Amazon FBA, Merch By Amazon..

[maldonado]

Debso - yup just reapply with a different email.

I know a few people that got denied and they reapplied with whatever it took - 1, 2, 3 emails if necessary

Most eventually got in

 

[turbospartan]

maldonado - other than Pretty Merch, what else are you using / paying for?

 

[maldonado]

maldonado - other than Pretty Merch, what else are you using / paying for?

Other than Pretty Merch just Merch Informer but I dont really use the research aspect of it much anymore. I do all of my research directly on Amazon.com and other websites.

What I use is the Designer on Merch Informer for almost all of my design work.

Trying to take the time to start working out of Adobe illustrator instead but I can knock out stuff so much quicker and I've been ramping up getting my slots filled so not sure when I'm gonna make the switch. Still gotta take the time to get past the learning curve with AI

But that's pretty much it. I got in at the introductory rate of $5/month for Pretty Merch and I think I pay $10 or so for Merch Informer

I use some free chrome plug ins but that's it for paid stuff

 

[getback]

Sheesh I'm still sitting here with 10 designs and no sales in 2 months.

 

[turbospartan]

Sheesh I'm still sitting here with 10 designs and no sales in 2 months.

Either your designs aren't good or your listings aren't good. Or too saturated of a niche.

Link one if you want to and we can take a look

 

[isyouserious]

How have I never enterd this thread. Super intrested in this. Will be watching this thread closely. Been thinking of shirts and stuff all day long.

 

[getback]

Either your designs aren't good or your listings aren't good. Or too saturated of a niche.

Link one if you want to and we can take a look

Amazon product ASIN B07PBPY5HQ

 

[turbospartan]

That's actually pretty decent IMO. I would just try to beef up your description keywords.

Here is a similar skateboarding shirt that is higher up in the rnakings, and has a lot more keywords in the description that it shows up whenever someone searches for any of those words

Amazon product ASIN B07PHRYY2H

• Kick Flip Repeat Vintage Skate T-Shirt
• Do you love to skateboard? Perfect day spent at the park doing tricks like grind, ollie, fakie, kickflip, pop shove, heelflip and 180? Love your deck, trucks and wheels? Ride goofy? Love a good half pipe, rail or ramp? Makes a great sk8 skater gift!

I use this link to search for ideas / similar shirts, and to see how much competition is already in that niche:

https://merchinformer.com/merch-amazon-listings/


Then again, I'm not selling a ton like maldonado and others. I'm T500, have like 50 designs active... and sell ~10-15 shirts a month. I need to step my **** up, haven't really uploaded much for the last 4+ months besides a few.

 

[getback]

Yeah that's much better, design and keywords. Thanks for the tip. I need to take a class on photoshop or GIMP.

 

[turbospartan]

Yeah that's much better, design and keywords. Thanks for the tip. I need to take a class on photoshop or GIMP.

Ehh I don't think your design is that bad, there's just a lot of competition. If someone types in "skateboarding t-shirt" in Amazon... yours is gonna be on like page 60+. No one typically scrolls that many pages, so you need to differentiate to stand out or grab a less common phrase, like kickflip. If you use the search link I sent, there are only 4 pages worth of Merch shirts that contain the word "kickflip". So you'd have a better chance of being seen by a buyer, if they search for that term. When I use that same link and search for "skateboard" - it pulls 68 pages, which is probably way too many for someone to take the time to get to.

The newer your design, the less sales it has, no ratings = at the very last page. That's why some people buy out their designs, because it gives them sales which increases their BSR (Best Sellers Rank) and can help their design creep up closer to the first page / slot.

 

[OrganicJ]

Yeah that's much better, design and keywords. Thanks for the tip. I need to take a class on photoshop or GIMP.

My view is if you are after sales to get out of tier 10 then just price at cost. Your design is a good start, but you are in a competitive niche, so if you want to price similar to the top sellers in the niche, your design has to be better than theirs to get traction or of similar quality and priced lower. The design level of Merch by Amazon has been dramatically improving, so I would try to step up your design game and to find niches you can be competitive in. If you are going to use Adobe products, I would suggest illustrator over photoshop as most apparel work is done in Vectors. There are lots of great resources online to get you going and I am happy to point you to some that I have found useful. Shoot me a pm if that is the case. Those first few sales are the toughest ones, but the grind is real and does not really stop. Goodluck!

 

[debso]

Rejected again...

 

[OrganicJ]

Rejected again...

What did you write to Amazon in your application?

 

[flaminhotcheeto]

That's actually pretty decent IMO. I would just try to beef up your description keywords.

