, pine trees to falling snow. This type of sweater is often brightly colored, sometimes humorous, creating a joyful, cozy feeling. In particular, Christmas sweaters can be for everyone, from children to adults. Moreover, this item is often worn at parties, events, or as holiday gifts.

What is Christmas Ugly Sweater

Christmas Ugly Sweater History

Christmas sweaters first appeared in Western countries in the 1950s. Initially, they were seen as a casual winter fashion item and began to gain popularity in pop culture and the media in the 1980s.

It wasn’t until the early 2000s that they took off. The first Christmas Sweater Party was held in Vancouver, British Columbia in 2002. People didn’t know that it would create a cultural phenomenon and appear on high-fashion runways later.

Christmas party

In 2012, it was a turning point for the ugly sweater craze. The UK charity Save the Children launched Christmas Sweater Day, a fundraising event that encouraged people to wear their ugliest sweaters. Today, Christmas Ugly Sweaters have become a staple of Noel’s holiday and are offered by major retailers in styles ranging from casual to cheesy and humorous.

The Potential of Christmas Ugly Sweater in the POD Market

According to Statista, an average of 47% of consumers worldwide like Christmas Ugly Sweater and this number varies by country in 2022. Ireland has the highest rate at 58%, followed by Canada at 55%, the US at 54%, AU at 53%, and the UK at 51%.

The Potential of Christmas Ugly Sweater in the POD Market

Additionally, as you search for the keyword “Christmas Sweater” in the United States over the past 5 years on Google Trends, the results show that this product always had numerous searches and interest at the end of the year. You can see in the chart below that the number of searches starts to increase from around early November and peaks in mid to late December. Plus, according to data from SEMrush, there are an average of more than 74,000 searches for the keyword “Christmas Sweater” each month, along with more than 1 million searches for related keywords.

Google Trends

Besides, according to Google Trends data, the highest regional search volume in the US is North Dakota with 100%, followed by Indiana and Illinois in 2nd and 3rd place.

Google Trends

With the interest, love, and huge search volume, there is no reason why you can refuse to add Christmas Ugly Sweater to your must-have product category in your POD store. Thanks to the highly personalized nature of POD, you can provide many unique designs, meeting the diverse tastes of consumers. In addition, the explosion of e-commerce and the trend of online shopping during the holidays has created a great opportunity for POD businesses to exploit this market.

Christmas Ugly Sweater Not Just Sweater

When it comes to Christmas Ugly Sweaters, we often think of thick, warm sweaters with traditional Christmas motifs. However, today this concept has been expanded and is no longer limited to wool or classic designs. Modern Christmas sweaters can be any item that has the festive spirit such as T-shirts, Hoodies, Sweatshirts, or Long Sleeves, all of which can have Christmas motifs.

On the other hand, you can use the same design for many different types of products, which will be a breath of fresh air for your store this holiday season. Here are Merchize’s suggestions for products that will help you attract and meet all the needs of customers:

AOP Sweater: Made from high-quality acrylic wool blend fabric (260 GSM), helping customers feel comfortable and pleasant when wearing. In addition, the ability to print the entire surface allows sellers to freely put unique and creative designs on the product, creating outstanding and unique sweater models.

AOP Sweater

Sweatshirt: This is the perfect choice for those who love lightness and comfort. Sweatshirts from Merchize are made from soft fleece fabric, with a brushed lining inside to help customers feel comfortable wearing them. We also provide a variety of designs from Lightweight and Midweight to 2D printing or all-over printing, giving sellers more choices to enrich their stores.

AOP Sweatshirt

AOP Long Sleeve Shirt: This product has become a star in POD stores thanks to its comfort and fashion. High-quality materials and flexible design make the AOP Long Sleeve Shirt a favorite choice, promising to be a best-seller this Christmas season.

AOP Long Sleeve Shirt

Effective Sales Channels for Christmas Ugly Sweater

After learning about the concept and history as well as choosing a POD product to sell this Christmas season. You need to select an effective sales channel to bring your product to consumers. Here are our suggestions for sales channels to help you increase your revenue with Christmas Ugly Sweater:

  • E-commerce platforms: Platforms like Etsy, Amazon, and eBay are powerful sales channels for POD fashion products, including Christmas sweaters. These are places with a huge number of daily visitors, you can take advantage of this to easily bring your products to potential customers.
  • Personal website: If e-commerce platforms don’t allow you control over all elements of your online store, creating your own website will give you complete control. From the sales process, introducing products to communicating with customers. In particular, with an eye-catching website design and an optimal shopping experience, you can build a long-term brand.
  • Social networks: In addition to the two sales channels mentioned above, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are important platforms for promoting and attracting customers. Advertising campaigns or collaborations with influencers during the Christmas season will increase recognition and attract a large number of purchases.

Based on your needs, conditions, and business goals, you can choose a suitable sales channel for yourself, or sell on all channels to maximize coverage for your unique products.

Christmas Ugly Sweater Design Suggestions

Who said that ugly sweaters have to be boring designs like pine trees or snowflakes? To stand out and attract your target audience, you need to break out of the box with bold, personalized, and creative designs. Here are some tips from Merchize to help you create million-selling Christmas Ugly Sweaters this holiday season.

