Amazon Merch (Advanced) with Chris Green – Session 003

Richard Morgan
August 11, 2017

[et_bloom_inline optin_id=optin_3]

There’s a new frontier for ecommerce sellers, Merch by Amazon is the new print on-demand t-shirt business that Amazon is funding and it gives you access to $500k hi-tech printers for your business for free. Chris Green is here on Seller Sessions to talk through everything Amazon Merch. If you are an FBA or Amazon Seller then Chris explains why you have a huge leg-up with Merch by Amazon.

We talk through how to get an Amazon Merch account setup, what steps you need to follow also what are the pitfalls in this new business and what you need to do to protect yourself and workaround any problems. The research is explained and how to find the keywords and themes to focus your designs around for the most sales. We also give you some tactics to de-risk your sales by finding shirts that are already doing well in niches you can join.

Chris also takes you through the abundance mindset and how Merch is so early and growing that there is more than enough for everyone to do really well with Merch by amazon.

A bit about Chris Green

Started June 2008 – was a big eBay seller
Good at spotting a lot of opportunities
Merch is the biggest opportunity for real people right now – it’s great
Leader in Merch by Amazon
Did Kindle books and did well on Amazon
When Amazon Merch came along
- On-demand products
- Print on-demand printers

Easy Starting on Amazon Merch

Amazon Merch has no costs involved up-front
It’s t-shirts currently but will be more products
Easy start up on Merch:
- Sign-up to Merch by Amazon
- Upload an image
- Right format 4500×5400, Transparent background and PNG file format
- Give it a title and a price for your product
- You don’t pay the costs until someone buys your t-shirt
They do mens, women, youth sizes
There are 18 colours and these are ‘Prime’ eligible too
No customer service or returns
You put up a t-shirt and get all your friends to buy one – you could make $7 on a $20 shirt giving you $700 in a weekend when your 100 friends buy it

We talk Royalties and not Margins

Some people are ‘sellers’ at heart and because some want to do creative work and enjoy designing Amazon Merch can be a great option here
You can outsource designs for selling on Amazon Merch which helps you leverage a skill and build a team
There are some secrets to marketing on Merch though
Stimulating the algorithm – how do you do it on Amazon Merch?
- Sponsored ads
- 160 chars in the title
- No backend search term
- We have bullet points and description

How to sell

Have a great design and make a good product this will help you win sales
Use a Good title and description so as to hook customers
Offer at a Good price point to ensure you are competitive
Amazon will take down shirts that don’t sell which will impact your sales
If they don’t sell in 90 days then it’s not going to sell and you should take it down or revise the design
Use Facebook ads to market it and pixel the reader so that you can re-target them around the web

You licence your t-shirt to Amazon

You can have an Amazon Associate account to market your t-shirt and send traffic to Amazon
96% of Amazon Merch sellers are not doing this promotion and marketing
You do a little bit of work and you can be leaps ahead
Print on demand is growing on Amazon
FBA is going to change and you need to adapt
Do what you’re best at, selling, FBA, Kindle, creative, etc

Benefits of Amazon Merch

Merch by amazon – really anybody can do it with no cost
There is no ‘inventory’ needed therefore no need to invest in a container or freight up-front
No samples to buy because everything is printed on-demand at time fo sale
There’s a whole EU pilot going on currently
Amazon Merch is going to be in Japan

Strategy to sell on Merch

People doing FB ads but with a cold audience and seeing no progress as using ‘1st click’ attribution and expecting sales – when they don’t come quickly they drop it before a return
You should be looking at how to ‘warm up’ the audience most of all to be receptive to your offer
Look to create a ‘group’ of t-shirts that follow a theme which will make your sales much better
Drive external traffic to the shirts and spend some money to stimulate sales
Drive traffic to create sales – might be $100 to warm them up but it’s an investment in sales
This traffic then grows organically and begins to rank and sell thereby making you more money
Where can you find this targeted traffic?

Using AMS to market your Amazon Merch t-shirts

Using AMS can be an advantage to FBA sellers who have AMS from the vendor programme
AMS can be used to market your shirts because you can select and search by ASINs
You can create headline Ads for your designs and this enables you to market more effectively
Your common old Merch designer may not be able to make the leap to AMS
AMS is great for watering the Money Tree that is your Merch account
AMS lets you promote someone else’s ASIN and your t-shirt is an ASIN that you’re licensing to Amazon
You can make more variations of Ads and they will appear on competitor listings too
Creating visibility for your design does not turn into money unless you are sending the right traffic to the design

Amazon Merch as a startup

You can design and test hundreds of shirts for not a lot of money to find what sells
Use peopleperhour.com to find good designers for a cheap price as they are overseas
Your skill is in coming up with the research
Use Zazzle, Cafepress and Amazon will tell you what the popular shirts are and then ask your designer to make those kinds of shirts
Value is subjective so design for sales don’t design for you
Text based t-shirts sell amazingly well in lots of cases

Tools / Research

Merchresearch.com – the Junglescout for Merch?
- Enter your keyword and it will show you the t-shirts that have that keyword in their listing
See what’s selling on Amazon – Amazon puts it in ‘relevance’ order which isn’t exactly sales rank order but you can see what’s selling
You can spot under-served niches or see the high seller ranks on shirts

Issues with Merch

The copycat issue – others might copy your design and post their own shirts lifting your description, titles, bullets
Amazon are working hard on resolving this, might still have a problem on off-Amazon sites
You can report these to Amazon and they trap these problems quickly if you report it
Don’t worry about it too much – Amazon is still a place for great customers and plenty of royalties because you can just make more t-shirts and enjoy the royalties
Also, if you have copycats then you’re probably doing something right
Avoid copyright and trademark infringement also go to the USPTO.gov website for trademarks clothing apparel
You need to stay on top of these areas and keep yourself clean because penalties can be painful
Go hire a lawyer and make sure you’re supported
Just because you see a Star Wars shirt up there – doesn’t mean you can post Star Wars shirts too!

A True Sit on the Beach Business

This is the true ‘sit on the beach’ business with royalty payments coming into you from anywhere in the world with just a laptop and internet connection
You can partner with others – so a designer, a copywriter/researcher and a marketer and you can then have a good business with the right skills – work to your strengths
The benefit of trusting others is a big positive in scaling your business
There is more benefit to trusting and doing business than stalling or never getting started for the fear of getting copycat impact
Have an abundance mindset and also share as you get more back in return
The more of us in the Merch business means it’s also growing it for us all and bringing in more customers
Theodore Roosevelt – “comparison is the thief of joy”
Go where there is already demand and go for local businesses and tell them you will create the t-shirts for them
Amazon has $500k printers that you can use for free this gives such an ability to you so go and find people to experience that value from you

Research – where to find trends for designs

How do you jump on topical themes to bring about new designs to ride the wave
What are the trending keywords
The “basket of deplorables” Clinton quote was a huge t-shirt seller and The Brexit theme was also a great t-shirt
Tomorrow nobody will be talking about it so move quickly with the themes
In US use Fox News, CNN, Yahoo and Buzzfeed for trends and see opportunity to jump in for relevant themes
Go to the best sellers on Zazzle, Cafe Express and Amazon to see what’s selling also go use Google Trends to see what has searches but not a lot of products available