Here is a similar skateboarding shirt that is higher up in the rnakings, and has a lot more keywords in the description that it shows up whenever someone searches for any of those words

Amazon product ASIN B07PHRYY2H

• Kick Flip Repeat Vintage Skate T-Shirt
• Do you love to skateboard? Perfect day spent at the park doing tricks like grind, ollie, fakie, kickflip, pop shove, heelflip and 180? Love your deck, trucks and wheels? Ride goofy? Love a good half pipe, rail or ramp? Makes a great sk8 skater gift!

I use this link to search for ideas / similar shirts, and to see how much competition is already in that niche:

https://merchinformer.com/merch-amazon-listings/


Then again, I'm not selling a ton like maldonado and others. I'm T500, have like 50 designs active... and sell ~10-15 shirts a month. I need to step my **** up, haven't really uploaded much for the last 4+ months besides a few.

Good stuff here. I’m lazy/uncreative with my key words and descriptions

 

[solewoman]

Good stuff here. I’m lazy/uncreative with my key words and descriptions

Do you sell well?

 

[MrClean510]

Yall still eating? I've been trying to get into this for a min tbh

 

[maldonado]

Yall still eating? I've been trying to get into this for a min tbh

I should do about $3k profit this month.

Goal is still $5k-$10k/month for the non-Q4 months. Should hopefully be there by the end of the year.

Q4 goal this year is $25k, I did half that last year so..

I know folks doing up to 8x what I'm doing

 

[debso]

What did you write to Amazon in your application?

I dont remember tbh. Oh well...guess I'll...I'm not sure actually.

 

[getback]

I should do about $3k profit this month.

Goal is still $5k-$10k/month for the non-Q4 months. Should hopefully be there by the end of the year.

Q4 goal this year is $25k, I did half that last year so..

I know folks doing up to 8x what I'm doing

 

[OrganicJ]

I dont remember tbh. Oh well...guess I'll...I'm not sure actually.

I suspect what you write it more important than the artwork you show them. Try to really dial that down if you apply again. Good luck.

 

[smedroc]

I should do about $3k profit this month.

Goal is still $5k-$10k/month for the non-Q4 months. Should hopefully be there by the end of the year.

Q4 goal this year is $25k, I did half that last year so..

I know folks doing up to 8x what I'm doing

You’re cooking fam How many uploads you got atm??

I’m at 1k a month at present. Hoping to be close to 2k before Q4 rolls around.

Also want to hit tier 8000 before Q4. I’ll have 4000 total sales by next month but i’ve got to upload another 1600 products to meet the minimum requirements.

Doing all the work myself atm. I need the bread so can’t rock with designers until I hit a certain level.

For anyone who’s having trouble getting sales check out RJ Martinez and Merch Elephant on YouTube. Great free content/info regarding merch.

 

[maldonado]

You’re cooking fam How many uploads you got atm??

I’m at 1k a month at present. Hoping to be close to 2k before Q4 rolls around.

Also want to hit tier 8000 before Q4. I’ll have 4000 total sales by next month but i’ve got to upload another 1600 products to meet the minimum requirements.

Doing all the work myself atm. I need the bread so can’t rock with designers until I hit a certain level.

For anyone who’s having trouble getting sales check out RJ Martinez and Merch Elephant on YouTube. Great free content/info regarding merch.

Thanks bro I'm tier 6k but almost eligible for tier 8k.

I'm same boat right now, doing everything myself.

Living situation changed at the top of the year so dont have the extra atm but every month has been better than the previous so I'm content.

Yup RJ and Matt (merch Elephant) are the homies. They interviewed me on their YT channel (Joseph Gallegos), feel free to check it out yall

 

[turbospartan]

Do you guys pay for his "list of research ideas" ?

Still doing mostly text or illustrations too?

 

[maldonado]

I dont pay but they courtesy'd me into their private Slack group (with the list) because I'm already in a mastermind slack group with those dudes and they hooked all of us up.

I looked over the last list and maybe used 2 or 3 ideas but I already do much of the same research myself.

I can see some people benefitting though.

I haven't paid for any designs in months and almost all of my designs are text only or text with a small complimentary graphic.

Once I bought some fonts and starting utilizing those over the free ones I was using I noticed it translated to more consistent sales.

Bold, distressed fonts, if I'm doing female targeted designs I'll use fonts females will dig, etc.

Stepped up my font/placement game and I've been straight.

 

[maldonado]

Tip:
If/Whenever yall do shell out some bread for outsourced designs/illustrations, request design elements instead of requesting full designs (with text/etc).

For example, instead of requesting a st Patrick's design with a leprechaun and a specific phrase, just request a leprechaun.

Then flip that leprechaun design into tens or hundreds of designs yourself by doing phrases with different fonts.

I went back and chopped design elements out of the designs I had requested and made a grip of new designs with new phrases and have multiples selling.

Recycle and reuse them ****s