Amazon FBA, Merch By Amazon..

iamdef said:
Got approved today!!!! Prob stay up late and go through my old designs and set aside a day or two a week to focus on uploading new designs and removing old ones.
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Dope!!!

2 RAWW said:
I just received approval too. It's lit.
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That's wassup fam!!

turbospartan said:
I just got approved too.

maldonado maldonado Your design above, "Flourish Accordingly" - was this just a phrase you had in mind, or did you use some type of software to find a "niche" category?
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:pimp:

So, the "flourish accordingly" is just a tagline I've been using lately. My lil catchphrase or whatever.

As far as researching, my favorite has been Merchinformer. I pay like $7.99/month (think the price went up, hit me for a discount code tho) and it allows me to dig into whats selling, etc. It's more looking at what shirts are already selling in Merch.

For niches there is a lot that I kind of go thru on a daily basis, and to be honest, the research part is evolving as I go.

I check Twitter and Google for trends, I go on Pinterest to find phrases/quotes, anything thats happening, pay close attention to the holiday calendar and events. A couple friends have niche lists that theyve compiled too. General niches that you can then sub-niche down into.

Honestly where Im at now and where I was even a month ago, from a research perspective, is night and day.

****** The main reminder for ya'll *******
Read the Terms Of Service. Trademarked stuff is not allowed. Everything will be reviewed before by Amazon before it goes live. Learn about making sure your title has good keywords, but words need to be checked for trademarks too.

I start with tmhunt.com
Uspto.gov (the tess search engine) to be completely sure.

Make sure you research and run everything thru the trademark checkers (I'll post more detailed instructions on this later). These accounts are worth gold, def dont want to lose it over a trademarked design or keyword.

Now that some of yall have been approved, I will try to get some resources up asap in the fb group. In the meantime, join the Merch Mastermind group I posted earlier. The original stickied post on that group has an entire list of resources to get you started.

Let me know as yall have questions!
 
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For those still waiting, dont worry - y'all will get in!

The few that were just approved most likely signed up close to when I started this thread.

Amazon approves in waves.

My advice, start soaking up game. I thought I was thoroughly prepared but honestly I am learning most of it now after approval.

- Merch Informer blog posts/any other Merch blog (there are a bunch)
- YouTube videos (also a bunch out there)
- FB groups
 
My boy got approved today, I'm still waiting on mine. We both signed up within hours of each other so I'm hoping I'm in the next wave.

Excited to try this out! signed up for the FB group.
 
Upwork is currently crashed due to spiked traffic. Everybody is hip to the jig lol.
 
Got approved today :pimp: :pimp: I applied on July 17

Checking it out now but I'm gonna wait until I'm off Saturday to go deeper. Need to re read this thread
 
Going through some of my old sketches and getting ready to take some time tonight to polish and upload em.
Also preparing some more personal designs/color options for myself and family. This is def a good way for a person to start a custom shirt business with this going through Prime would def add some reliability

Only down side is limited design locations. Nothing on the bottom of the shirt (front or back) or anything on the sleeve
 
iamdef said:
Been approved for about a week, no organic sales but I'm still trying to churn out the max 2 design uploads/day

Here's some:



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Really dope designs, that second one is the cleanest. Good work, also post links for those of us that may want to cop. That way its easier for us to find and purchase instead of searching through all of amazon.
 
Amazon just partnered with Kohls to sell their devices in-stores. Wonder if they'll eventually start selling some of their popular shirts too
 
A week in and haven't seen any sales yet. I'm waiting until I have all 10 slots filled before I promote my shop on my personal social media accounts. Surprised things are moving this slow organically though. For those who have tiered up successfully did you guys start out pricing your designs at like $12 to get the quick bites or did you follow the trends and eventually found something that sold well? Need some help launching.
 
Couple things..

If ya'll got approved (or haven't yet, but are serious about it) I strongly suggest you join a couple Merch FB groups.

