Complete Guide To Sell T-Shirt Designs On Amazon Merch

Trying to figure out how to actually sell t-shirts for your new startup business? You might want to check out Amazon Merch, keep reading!

There are so many e-commerce websites, and Amazon is one of the biggest. Amazon’s wide range of features, scope of channels and capability of allowing the small business entrepreneur a massive platform help make is so popular. Just take a look at Amazon Prime Music, Amazon Elements, Streaming Videos, and Unlimited Photo Storage. Amazon has always looked for technological advancements and upgraded services so that it can engage more people with it.

In the last quarter of 2015, Amazon launched another super feature as Merch.

It gained popularity gradually, and now it has millions of users.

What Is ‘Amazon Merch’ or ‘Merch By Amazon’?

Merch is a platform for designers where they can upload their t-shirt designs. All you need to do is to create a design, add it to your Merch account, put some description and wait for a customer to buy it. Amazon will look after the production and shipping process. Once an order is received, they will print your design on the t-shirt and will send it to the customer. And you will enjoy the amount from Merch for your design.

Before Merch, it was challenging to target a community interested in the t-shirts only. Now, you are not required to build up your audience or a physical store to showcase your talent, as you have got Merch.

How To Get Started With Amazon Merch?

How To Get Started With Amazon Merch

First of all, you need to get yourself registered with Merch. Visit https://Merch.amazon.com/landing, and you will see below page.

Click request invitation, and you will see a page asking to fill up some information. Fill the required sections and send your invitation.

It might take some time to get your account approved by the team. Amazon does not guarantee a particular period for approval. I have seen cases where it took about 3 months for it. But do not worry, you have a lot of work to do during this period to get yourself familiar with Merch and the designing world.

  1. Go through the design format. You can download it here.
  2. Get a grip on Photoshop, Illustrator and Gimp.
  3. Do some Merch product research and keyword research.
  4. Search for some more similar platforms where you can present your designs.

Getting Familiar With The Dashboard

When you are able to access your account, you will see a dashboard after logging into your registered account. The menu along with dashboard also contains ‘create, manage, analyze’.

amazon merch dashboard

For uploading a design follow below steps,

  1. Go the top left corner and find ‘create’.
  2. Upload the design you have created.
  3. Select the product type.
  4. Choose either you want your design to be on the front or at the back of the t-shirt.
  5. Save your selection and continue.
  6. Now you are required to fill the type, colors and pricing details.
  7. Fill out all the requirements and proceed to the next section.
  8. This is about your brand and product. Add a brand name, the title of your product, key features and description if you want.

What Are Tiers and How To Tier Up?

Amazon Merch works on tiered structured. That means you have a limited uploads depending upon your tier. Initially, you will start at tier 10, and you have a limit of uploading 1 design per day till you have uploaded a total of 10 designs. You can upload more pictures once you are tier up.

For this, you will need to sell your designs. More you sell, better will be your tier. To be specific, if you are at tier 10, you will need to make 10+ sales, so that you could be eligible for a tier up. There are 9 tiers in total,

  • Tier 1 – Total of 10 designs where you can upload 1 design a day
  • Tier 2 – Total of 25 designs where you can upload 2 designs a day
  • Tier 3 – Total of 100 designs where you can upload 5 designs a day
  • Tier 4 – Total of 500 designs where you can upload 10 designs a day
  • Tier 5 – Total of 1000 designs where you can upload 20 designs a day
  • Tier 6 – Total of 2000 designs where you can upload 40 designs a day
  • Tier 7 – Total of 4000 designs where you can upload 80 designs a day
  • Tier 8 – Total of 8000 designs where you can upload 160 designs a day
  • Tier 9 – Pro ( invite only)

Understanding The 180 Day Rule

Amazon has a vision to showcase the best designs to their customers and encourage designers to come up with more creative designs. The primary purpose of your designs is to engage more customers. Suppose your design has not made any sale to 180 days, it will be removed by the Amazon. This is probably a good thing for you as it opens up a new space for a better design. If your product has made at least one sale in 180 days, it will not be removed.

Tips and Strategies That Will Help You Selling T-Shirts

There are several tips you can use to boost your sales and be prominent on Amazon Merch. Let us discuss a couple of them.

1. Optimize Your Product

Title, product description and your listed features will determine whether your design will appear on the searches or not. You need to be careful while writing title, description and features. To optimize the search in the best way, use keyword research tools for Amazon platform. Try to include your researched keyword in your brand name, the title of the product and both the features column so that you can guide Amazon to place your t-shirt to your desired position and it appears in search whenever someone finds a product with relevant keywords.

Mrs. Anna Li, from UK Essay Writing Service, says,

“A trendy keyword can always lift your product value and make it visible to the people.”

2. A Good Catchy Description

Merch gives you a chance to describe what you have created so people could have an idea what your design is about. It is an optional section, but I will recommend you always to utilize it. Try to put 4 to 5 sentences in your description of the product. Research for more than one keyword and add it in each sentence. You can also use synonyms of your researched keyword to optimize your product.

How To Come Up With A Good T-shirt Design

Above all the things you have learned and understood about Amazon Merch, this part is the most crucial one. You must have an idea of how you can attract more customers on Merch through your designs. That’s actually why you are setting up your account. Let’s discuss some key points to involve a healthy audience with your designs and creations.

1. Research Your Market

You need to analyze and specify who you are targeting with your design. I would prefer not to be general with your design. Limit it to a particular group of audience. For better understanding, divide your audience into two main groups based on gender. Create designs for girls and some for boys. Further, you need to be careful about different age groups while designing for any particular gender. Yes, there will be some designs that are best fitted for both girls and boys. Go for some of them as well.

With the growth of your tier, you can include designs based on professions, holidays and special occasions.

2. Be Trendy

Everyone is looking for things that are up to the standard of the modern world. We are attracted to the products that are new, fashionable and makes sense. So, you need to try to be updated what’s in the trend. People like designs that are unique and humorous.

3. Give Your T-Shirts A Cool Look

Utilize the font style and size. Use bold texts and suitable colors with your design. People like good slogans and catchy headlines with the designs in their t-shirts. You can utilize tools like Assignment Guarantee to generate engaging headlines for your t-shirt designs.

4. Full Fill The Customer’s Demand

Try to be as seasonal as possible. For example, display lighter colors in summers and design your t-shirts accordingly. In the winters, people like more dark colors. Similarly, upload designs based on different religious and social events like Halloween, Christmas and etc.