Keywords. I would like to do a thread on this at a later time but I'll give a quick and dirty example.
Go to Amazon and search for the following:
Shirt Dog Mom
Dog Mom Shirt
And you'll notice slightly different search results.
If you try to make a basic Dog Mom Shirt (with basic title and descriptions) it would end up getting lost in the sea with other dog mom shirts.
Now, I searched for "Shirt Dog Mom" and found this. It's not an MBA shirt and has a good BSR so I'll use it as an example (link below).
Now I'll pretend I'm a female and my favorite color is rose gold, I stumble upon that shirt above and would really like some variation of it that's in rose gold, maybe the heart? Or maybe a paw print in rose gold. Maybe I had a dog pass away that had a rose gold collar and there's some emotional attachment towards that color and dogs...who knows.
So I search for "Shirt Dog Mom Rose Gold" on amazon to see what is out there....and nothing comes up.
As an MBA Seller, I see that as a problem and as an opportunity.
Now, I HAVE NO IDEA how many women are searching for that search term, hell their may not be any at all. And I'm not saying go out and make this design.
What I'm trying to point out is how a small change in your product title, descriptions and design can vastly change where your shirt shows up.
I should make a course on the ancient art of Googling as it's clearly dying. https://sourceforge.net/projects/sagethumbs/files/latest/download
Those all look to be from the EmojiOne emoji set and this is explicitly against their license terms (PDF):
>3.3. What can’t you do with the EmojiOne Properties?
>* Use it to make any tangible/physical products or printing that are intended for sale (such as print material, shirts, cards, etc.).
Great way to get your Merch account terminated, assuming, of course, that this isn't EmojiOne themselves. But if it was, I imagine they would list these with their own brand name.
Only because the amount of prime members increased it doesn't mean that the amount of people who use amazon increased aswell. Everyone already uses amazon and you can't grow further than everyone. https://www.similarweb.com/website/amazon.com Sadly I couldn't find a better statistic but I guess that get's the point aswell. The amount of customers hasn't had a mentionable increase since the 2014 boom
Not sure what this has to do with the dashboard. HighRes Product images are on every product.
For example this random shirt:
has the high res product img:
Everybody can see it by simply right clicking the picture on a product page in any browser.
The sites and people that steal your shirts are not doing that manually or by scraperscript. The are using the Amazon Product API. With the product API you can request pretty much any information. Like highres image, title, brand, bullet points, price, BSR, ASIN and so on.
A year ago they started restricting how easily you can get access to the product API but it is still way too simple. It would be great if the just could remove merch products from the API access. Sure, sites like that could still try to scrape the information from the product pages directly but they'd get blocked quickly by the servers for that. With the API you can literally request the data of a hundred thousand shirts in a day without any issues.
Here's an awesome tip I found to find similar keywords to your main kw:
Go on any stock photo site (fotolia, photostock, shutterstock, etc) and enter your main keyword in the search field. Find any image that matches best and look at the awesome list of related keywords :)
What a strange service mark but this is actually a business and that nonsense is their MANIFESTO.
They use it on their shopping bags that are also sold on amazon. Amazon Link
These numbers would disagree with you. $16.99 price point, plus I think there are still sales rolling in to the reporting. Also doesn't factor in organic sales due to the BSR spike (got to around 2-3k overall in clothing).
As previously said. Nothing is stopping any developer or any app or extension from adding code at any point to spy on you. It's a risk you take with any software, the benefit here is that chrome extensions are open for all to read, so you'd be an idiot to try it.
Regarding the account I'd, have a read of the documentation: https://mixpanel.com/help/reference/javascript-full-api-reference
You'll see that once that library has been initialised, to send data you need to use mixpanel.library_name.track(...); Send anything
The best part is, that Amazon recommends this one ( BSR 23,939,928) on the same page: https://www.amazon.com/Expression-Tees-Woman-Womens-T-Shirt/dp/B00SVB3P34/
:D
Bigger niche = more competition. Read Peter Thiel's book Zero to One. Although it's a book about silicon valley and startups, he does give some solid advice about picking the right market to dominate. In Thiel's book, he argues that competition eats away profit and you should always look for monopolies because they will ultimately help you succeed in business.