These are my favorite:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/MerchByAmazonMM/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/MerchByAmazonMomentum/

(This next group has a dope daily Merch FB live show while they're on the road driving lol its awesome, highly recommend this one)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/merchempire/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/merchmindspodcast/

Those groups and Youtube, for me, have been instrumental.

That said, trust - if you have an account you have a golden ticket.. but its still going to take time and effort to get an account off the ground.

Two biggest things.

1. Patience
2. Perseverance

I think a mistake that a lot of people make (me included) is that they have a couple ideas they think are great (and they might be), and put them up expecting immediate sales. A great design won't necessarily equate to immediate sales.

I had to temper my expectations and really dig into it.

Its a numbers game, at the end of the day.

The people making good money have minimally, hundreds of designs up, some have thousands, uploaded over many months. Across many niches.

Maximize your slots. Fill all 10. Keep soaking up info about keywords and optimizing your listings. Keywords are honestly the BIGGEST thing. It's what will put your shirt in front of potential customers.

Focus on tiering up at first, not royalties.

You want to maximize the real estate you occupy on Amazon.

Don't get too attached to any specific design or idea. Definitely create and put the designs up, but once they're up, forget about that design, and on to the next.

It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Took me a full 2 weeks to make my first sale.

And that was after I had all 10 slots filled.

Currently sitting at 31 sold, almost 2 months in. Im in tier 100.

Its a very slow grind at first. Keep pushin.

Learn Amazons BSR (best selling rank) and research on Amazon whats selling by looking at the BSR.

You might make a few designs for your taste(which Ive done to tier up quickly), but you will have to start finding/creating designs for niches you aren't really about.

All of the info is out there, and this post is running long, but google these concepts and start soaking it up.

Im so enthusiastic because I know what this could bring, and how dope of an opportunity it is. For those that really want to make it work, they definitely can.

The first couple months are the hardest. Focus on getting into the hundred tiers and you will see how crazy this game can get.

Good luck
 
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2 RAWW said:
A week in and haven't seen any sales yet. I'm waiting until I have all 10 slots filled before I promote my shop on my personal social media accounts. Surprised things are moving this slow organically though. For those who have tiered up successfully did you guys start out pricing your designs at like $12 to get the quick bites or did you follow the trends and eventually found something that sold well? Need some help launching.
Click to expand...

A week in really isn't that long. Took me 2 weeks after I had all 10 designs uploaded to make 1 sale.

Dont let it deter you, I saw the potential and didnt let it phase me.

The biggest thing is KEY WORDS. Thats how your shirts are going to get in front of eyeballs.

What would potential customers be entering into the search bar to find your shirt?

The main thing is you have 3 opportunities for keywords: brand, title, and 2 bullet points.

You also have a Description, but everything ive learned is the description doesnt factor into Amazons algorythm, so you want to concentrate on the 3 I listed above.

For example, lets say we have a shirt that has a wine glass and a dog print, maybe it has a phrase about "wine and dogs are life" or something lol

Key words might be: dog, wine, me time, woman, mom, jazz, relax, etc (these are generic, i use a thesaurus to get like-words or there are sites that sorta help with associated words)

Then with my key words i use my brand, title, and 2 bullet points to fit them into complete sentences:

Brand: mom wine dog lover tee

Title: Wine And Dogs Are Life t shirt

Bullet point #1 - after a long day, there is nothing like some me-time alongside your dog and favorite bottle of wine.

Bullet point #2 - tell mom to throw on some jazz and relax the night away in this Wine and Dogs are life t-shirt.

Lol hopefully you get the point

A dope design up without optimizing your brand, title, and bullet points will never be seen, and thus, never sell.

Let me know if that helps. Theres a bunch of stuff out there on keywords for further info.

As far as pricing, there's kind of two ways to go about it. I prefer to start low and then raise the prices after I make a sale or two.

