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Haha I was working on website stuff while I got interrupted by my phone making the Cha-CHING! sound. Two pair of my garter shorts to someone in NYC! ? It made me think about some stuff, and I wanna share a tip of sorts, while it's at the top of my brain. My #1 items in my shop historically are my garter shorts and leggings - basically comfy cotton shorts with garter tabs at the bottom and matching leggings. Actually a pic is worth a thousand words lol, and I think I have a random collage of them somewhere, let's do that.

My leggings never get copied. But my garter shorts get copied very regularly. I'll notice that they aren't selling anymore so I'll search Etsy and find someone making something really similar but for half the price.

I know most people would get aggravated, but I just shrug. Then several months later, suddenly my garter shorts will start going gangbusters again, and I see that the other person who was making them either isn't making them anymore, or they've raised their price to be comparable to mine. This has happened SO MANY times over the years.

In June of 2026, I'll celebrate the 20th anniversary of my creative business. Holy crap is that a lot of time, lol! In that time I've noticed that it's possible to at least partially insure yourself against copycats. You want to have a shop that's got a lot of variety, so whatever is currently being copied isn't your whole line. Copycats suck at sourcing materials - so if you can incorporate hard-to-find materials that make something look really cute, that can make it un-copyable. Copycats are looking to make a quick buck, and everyone knows niche sales are pretty slow, so the more niche something is, the less it gets copied. They also suck at pattern-making, so having your own patterns for things helps. Similarly, if you can work out a technique for making something that is fast but takes a LOT of skill/coordination, that is pure gold for a maker business, for more reasons than copycat insurance! And the more VISIBLE all those things are when people are looking at your stuff, the less your stuff will get copied.

With my garter shorts, they are my own pattern, but the thing that makes the pattern unique is the fit - superb butt-lifting Brazilian-jeans-style pattern - and that's something that's felt, not seen. The hardest-to-find material is the fabric - it's thicker and stretchier than what any of the copycats have ever been able to find, but that's also something that's felt, not seen. The garter tabs are a bit hard-to-find, because I use metal instead of plastic ones, but that's something people would have to really notice in the pics, and understand why metal is better. So they're prime fodder for being copied! But that brings me to the last point.

Copycat businesses aren't sustainable. When my garter shorts sales drop off, I know I can just wait and they'll come back. When I was new, I used to freak out, and think "OMG am I NEVER going to be able to sell all those garter shorts I made when they were selling several pair every week?! Am I going to have to take a paycut and discount the price?" The answer is no. Be patient. It'll come back. It'll take a while, but it'll come back.

Those are my own observations over the years, anyway. What are your best tips for creating things that defy being copied?

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