How to Find Trending Etsy Shops (and What to Learn From Them)
By Ali Raza · 2026-05-20
Free, honest ways to find trending Etsy shops and top sellers in your niche — using Etsy editor's picks, Star Seller badges, review velocity and bestseller signals — then how to learn from and benchmark them.
Studying shops that are clearly working is one of the best free ways to grow your own. But "trending" only helps if it's real — so here are honest ways to find genuinely trending Etsy shops and top sellers in your niche, plus what to actually learn from them. (We'll be upfront: there's no public Etsy API that ranks shops by growth, so this is about reading the signals Etsy does show.)
1. Use Etsy's editor's picks and curated collections
Etsy's own blog and on-site "Editors' Picks" / "Etsy Finds" collections spotlight shops and products Etsy is actively promoting. They're a curated, first-party signal of what's trending right now in each category.
2. Filter a category and sort by recent reviews
Open a category or run a niche search, then look at listings with lots of recent reviews — reviews only appear after a sale, so a fast-climbing review count is the clearest public sign a shop is selling well now. Click through to the shops behind those listings.
3. Look for the Star Seller badge
Etsy's Star Seller badge marks shops with consistently strong messaging, shipping and reviews over the recent period. It's not a growth metric, but it reliably flags shops doing the fundamentals well — exactly the ones worth studying.
4. Track follower and review velocity over time
Note a shop's review count and followers, check back in a few weeks, and see which are climbing fastest. Rising velocity — not a big absolute number — is what "trending" really means.
5. Watch search-trend direction for the niche
Shops ride trends. Use the keyword research tool to see which niches and search terms are rising on Google Trends, then look for the shops winning those rising terms.
What to learn from trending shops
- Keywords: read their titles word by word — those are deliberate keyword choices.
- Positioning: how they signal quality, personalization, and fast shipping.
- Photography & branding: the first image and cohesive style that earn clicks.
- Product range: the categories and variations they expand into.
Adapt — never copy. Borrow the angles that fit your products and differentiate on your own niche and quality.
Benchmark a real shop honestly
Once you've found shops worth studying, paste a real competitor's public shop name, About text and listing titles into the Shop Analyzer to compare SEO and spot the gaps you can win. For a deeper single-competitor breakdown, see how to do competitor research on Etsy.
Find the trends, then benchmark your shop free. Start free with EtsyOptima → No credit card required.