Personalize

According to research from YouGov, 49% of US consumers love personalized products, while more than 50% of shoppers say they are interested in buying unique, custom-designed gifts for friends and family (according to The Deloitte Consumer Review).

Personalize Products

This proves that personalization is not just a trend but a growing need. Take advantage of this by creating designs that allow customers to customize their names, and dates, or add personal photos. Nothing will pull customers closer to your product than the ability to make it the perfect, unique gift for themselves.

Outstanding Colors

Christmas is all about warm, vibrant, and cheerful colors. Instead of sticking to traditional colors like reds and greens, try to add a little bit of gold, blue, pale pink, or silver to give your designs a new vibe. Creative colors will not only help your designs overwhelming but will also make your sweaters stand out from the festive crowd. Don’t be afraid to break out of the box, creativity will help you score points.

Funny Images and Quotes

The main attraction of ugly sweaters is that they are fun! They often make people laugh at first sight. That’s why adding humorous messages or images to the design is a great way to make it unique and memorable.

Funny Images and Quotes

Let’s imagine that Santa is stuck in a chimney or sunbathing on the beach, mixed with quotes like “I’m on the Naughty List and I Regret Nothing" or “Dear Santa, Define ‘Good'". These designs are sure to delight your customers and make them want to wear them to year-end parties.

Uneven Patterns

Instead of boring uniform patterns spread across the entire shirt, try asymmetrical patterns or a combination of diverse images. This creates a new and unique look, making your product stand out more. Uneven patterns also help the wearer express their own personality, making the shirt more attractive and interesting.

Holiday Character Cosplay

Santa Claus, Elf, Reindeer, etc. are typical characters of Christmas. Imagine how outstanding you will be when wearing a sweater with the same design as these characters’ costumes and appearing at parties. Therefore, the design ideas of holiday character cosplay sweaters promise to attract many customers to your store. What are you waiting for? Start designing these interesting sweaters right now!

Christmas costume

Holliday Movie

This is a great idea for an ugly sweater to make it more meaningful than ever. You can consider researching classic and popular holiday movies like Home Alone or The Silly World of Elf, honoring the memorable scenes that most people love.

In addition to the characters and scenes, you can combine them with iconic quotes or small props that bring these movies to life. Fans of these movies will notice your sweaters. It is important that you understand and stick to the content of the movie, if you do it wrong, customers will protest and not buy your products.

Christmas film

Combine with Your Fixed Niches

In addition to the above Christmas-themed themes, you can completely breathe the holiday atmosphere into the niches that you are exploiting every year.

For example, you are exploiting the sports niche and have built a store page for this theme. Obviously, after a period of selling, you have a certain loyal customer base, so there is no reason to ignore the opportunity to sell during Christmas. In this case, you can design sweater models for winter sports such as skiing, ice skating, hockey, or even any sport. Combining the image of Santa Claus with symbols, images, or quotes related to Christmas and these sports will be not bad ideas for the biggest sales season of the year.

Christmas sport

Get Ideas from Customers

Before you officially launch your product, try posting your designs on your social media and gathering feedback from your followers. This is a great way to connect with your customers, make them feel included, and be involved in the creative process.

Get Ideas from Customers

For example, if you have a community of dog lovers, ask members if they would like a Christmas sweater with an adorable llama on it. Positive feedback will be a clear indication of which design to go with.

Tips Increase Average Order Value During Christmas

Average Order Value is an important metric in optimizing revenue for your POD store. So how to effectively increase this indicator during the upcoming Christmas season? You can apply some tips that we list below:

  • Quantity discount: Customers tend to buy more when they receive a discount for a large quantity. For example: Buy 1 shirt for $40, buy 2 shirts for 10% off to $72, buy 3 shirts for only $108!
  • Bundle: Selling in bundles will help increase the average order value and encourage customers to buy more products. For example: Buy the Christmas Sweater + Ugly Pillow combo for only $60 (save $10 compared to buying separately)!

Christmas Combo

  • Product recommendations: When customers view the Christmas Sweater product details, the suggestions below are related products such as AOP Sweatshirts, Leggings, or Ugly Pillow to give them more options.
  • In-cart recommendations: The system automatically suggests buying an Ugly Pillow when customers add a Christmas Sweater to their cart with the message “Buy this Ugly Pillow for only $25, $5 off your perfect Christmas order!". This is an attractive combination that encourages customers to shop more because both products have a fun theme, helping to create a festive atmosphere and express the customer’s personality.
  • Post-purchase recommendation: After completing the payment, the system displays other product suggestions such as “Add Christmas accessories to cart for only $9.99!". Post-purchase recommendations help create more upsell opportunities without interrupting the purchase process.

We hope that through this article, you have an overview of Christmas Ugly Sweater and tips for effective design and sales during the upcoming Christmas season. In addition, Merchize is one of the best print on demand suppliers with high-quality and diverse products. If you have any questions about products and services, please contact Merchize’s support team to receive the fastest response.

Rin Nguyen is a Content Marketer at Merchize with over 3 years of hands-on experience in Print on Demand and more than 2 years of crafting engaging content for ecommerce blogs. My goal is to turn ideas into impactful stories and innovative solutions that elevate brands and engage readers.