Some people start high from the jump. Since I was in the lower tiers for a month I did every shirt at $11.99 but have since raised my top sellers.

Heres the breakdown of my sales, 1.5 months in:

20170917_151827.png
 
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A good idea to get out of tier 10(and potentially 25) is to buy your way out. Either entirely or partially.

Make some shirts for you, your friends or family, little league teams, local businesses, etc. Think outside the box.

10 slots is limiting. 25 is better, but 100 minimum really will allow you to finally experiment (and start to get that snowball rolling).

I purchased a couple shirts myself. They will count towards tiering up and they will also get your shirt ranked with a BSR.

For those unaware, ranking is everything. For a niche with, say, 1000 shirts in it, only the top sellers are on page 1, and so forth. The more sales, the better rank.
 
maldonado said:
A good idea to get out of tier 10(and potentially 25) is to buy your way out. Either entirely or partially.

Make some shirts for you, your friends or family, little league teams, local businesses, etc. Think outside the box.

10 slots is limiting. 25 is better, but 100 minimum really will allow you to finally experiment (and start to get that snowball rolling).

I purchased a couple shirts myself. They will count towards tiering up and they will also get your shirt ranked with a BSR.

For those unaware, ranking is everything. For a niche with, say, 1000 shirts in it, only the top sellers are on page 1, and so forth. The more sales, the better rank.
Click to expand...

Repped for all the knowledge man, thank you. I guess i just need to be patient, but I have so many ideas in my head and want to get them out on the site.

I will definitely look at my listings and tweak the keywords, that is likely where I'm lacking so far. Have a great designer I work with at Upwork and she has been producing my requests within a day or two so as soon as I tier up I will be rolling with the uploads.

Gonna take your advice and shift my initial focus to friends/family who have t-shirt needs. Also planning to start a fan page to post new designs.

So much potential here. Really excited to see where this thing goes. My ultimate goal is to pay off my student loan debt.
 
2 RAWW said:
Repped for all the knowledge man, thank you. I guess i just need to be patient, but I have so many ideas in my head and want to get them out on the site.

I will definitely look at my listings and tweak the keywords, that is likely where I'm lacking so far. Have a great designer I work with at Upwork and she has been producing my requests within a day or two so as soon as I tier up I will be rolling with the uploads.

Gonna take your advice and shift my initial focus to friends/family who have t-shirt needs. Also planning to start a fan page to post new designs.

So much potential here. Really excited to see where this thing goes. My ultimate goal is to pay off my student loan debt.
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Nice! Awesome to hear that you found a good designer on Upwork. You get it.

I did the EXACT same thing bro.

Pumped out the couple ideas I'd sat on for a long time. Got impatient. 2 weeks in, my first organic sale. Then nothing for a few days. Figured lets speed this up and make a couple for myself and for fam/friends. I copped 2 and was able to sell a couple to my people that way. Then more organic sales. Hit tier 25, uploaded more, and yet more organic sales.

Some days I sell 1 or 2, sometimes 3 or 4 days go by without a sale. Today I sold 2.

Finally tiered up to 100 and am waiting on 25 outsourced designs to come back from my designer right now. I only have 18 designs up now, so I have some room to work with.

You're on your way! Stick with it, dont let anything get in your way. I am 100% confident if you stick with it you will be able to fulfill your goals of paying off your student loans.

Q4 around the corner! Stay the course, keep learning, lets keep building together bro.
 
Motivation:
I had a convo with a big dog who's been doing this since November 2015 (Ken Reil for anybody in the fb groups).

His first month he made $18. The next month $60. Third month a couple hundred. Then it snowballed.

He now consistently does $10k-$12k a month, every month. Has been for a bit over a year now.

He did $30k in December last year. His goal is $50k this December.

These #'s are PROFIT, not sales. Profit.

He comes from the sign making field. Literally never created a t shirt design in his life before Merch.
 
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