This quote sums it up "Don't bother starting the 10,000th restaurant in Manhattan. Find something to do that if you don't do it, it won't get done."
You can basically apply this strategy to Merch. You don't want to be the 1000th eclipse shirt or the 100,000th I love cats shirts. You're better off serving underserved niches... these niches will be small, but if you service them, you're likely to dominate it, especially if there are only 100 or less designs up and your design is far superior than your competitors.
If you apply this strategy across multiple micro niches, 1-2 sales per month per design over 100-500 designs can lead you to generate a respectable profit.
Now, why would I say your subreddit is a bad idea? Well, because if you want to succeed on Merch, you don't want to be publicly posting your ideas/listings on one of the most popular websites on the planet... you'll basically be giving away any potential advantages to your competitors.
If you're specifically looking for design feedback a better approach would be for you to create a new account on reddit and post your designs for feedback on a graphic design related subreddit where artists and designers will give you feedback. This way no one will suspect you're making a merch product and people will give you honest critiques.
As for figuring out what phrases might resonate well with people, you can do A/B testing on a reddit... create the phrase you're looking to test into a poster using an app like canva and see how many people upvote it on a related subreddit and then turn the most popular phrase into a t-shirt
It is always free: https://aws.amazon.com/free/.
"AWS Free Tier includes offers that expire 12 months following sign up and others that never expire."
Also, will not be needed at all soon for others reading this. They will not charge you for anything.
'Public domain' doesn't always mean you can use it for commercial uses, you have to read the creative commons license to see if it is safe to do so. I've seen some institutions put their work under public domain but some images were specifically asking for attribution or for the works to used for non-profit stuff.
https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-types-examples/
You want to be sure that the images you take have been waived of all rights
https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/
Obviously, I'm not offering legal advice etc etc. This is just my understanding of things.
I know it was a joke with the font thing, but it's not really an issue since the Google font database is pretty extensive. Unless someone is trying to do parody/satire/ripoff, I can't imagine needing anything else.
You can get legal font licenses for really good fonts from places like Creative Market. Usually the licenses cost less than $20 and there's some really awesome fonts on there.
When I see that shirt I think of https://www.amazon.com/M-Ms-5834554-Candy-Bath/dp/B002FVW3OS.
That company sells millions of dollars worth of goods on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/M-Ms/b/ref=w_bl_hsx_s_ho_web_2596706011?ie=UTF8&node=2596706011&field-lbr_brands_browse-bin=M%26M%27s
Amazon will kick you out before thinking about your 4 dollar royalty on your shitty shirt.
I'd say, think about text treatments you could add to these designs. What would make them directed to specific people and their interests? Then spell that out on the shirt.
When I got started on AMZ I had a lot of my own artwork ready to go on shirts, stuff that worked on Redbubble or at conventions but it got lost on Amazon because it wasn't "saying" anything specific to people's interests, occupation, diet, astrological sign, whatever.
So I added captions / text treatments to artwork I already had lying around. Just seeing what sticks. This one was a valiant effort, adding a specific occupation and keywords to a cartoon. Turns out the market isn't great for this niche but check it out-
You don't need shopify since almost all of the e-commerce features like checkout, payment etc will be handled by Amazon.
All you need is a domain name and a website and then put up the image for each item and underneath it a buy now button which redirects the customer to the listing on Amazon. You might as well add the affiliate link to your product and make even more money.
The cheapest solution for you would be to open a tumblr account, set your theme up to look like a website (yes you can do that) and then find a godaddy promo code for a 99cent url and then link that url address to your tumblr account. Basically you'll get all of this done for a buck if you do it right.
Free tumblr themes: https://www.tumblr.com/themes/tagged/free
Please check extension permissions under Chrome -> Extensions -> Productor -> Details "Websiteaccess" and check if all domains are enabled. Additionally click the first symbol from left on the Productor Dashboard -> Database called "Check/Update new products" - this will force a manual refresh: https://snipboard.io/p0otba.jpg.
