Amazon FBA, Merch By Amazon..

[OrganicJ]

How is everyone's sales and returns doing post Christmas? I have slowed down to about a quarter of my pre-Christmas sales and am seeing a spike in returns.

I am thinking of focusing on getting my sales number higher by lowering prices of shirts as I want to get a tier up before sales start cranking up in Q2. Any thoughts?

 

[maldonado]

How is everyone's sales and returns doing post Christmas? I have slowed down to about a quarter of my pre-Christmas sales and am seeing a spike in returns.

I am thinking of focusing on getting my sales number higher by lowering prices of shirts as I want to get a tier up before sales start cranking up in Q2. Any thoughts?

My sales suck since Christmas lol

bad.

I aint trippin though, I expected it.

Def seeing returns too, but also expected.

Now is the best time, if there ever was one, to employ the low price strategy.

Thats kind of my strategy all year, except for Q4.

I will be reverting back to that strategy. I actually start 90% of my shirts at cost - $12.87 and then raise accordingly, depending on different things.

Not sure if ya'll saw but there will be a tiny decrease in royalties on t shirts (I expected a much bigger decrease) and an astronomical increase in profits on long sleeves, sweatshirts and hoodies. I sell a lot of sweatshirts and hoodies too so pretty excited about that.

Right now I am getting about $9 on my hoodies priced around $45 and when the price change goes into effect I will get around $15.

Today I finally got to $6k profit for December, I didnt think I was going to make it with how slow sales have gotten since Christmas.

pretty happy with my Q4 results, especially December

I took about a week off and with the first day of 2019 upon us tomorrow I am ready to get back into the game and go even harder than 2018.

I wish ya'll much success and hope you guys/gals surpass your goals this year

 

[turbospartan]

My best month ever... 57 sales and 1 return.

77 live designs

I wish I would've uploaded another 420 design sometime in the last 5+ months. Ahh well.

 

[debso]

I want in on this.
Do I need to make my art vector first? Can we scan in sketches or?
Also, is copywrite infringement an issue if I draw marvel characters or something?

 

[OrganicJ]

I want in on this.
Do I need to make my art vector first? Can we scan in sketches or?
Also, is copywrite infringement an issue if I draw marvel characters or something?

You can upload in any of the formats you want just make sure it is the right sizes of image for the merchandise. Sketches, vectors whatever.

Copyright infringement is a huge concern of Amazon. Don't remotely try to get close to infringing someone's copyrighted or trademarked work as Amazon will revoke you account quickly if they view you are trying to infringe with intent or if you make too many mistakes. I suggest reading up on what you can and cannot do. https://merch.amazon.com/resource/201858630 will get you started understanding the policies. There are things that are in the public domain you can do due to the time that has passed etc, so look into the specifics of whatever you want to draw.

 

[debso]

Thanks. Hopefully I can make some bread and get out of corporate America. I'm pretty artistic...

 

[2 RAWW]

Man how are returns looking for you guys this month? It feels like Amazon is screwing me over. I have double digit returns already this month. I may end up with a negative balance at the end of it

 

[dathbgboy]

Wife and I are considering doing this, how much of a chunk does Amazon usually take out of your profits?

 

[maldonado]

Man how are returns looking for you guys this month? It feels like Amazon is screwing me over. I have double digit returns already this month. I may end up with a negative balance at the end of it

Man returns are horrible right now.

Yesterday I finished with a negative balance for the day..

What sucks is, January is prob the biggest month for returns since Xmas just passed so you have that going on, coupled with sales being ****ty for the same reason: post-Xmas time.

Not really Amazons fault though, thats just retail sales for you. Guarantee everybody is feeling it. Check Target or any retail stores customer service/returns lines and its just that time of year. The increased Q4 sales naturally comes with returns in the first month of the next year. **** does suck though

Wife and I are considering doing this, how much of a chunk does Amazon usually take out of your profits?

