What is Merch by Amazon?
Also referred to as Amazon Merch, it’s one of the fastest growing print-on-demand platforms for apparel, and it’s making some sellers some big money. Once you’re invited to sell on the platform, Amazon makes the process quite simple. Sellers only need to upload their designs, create a title and bullet points, select their blanks and colors, and price their products. Once a customer places an order, Amazon does the rest.
How Do You Make Money?
Like other POD services, there is no need for inventory or overhead with Amazon Merch. There is no actual inventory until an order is placed. Amazon sets a base cost that includes the price of the blank tee shirt and the cost for printing. Amazon takes their fee then pays you a royalty for every shirt you sell, based upon the price of your product. The higher you price your designs, the higher the royalty will be. But the way to make real money on Amazon Merch is not to sell high-priced products—it’s to do volume.
Amazon also handles all aspects of customer service and fulfillment, so you’ll never have to waste time or money processing returns, answering customer emails, or shipping boxes. You can save time (and add value to your business) by focusing on design creation and product marketing through social media and other channels outside the Amazon platform.
What are Merch Tiers?
Amazon Merch sellers are grouped into different tiers. The more shirts you sell, the higher your tier will be. As a new seller on the platform, you’ll start at Tier 10, and you can begin by uploading 10 designs. Once you sell 10 products, you’ll move up to Tier 25. Sell 25 more designs and you’ll be moved up to Tier 100, and so on. The more products you are eligible to upload, the more sales you’re likely to make, which means more revenue in your pocket.
As a seller on Amazon Merch, you’ll have access to the ecommerce giant’s ever-growing customer base, and all of your products (no matter how few or how many you sell) will be available for Prime Shipping in the US.
When choosing a brand name on Merch by Amazon, there are two common methods: keyword relevant names unique to each design OR a common brand name. Here's some quick tips on how to choose.
Continue ReadingCreating designs for print-on-demand platforms on your own can be time-consuming and overly-complicated. However, it's also one of the fastest and cheapest ways to create new designs to fill up accounts and test new niches. We're working to make it easier for anyone to create high-quality designs quickly with our new DIY design tool, DesignJar.
Continue ReadingAfter many months of rumors of Merch by Amazon expanding to Europe, Amazon announced on Monday, July 30 they have launched the program in the United Kingdom and Germany. Like the US marketplace, sellers and designers will need to apply for an account and wait for an invitation to join the program. Existing sellers will be granted access gradually on a rolling basis, similar to the addition of new product types, such as PopSockets which we covered back in June.
Continue ReadingMerch by Amazon introduces PopSockets, getting more sales with print on demand for Shopify, design inspiration, free fonts, and more in this weeks POD Weekly.
Continue ReadingThe idea of making sales on Merch by Amazon can be an exciting but a bit overwhelming to newcomers. To help, here's our guide to selling on Merch by Amazon. For those who don’t know, Merch by Amazon is Amazon's print-on-demand platform that was launched in late 2015 as an innovative platform designed to encourage the easy sale of branded t-shirts designed by you and produced, sold, and shipped by Amazon.
Continue ReadingAmazon’s print-on-demand platform is growing quickly in popularity among businesses both big and small. There are a number of popular brands on Merch by Amazon, with any number of products available among Amazon’s selection of t-shirts, long sleeve tees, sweatshirts, and hoodies. Some of these businesses previously had little available in terms of online shopping for physical products. With print-on-demand platforms, it’s easy for any business to sell apparel, as it requires on inventory, fulfillment or shipping. In the case of the Merch by Amazon platform, there’s not even any customer service required as Amazon takes care of that aspect …
Continue ReadingSearch Merch by Amazon listings with our free Merch Search tool. Enter any keyword phrase below and the use the dropdown to select a product type to get Amazon search results limited to Merch by Amazon listings.
Continue ReadingAs sellers move up tiers in Merch by Amazon, the number of designs that can be uploaded in a day typically rises in conjunction. (The only exceptions we’ve witnessed have come at times of “throttling” across the entire platform such as during the holidays this past year.) Once the limit gets raised, many sellers start looking into how to bulk upload designs to Merch by Amazon. Once a seller hits the 500 design tier, the number of daily uploads is typically raised to 25. Without any type of bulk import or creating method within the Amazon Merch platform, it can …
Continue ReadingNeil Lassen at Merch Informer continues his excellent series of posts on paying off $100,000 of school debt via Merch by Amazon. Beyond giving a brief update on the sales progress, Neil always provides a number of details about what he’s seeing. That being said, what we experienced and a lot of other people experienced has been a day or two of REALLY slow sales, and then all of a sudden a day that just explodes in sales out of nowhere. We are talking about 2-3X the amount of sales in a certain day followed by another day or two …
Continue ReadingTrying to find trending niches for Merch by Amazon? Merch Informer released new Movers & Shakers module, which helps you do just that!