Still no success, go to "Productor Settings" scroll down to "Reset Sales" and click "Reset". This will completely refresh your sales data in Productor.
In case people are interested. The 'Game of Thrones Font' is an old font called 'Trajan'. It was originally copied off the Trajan column in Rome by a guy called Henry Goudy. This was used for years by different type foundries. The first digital version of that font was created around 1989 when Adobe commisioned Carol Twombly to go back to the same column and copy it again, now claiming it as 'theirs'. So now there is a digital version (classed as software basically) that is protected, it can be purchased and used by anybody and is part of Adobe Typekit used by thousands of designers every day.
https://typekit.com/fonts/trajan
So if you purchase it you can put it on whatever you like. Alot of TV companies would have in-house a graphics departments with subscriptions to these type foundries. So the 'Game of Thrones,' font is Trajan with a few crosses here and there. The logo in that iteration and wording is probably protected but the font itself can be used by anybody who owns a licence. There is even a free version based on Goudy's original called 'Goudy Trajan.' But all that said if you're putting up shirts that are clearly making money of Game Of Thrones association then Amazon might interpret that differently regardless as to the font itself being freely available for purchase.
There's so many patterns in the world. I've learned that Pattern Design is it's own thing and it's pretty amazing. You can pull tons of inspiration here: https://creativemarket.com/graphics/patterns (be mindful that if you're going to buy a license for these, be mindful of which license you're buying as the cheaper one often doesn't cover what we're doing here)
Last night I was working and rocking the .977
80's Greatest Hits https://tunein.com/radio/977-80s-Hits-s17339/
It's the 80's Channel Internet radio, it is very good and high quality...the stream rate is like 128-256K mbps or something.
Careful with that assumption, reviews are often synchronized nowadays accross multiple markets. If you go on that fishing shirt into the reviews and translate to english you'll see that the reviews are pretty much all from canada.
That shirt on amazon.ca:
https://www.amazon.ca/Today-Tshirt-Funny-Fathers-Fishing/dp/B07CP6XZGR/
Because we live in the same household, this might help with AmazonMerch. My son applied for and got rejected too in Nov. We decided to apply 2 months later. Since we were not using the same SSN or bank account as the active account, we decided to also fix a few more things. * We fixed the IP issue by using a VPN, with use PureVPN, but if you need a free one try Ghost VPN * We applied as an app developer vs artist * We also created a new profile just for Merch on his machine to avoid cookie tracking and the other things that amazon uses. * And we used Firefox browser to re-apply with, because it does manage privacy properly.
Also the Merch FAQ clearly mentions that they monitor bank accounts to find duplicates.
This is gold! Thanks :)
I'll read Zero to One soon. Your words and his advice makes perfect sense.
I'm at Tier 25 with 0 sales for almost a month, and that's probably why. All of my designs are generic Halloween or rather large segments. I've filled up my slots for today and will try experimenting with niches with <100 competition starting tomorrow.
As far as the /r/MerchCritique sub is concerned, I'll let it exist as a sandbox for newer users to get direct feedback on what could be better. I don't mind donating a couple of my slots for polishing critical Keyword skills.
I expected every t-shirt on that sub to be a mass, generic listing and started it as an experiment. Let's see if enough like-minded people want to use it to compete in the Eclipse/kneel and other big trends.
Again, I wholeheartedly appreciate your detailed response and know that it has helped me. You're awesome! Thanks again :)
If Amazon tells you the recommended DPI then I would assume their machine can print the files at a higher overall DPI, which would make it a higher quality, wouldn't it? The more pixels per inch the higher the quality.
All it mentions when saving the file is the DPI, it doesn't mention how many inches wide it is or anything like that, like in your example. So all you have to go off is the overall DPI.
Edit: I've just checked and it's actually PPI, not DPI. The OP got it wrong, but the point still stands.
Here are some example pics to illustrate that a higher PPI= a higher quality : Image 1
Here's a design where a lot of people complain about the printed color being darker than on the web site. It's supposed to be a pink donut but it comes out darker.