Just depends on the product but for example, on a standard t shirt, single sided print Amazon keeps the first $12.87. That covers inventory, the price of the shirt, printing the design, shipping and customer service. Amazon owns the warehouses that house the products and the printers (which retail for roughly $500k) and provides the traffic.

There is no overhead or risk.

You set the price so depending on what you set it at will determine your royalty.

When I price a single-sided print t shirt for $19.99 I make $5.38 royalty iirc

You can see my December numbers above on the screenshot.

I sold like $26k worth of shirts and made $6k

 

[osek206]

Positing for future, I'm hella interested in this.

Wtf amazing took 20k profit?!! That's legit insane.

 

[turbospartan]

Positing for future, I'm hella interested in this.

Wtf amazing took 20k profit?!! That's legit insane.

They do all of the work, besides uploading the design and writing 2 bullet points.

The buy/stock the blank shirts, they buy the super expensive printers, they provide the shipping, they provide the customer service, they provide the marketplace (biggest factor, IMO), etc.

Its definitely not the cheapest method, but like maldonado said... there is zero risk for you as the content creator. Upload your designs and bullet points, if someone buys - Amazon handles everything from that point on.

 

[osek206]

They do all of the work, besides uploading the design and writing 2 bullet points.

The buy/stock the blank shirts, they buy the super expensive printers, they provide the shipping, they provide the customer service, they provide the marketplace (biggest factor, IMO), etc.

Its definitely not the cheapest method, but like maldonado said... there is zero risk for you as the content creator. Upload your designs and bullet points, if someone buys - Amazon handles everything from that point on.

Wow pretty amazing makes way more sense, especially if you can profit close to a half a mil eventually.

 

[flyknitlvr]

Wtf amazing took 20k profit?!! That's legit insane.

Huh? After all's said and done, a 20-25% profit margin is quite good.

 

[maldonado]

Positing for future, I'm hella interested in this.

Wtf amazing took 20k profit?!! That's legit insane.

Not at all.

Thats DEF not $20k profit for Amazon.

Amazon is responsible for everything.

My only asset and input is the design itself. Thats it.

I didn't spend a single penny on anything. Didnt have to take on any risks with inventory, nothing.

Amazon provides the most retail traffic in the internet. Plus they foot the bill on the entire operation.

Because of it that 20k is nowhere close to their actual profit. You would need to subtract all of those costs listed above to get to their true cut.

On a shirt priced at $19.99 I get $5.38 profit off top.
They'd be lucky to get $6 profit out of the rest of that $13 left after they subtract all of the costs.

Huh? After all's said and done, a 20-25% profit margin is quite good.

Most def.

 

[iamdef]

On a shirt priced at $19.99 I get $5.38 profit off top.
They'd be lucky to get $6 profit out of the rest of that $13 left after they subtract all of the costs.

I'd wager to say that Amazon's overhead for these shirts is smaller than we think. You can get custom printed shirts at $.50 or less when buying huge amounts so I'd think when you consider the amount of shirts and printing and shipping they use and the discount that comes from all of that Amazon walks away with something not too far from $13

 

[turbospartan]

I'd wager to say that Amazon's overhead for these shirts is smaller than we think. You can get custom printed shirts at $.50 or less when buying huge amounts so I'd think when you consider the amount of shirts and printing and shipping they use and the discount that comes from all of that Amazon walks away with something not too far from $13

$0.50 for a printed shirt? Not sure I believe that.

Even buying bulk blank shirts with huge contract deals, I doubt they get the shirts alone for that much. Then you factor in the $500k each machines (of which they probably have quite a few of them). Then factor in the ink and maintenance on those machines (contracts worth probably hundreds of thousands of dollars per year). Then factor in the labor they use in their printing warehouses to unload the blank shirts, load them into the machines, reload ink, package the shirts, etc. Then factor in the packaging of the shirt itself, the cost of shipping, the cost of maintaining their website, what they pay the people who review/approve the designs, etc.

I just highly doubt that their total operating costs are less than a dollar per shirt.

 

[iamdef]

I've seen wholesale deals for $. 10 a shirt but I obviously don't have anything legit I'm going on so I'm just assuming and guessing

 

[dathbgboy]

Man returns are horrible right now.