Continue ReadingCan an IP address issue get you suspended from Merch by Amazon? Glen from the MerchMinds podcast discussed his own suspension on a recent podcast.
Continue ReadingWhat are the best niches for Merch by Amazon? In our own experience, it's best to stick to niches you know well. It'll help your listing stand out on Amazon and give you a good chance at an existing audience.
Continue ReadingHere’s another endorsement for the Merch Momentum newsletter, which we’ve mentioned previously. This endorsement comes from Chris Wilkey at FBA Master, who contributed to our previous experts’ roundup posts on How to Get Sales on Merch by Amazon and Unusual Tips for Getting Sales on Amazon Merch. He’s published a lot on Merch by Amazon recently and his posts are definitely worth reading. Anyway, here’s what he had to say about the Merch Momentum newsletter. This is a killer weekly newsletter that is created by Merch Momentum (by a guy named Michael Essany) and I have fallen …
Continue ReadingNot all of your designs are going to sell well on Merch by Amazon, but to improve your chances there are 3 easy mistakes to avoid, as Neil Lassen at wrote in a recent post. He notes that those easy to avoid mistakes include spelling errors, using copyrighted designs elements, and getting multiple designs rejections. Neil gives an example of a spelling mistake he’s made where one letter was left out of “t-shirt” and the listing was rejected for containing profanity. Admittedly, we’ve made the same mistake ourselves. While easy to fix, it’s not always easy …
Continue ReadingAll types of ecommerce have some level of passivity to them, in that sales can be made without direct effort from a person at the time of the sale. As anyone with ecommerce experience knows, there's a lot of effort that went into everything leading to that sale. Print-on-demand platforms, like Merch by Amazon, make things even more passive, as they take care of all production, fulfillment and customer service. Of course, this is true for everyone on the Merch by Amazon platform. The top sellers are using the time not spent doing those tasks to do more research, find new marketing channels, etc. Sales happen without direct effort, but they'll likely wane if your account is given absolutely no attention. In that sense, Merch by Amazon is not entirely passive. Yet again, what is?
Continue ReadingAmazon has a huge number of eyeballs, but it can be hard to get your products found when there are so many competitors. Rather than just relying on Amazon's customers to find your products by searching on Amazon, put some effort to driving customers directly to your listings. When it comes to driving traffic to your listings, there are a nearly endless number of opportunities. For one specific tactic, the Placeit Blog has a great post on how to use Pinterest to get sales on Merch by Amazon.
Continue ReadingMerch by Amazon has recently shifted to a new application and approval process for sellers. As we've covered in the past, it can take a long time to get approved for a Merch by Amazon account. And at times, like at the end of 2017, Merch by Amazon is so bogged down with action from existing sellers that the approval process comes to a complete halt. Now Merch by Amazon is asking applicants who previously applied using the old system to re-apply using the new application process.
Continue ReadingIs Merch by Amazon Expanding to the UK (Merch by Amazon UK)? Although there’s been speculation for some time that Merch by Amazon may be looking to expand the platform to the UK, there are no announced plans to expand to Merch by Amazon UK. While Merch by Amazon products are only available to US customers, Merch by Amazon sellers can be located anywhere in the world. Sellers around the world have found success on the platform by targeting US customers. When Will MBA be Available in the UK? If and when Merch by Amazon UK happens, there will be …
Continue ReadingMerch by Amazon is currently only available in the United States to shoppers. However, that doesn’t preclude sellers from around the world selling on Merch by Amazon print-on-demand platform. In fact, we have quite the international community of members and customers here. Of course, one of the biggest questions for international sellers is how they actually receive payments. On the Merch by Amazon resource page, Amazon has provided some info specifically for international sellers, including the following question and answer: I am an international content creator. How do I get paid for my Amazon sales? Content creators with banks …
Continue ReadingMerch by Amazon print-on-demand pricing recently increased on January 15, 2018. Amazon cited increased “increase in the costs to support Merch, including storage, fulfillment, transportation, raw materials, customer service, and the resources required to detect and prevent fraud.” With Merch by Amazon, sellers are able to set prices at any price over the minimum cost. Merchants could potentially set very high prices, if there is enough demand for the designs. When an item is sold, Amazon retains the original cost plus a percentage of the total sale, which means that you only see about 75% of each incremental dollar added …
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