/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>1534302
>How did you advertise?
Youtube reviews and word-of-mouth mostly.
>Does Etsy do it for you
Presence in search results is a third of my sales volume. I don't do any paid/pushed marketing on Etsy itself.
> I hope this is not just another word of mouth/connections thing that got big.
I've been in the hobby over 10 years so my name has some weight to it from that. But my product is serving a largely ignored niche within the hobby. I'm also offering features and performance that the few that I do compete with don't or can't offer.
>>1534304
>is there a particular niche left to fill
There are different power sources for shooting darts. The already widely-served area is in batter-powered flywheel blasters. Everybody is producing those.

Spring-plunger designs were being neglected and those are what I was most familiar with already so that's what I'm selling.

The most neglected segment are the low-pressure compressed air blasters. These were pretty commonly sold commercially until a few years ago and this segment of the hobby is almost completely dead. There's a niche for you.
>or would any competition cut into your margins?
I have 4 to 5 week lead times on blaster orders because I'm doing everything myself with no employees. There are a few other individuals in the hobby producing and selling these, but they do require more tools and time to make than most people are willing to invest in. So nobody has tried to produce them in anywhere near the same quantity as me. I'm also offering way more customization than they are because it's my design and changing it is easy for me.

The licensing deals underway already are going to present some competition, but those won't be as customized because they're be in much larger production quantity. And most of those sales will be in countries where I'm not able to sell as many because the shipping and customs issues price me out of those markets for the most part anyways.
>>1534307
They're PLA except for the coupler.