Yesterday I finished with a negative balance for the day..

What sucks is, January is prob the biggest month for returns since Xmas just passed so you have that going on, coupled with sales being ****ty for the same reason: post-Xmas time.

Not really Amazons fault though, thats just retail sales for you. Guarantee everybody is feeling it. Check Target or any retail stores customer service/returns lines and its just that time of year. The increased Q4 sales naturally comes with returns in the first month of the next year. **** does suck though



Just depends on the product but for example, on a standard t shirt, single sided print Amazon keeps the first $12.87. That covers inventory, the price of the shirt, printing the design, shipping and customer service. Amazon owns the warehouses that house the products and the printers (which retail for roughly $500k) and provides the traffic.

There is no overhead or risk.

You set the price so depending on what you set it at will determine your royalty.

When I price a single-sided print t shirt for $19.99 I make $5.38 royalty iirc

You can see my December numbers above on the screenshot.

I sold like $26k worth of shirts and made $6k

Oh ok, I just jumped in so I'm not up to what you all are selling. Once I got back a few pages it'll make sense. Thank for the info.

 

[smedroc]

Some movement in the thread!

Good to hear you guys did well over Christmas

I was expecting to get bodied on returns but it’s not even hit double figures. I sold 600 and I was expecting 100 to come back

Jan is going better than anticipated also.

Those Lique numbers are crazy. It’s funny cause I just spotted his shirts today for the first time when I was doing research.

Seems like dude is just flooding all the niches. Pure volume. That’s where reinvesting and scaling pays off. Definitely inspiring!

I’m getting tiered up to 4000 soon. Got 1200 live at present. That’s 2800 slots I need to fill with as many unique designs as possible Ideally before Halloween/Q4. I’m going to have to start paying dudes and save myself the RSI in my right hand.

 

[OrganicJ]

I was also expecting more returns, especially as I got hit with some early returns, but it quickly stopped happening.

smedroc nice sale rate for Christmas. Did you target Christmas shirts or was it mostly evergreen sales?

I have found January sales to be excellent, but that the consumer is more price sensitive. What is everyone else finding?

 

[All Ready]

how did y’all find people to help create designs for those of you who don’t create yourself?

 

[maldonado]

how did y’all find people to help create designs for those of you who don’t create yourself?

I do 90% of my designs but have found folks on Upwork.

Onlinejobs.ph has been good for people too, Lique found one of his designers on that site.

 

[All Ready]

I do 90% of my designs but have found folks on Upwork.

Onlinejobs.ph has been good for people too, Lique found one of his designers on that site.

appreciate it, I have been accepted to the program but haven’t uploaded any work yet

I prefer to design myself but haven’t done graphic design in years and I’m super rusty

I’m pretty much back to a beginners level

 

[maldonado]

appreciate it, I have been accepted to the program but haven’t uploaded any work yet

I prefer to design myself but haven’t done graphic design in years and I’m super rusty

I’m pretty much back to a beginners level

Bro I had never opened graphic design software in my life before getting an account.

Even now, some of my best sellers are simple text designs. Bold font, no fluff. Just words.

Find a niche or following and throw up something funny, a pun, anything that folks can relate to or would resonate.

Go to Amazon and see what kind of phrases are selling and go from there.

I can tell you I have had some dope designs done up by a great designer and time and again the stuff that sells consistently isnt that stuff, its the simple stuff I made myself lol

 

[All Ready]

Bro I had never opened graphic design software in my life before getting an account.

Even now, some of my best sellers are simple text designs. Bold font, no fluff. Just words.

Find a niche or following and throw up something funny, a pun, anything that folks can relate to or would resonate.

Go to Amazon and see what kind of phrases are selling and go from there.

I can tell you I have had some dope designs done up by a great designer and time and again the stuff that sells consistently isnt that stuff, its the simple stuff I made myself lol

appreciate all the info

I’m just stuck in a clothing line mindset which I used to do

thanks