Anyone with an MBA account can use any brand name (that isn't TMed by someone else) that they want, including ones already in use by one, or by thousands, of other MBA accounts. For all we know "Artist Unknown" is something MBA comes up with itself when there is a specific sort of glitch with the name (seems unlikely, as I expect the form would just bitch at you about the field being incorrect).
This isn't an MBA shirt, but thought it was interesting. It's been up since 2007. The brand is something else, but the title is "Artist Unknown mens Classic." It is a shirt for the TV show MASH:
https://www.amazon.com/S-ONE-Artist-Unknown-mens-Classic/dp/B000RL64ZW
And there is a very small brand in California: https://www.artistunknown.com/shop
Other than being a SpongeBob SquarePants reference, I'm not sure what "Artist Unknown" has to do with anything.
IDK if they enforced that for just a short period of time, or if you got flagged for something else, but I know I've always been able to use it in descriptions without any issues and as of right now it looks like you can use it in titles as well again:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09TZRN4XL
That being said, still thinking for the sake of my own sanity I may just go through and remove it everywhere.
Two ways to do this.
The first would be to create a brand page within the advertising dashboard you can pick and choose which products and even redirect via a custom domain name.
The other way if you want to take people straight to the listings would be to use Merch Wizard chrome extension they have a free and a paid tier of different features. You can select up to 75 products and create a custom link that generates search results only including only those that you selected.
So you took this vector, probably did not pay for it so you had to remove the background manually which you failed at and you want feedback?
Merch Batch Editor helps with this - https://gumroad.com/l/merchbatcheditor - you can use the discount code merchtoolsfb to get $2 off it too. It's also available on monthly subscription at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/amazon-merch-batch-editor/kbfgoomkokdnejookimcjcbdgmplfolj?hl=en
Yong from Merch Minds just recently put out a book about Typography It's specifically about typography it's definiately not a how to sell on Merch 101, but if your looking to specifically learn about typography you can't go wrong.
Exactly. OP might avoid the 30% withholding, but not US taxes if he incorporates.
Still, if you still want to incorporate, check Stripe Atlas, https://stripe.com/atlas
I think it's around USD 500, and they set up a bank account for you without traveling to USA.
Sorry, had to delete last comment. Used wrong account.*******
Turns out I didn't. I fiddled around in the Preferences -> Imported Images tab and thought I had it fixed. But I didn't. I researched more and found this link of comments from other users. It turns out that Inkscape has their DPI and Image size settings locked together. Change DPI, then you change image size. That sucks. People have made feature requests on this. A suggested workaround was to take our Inkscape files, import into GIMP, and then export with the correct DPI settings. Because GIMP treats DPI and image size independently. I guess I could shift over to GIMP entirely, but I've already invested in learning time on Inkscape, and my understanding is that Inkscape is better for digital designs, while GIMP is better for manipulating photos. I could be wrong. Either way, glad to know I'm not crazy and that other people have issues with this too.
​
Link to message board about Inkscape discussing this exact issue. Comments as recent as 2 days ago.
​
https://inkscape.org/forums/beyond/make-dpi-independent-from-export-scale/
I built myself an analytics dashboard with Notion. It's great because it can get exactly the way you want it to be. I built mine so that I can just export the CSV of the analyze page, clean it up a little (remove description columns and empty rows) and then put it into my dashboard. You probably can automate that clean up as well, but for the 2 minutes of work once a month, it's not worth it for me.
If anyone is interested in a notion example page with my set up, I might wanna take some time off my my weekend ;)
There is a personal plan that's free for a number of content blocks. With a university mail address you can get a premium plan for free as well. (And I got a REF(!) link which would give you 10 bucks credit. That's 2 months worth of premium if you want to test it).
As noted in another comment, yes your sales in each market will convert to USD if you only have a USD bank account set up, and the payout from each market will arrive as a separate transaction.
However, if you'd like to save on the currency conversions, you can configure multiple bank accounts, so that payments in EUR go to a EUR-denominated account, UKP to a UKP account, etc. You'll see an "Add Another Bank Account" button in the Payment and Banking screen that you can use to add additional accounts.
The easiest way to set up the additional bank accounts is to use a service like Wise.com ^(*), which enables you to create local bank accounts for several different currencies. Right now, the only ones applicable to Merch are UKP, USD, and EUR, but on that alone I save significantly compared to receiving everything in my USD bank account, because Wise's conversion fees and rates are better.
And I can optionally not even convert, just hold the balance, if I have planned travel (not as useful during COVID, but hopefully again in the future) or other expenses in those currencies.
If you're relatively new to Merch, setting this up might not save you enough ducats to be worth the time spent setting it up. But as your sales outside your home market increase, give it consideration. It saves me quite a bit, as my DE/UK sales are robust (if still only a fraction of US sales) and FR/IT/ES are on course to triple this year at minimum.
​
^((*) Not an affiliate link. Don't want to be spammy, but you do get free fees on your first transfer if you use an invite link, so feel free to DM me if you want it.)
Sure thing - Lets talk strategy.
Hope that helps :)
Have you tried Creative Market? Would something like this work? https://creativemarket.com/MoreVector/643523-Ripe-corn-on-the-cob-with-leaf
You’d have to buy a commercial license for POD but it’s not much for this image ($4 commercial /$12 extended commercial)
Looking at one of my earlier designs, it's titled 'Superstition Mountain Arizona'. Its been up for a while, but looking at the TESS database I see there is a trademark for Superstition Mountain and what's more, it's a clothing brand that includes t-shirts.
As such, I'm a little surprised to see my design was approved and hasn't been pulled. Is it because of the addition of 'Arizona' to the title? Or that Superstition Mountain is a common title to national landmark?
Should I take it down and retitle?
No, I was just hoping that if I put in the exact name of my product it would show up. If I search for "Okay Gamer, Let's Go Camping T-Shirt" it doesn't show up at all, as far as I can tell.
Here's one of them, they're all bible humor themed: https://www.amazon.com/God-Smoking-Creating-Galaxy-T-Shirt/dp/B083YW2MDK/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=god+smoking+bong+shirt&qid=1607359813&sr=8-1
It's bible humor sacrilegious themed, that's pretty niche eh? Haha. For example:
I just think it's weird I haven't gotten 1 single sale yet on Etsy I've got a bunch of sales. Makes me feel like I might be missing something obvious or doing something wrong? Is there a way to promote on Amazon or do pay-per-sell ads?
They just take it directly from the product page.
For example this random shirt:
has the high res product img (can zoom in):
After that just remove the dark pixels etc...
You could basically write a script that automatically pulls the highest BSR Merch shirts with the Amazon Product Advertising API, with the API you can also get the title and bullet points. Have the script spin the sentences and add/remove words, remove dark pixel from .png and reupload on your account. Luckily they have made it lately a bit harder to get API access but it's still a problem. Though they can also just do it manually.
may not be AF? what did your bullet points say? did you have it on kids sizes? designs with AF everywhere and still being uploaded and not rejected this one from today https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082QNRQ8V
"The U.S. may be the only country in the western world not to recognize intellectual property rights in typeface design. The U.S. Copyright Office has unequivocally determined that fonts are not subject to protection as artistic works under the 1976 Copyright Act."
I understand what he is saying. My point is that in the US only the software is protected. Like if you created some new software that uses some fonts in it that you don't have the commercial licenses to then that's infringing on software copyright. If you make a shirt design that has only the typeface on it but not the software font it's not infringing(in the US). At least that's how I understood it.
>Upload a shirt with the Helvetica typeface, describe the font in the description, and see what happens.
Something like this from Jan 2018? https://www.amazon.com/Typegeek-Anatomy-of-Helvetica-T-shirt/dp/B0795W4QFK/
Out of curiosity I did a search for #23. A lot of results come up, but none/not many with just "#23" as the design. AND YET, this comes up, despite not having "#23" anywhere in the keyword, name, brand, description, or anywhere else. How is that even possible?
Hey man :) It's active now. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FK8K658/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&customId=B075382QNM&psc=1
Here is an interesting niche: https://www.amazon.com/USA-flag-Lines-cocaine-T-shirt/dp/B01MXE2OIT It leaves me wondering:
- How did it pass the review process?
- Why am I even looking at the competition? (Short answer - Stuck waiting with little to do)
- Why I can't get my USA flags ranked?
Thanks for the advice. I've been having kind of a difficult time with AMS too. I have 13 live campaigns. If Amazon gave me the amount of clicks a day that I have it set for, I'd be spending about $15 a day. Instead, I spend about 25 cents a day. AMS isn't really bringing me a lot of traffic right now.
If you're using AMS, is it maxing out your daily allotted dollar amount? Maybe I need to improve my ads, IDK. My click-through rates varies a lot from shirt to shirt but on average, I'm probably getting about 1 click for every 250 impressions. When I signed up with them I got the free $50 bonus but I've been struggling to use that up. I have been thinking lately that I may not continue with it.
p.s. Here's one that sold from AMS. I had 2 clicks on it and it sold once but it doesn't show any BSR ranking on it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079Z6GXDP I know the design on that one isn't so great, I'm surprised it sold with no words. :)
I am breathing somewhat a half-sigh of relief hearing this. Thank you.
I try to learn from my mistakes also.
Good continued luck!
It's good to know you're still sailing along with 20 strikes!...that is awesome!.. But I'm still going to assume that I really don't have that much room for error @ 12.
Sometimes I think I need to give myself a break, slow down and rethink things before I get back into the hustle.
a) keep the bullet points as generic as possible
b) don't describe the brand or quality of shirt, or how fast it will get there.
It sucks because "Quality" is such a great word. If you've ever read the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, *spoiler alert ... that is pretty much what the entire book is about.
Thanks again for your feedback from the higher tiers. May your sales grow and your rejections be few or none.
Related to nothing other than this is your latest comment, Amazon just suggested this item to me. I assume know this: https://www.amazon.com/nimitz34-love/dp/B077D6T6F6/ref=pd_lutyp_im_3_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B077D6T6F6&pd_rd_r=Z5C8HST8TKSG7ZEFWXVB&pd_rd_w=zf8gz&pd_rd_wg=QOr1O&refRID=Z5C8HST8TKSG7ZEFWXVB
I would agree. I would never try to compete with them, but somehow that one shirt on top has best BSR compared to them all (10k bsr), so I'm wondering if that person is doing something different (marketing) or lucky.
https://www.amazon.com/Womens-TShirt-Plaid-Matching-Family/dp/B01MAY3LNI
As always, super actionable info, thanks. Some of other sellers will be super transparent about their keywords.
For example in this listing (https://www.amazon.com/Wife-Boss-Wifey-Shirt-T-shirt/dp/B01M9E6UHR) the 4th bulletpoint is all keywords - Mother's Day Wife Mom Boss T-Shirts and Tops. Women's Women's Funny Mom T-Shirts. Women's Wife. Mom. Boss. Funny Shirt. Wife Mom Boss Shirt. Wife Mom Boss Shirt T-Shirt Tee. Wife. Mom. Boss. Simple Minimal Funny Women Wife Mom Boss T-Shirt. Women's Boss Lady T-Shirt.
Any thoughts on that practice either good or bad? Seems like that would be easier to do than trying to write a cohesive couple sentences with all of those included.
Hey all! It kicked in today. Still more work to be done but here's an example listing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X6BJBHP/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486616880&sr=8-1&keywords=Nevertheless+she+persisted+teespring
Hey all! It kicked in today. Still more work to be done but here's an example listing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X6BJBHP/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486616880&sr=8-1&keywords=Nevertheless+she+persisted+teespring
Hey all! It kicked in today. Still more work to be done but here's an example listing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X6BJBHP/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486616880&sr=8-1&keywords=Nevertheless+she+persisted+teespring
Hey all! It kicked in today. Still more work to be done but here's an example listing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X6BJBHP/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486616880&sr=8-1&keywords=Nevertheless+she+persisted+teespring