Yessssssssssssssssssssssssss, I finally received the email the other from Merch by Amazon saying that they have now accepted me on to their programme after 6 very long months of waiting!!! I wrote an article about Merch way back in August and since then it's been a waiting game, checking my account every other day hoping that I'd get approved and at last they let me in. I had to re-apply for this a few weeks ago and it now looks like they are implementing a stricter application process where you really have to give a good rationale of why you would be an asset to their programme and what you can add to it. I guess there trying to prevent a load of copycats and low quality designs (even more) from hitting their inventory. What is Merch by Amazon? For those of you who have never heard of this before, the reason I'm so excited is that Merch is a fantastic opportunity for you to earn decent money with very little hassle as long as you possess a bit of creativity and research skills. The business model is basically selling Tshirts (and now hoodies) online via Amazon. All the sellers need to do is create unique designs in a .png file, which they can upload into Amazon, add a title and a basic description and then the product listings page will be made. You get to chose the price that you market your Tshirts at (minimum is about $13.50 at the moment) and you get to keep the difference. Most Tshirts are retailing at around $19.99 so you get to make $6 - 7 per Tshirt sold. That might not sound like a huge amount but if you get on a trend or design a Tshirt that people really love then this can lead to big bucks pretty quickly. More than anything, however, it sounds like Merch is a numbers game, and the more Tshirts you list, the more chance you have of selling. The Tiered Approach Amazon starts you off with a maximum of 10 Tshirt slots that you can fill with different designs and when you sell 10 shirts, you get tiered up to a total of 25 slots. After you sell 25, you go to 100, then 500, 1000, etc. People really start to make the big bucks in the 1000+ tiers, and from what I've read so far this is an extremely good business, not only as a side hustle, but potentially as a full time earner in the future. The beauty of this for me is that once you've created your designs, there is practically no customer service involved and all you need to do is make sure your slots are filled and keep uploading designs. Again, this is something that you should be able to easily scale if you can find a good, cheap outsourced designer and supply them with good Tshirt ideas Is Merch by Amazon too Saturated? Well, on the face of it if you do a quick search of Tshirts then you will find that practically every niche has been covered to some extent, especially the large niches. However, again, the riches are going to be in the long tail and in the smaller niches. If you can tap into a small niche that people are passionate about then you'll surely be able to make solid returns. The other thing to remember is that Amazon will release more products over time (recently hoodies and long sleeved Tshirts have been released) and they should open this programme up to more countries. I for one, want to have a stock of Tshirts designed and ready to go when they bring the programme to the UK. How to Get out of the Early Tiers? It's a well known fact that Amazon doesn't tier up or push users up to the next level that frequently, however, when they do, you want to make sure that you have fulfilled the criteria and are ready to get moved on. One of the easiest ways to do this is just to buy your own Tshirts and this is something I am seriously considering doing, at least for tier 10, and maybe even for tier 25. I mean what's an investment of $300 if this means that you can get to the larger tiers a lot quicker? I have a few other tricks up my sleeve as well. I spent the last few months making mug designs using the Low Hanging System, which hasn't made me much money yet, but means I've been exposed to researching lots of niches and have a stock of designs ready made that I can upload into Amazon for Tshirts as well. The other option I have is my soccer website is gradually getting a bit of traction and I'm getting just under 5,000 visits a month to the site now. This is a captive audience of soccer lovers and with the World Cup just around the corner there is surely something there that I can exploit to sell Tshirts as well!!! Summary If you haven't done it yet then make sure you get on over to Merch by Amazon and register an account. I've got a really good feeling about this and I think with the Knowledge I've gained from looking at niches for my affiliate sites, eBay dropshipping and the Low Hanging System I should be able to make this work. I've also got a great Virtual Assistant that will be able to help me with the uploading and chores that will no doubt be involved so watch this space and I'll let you know how I get on. Have Your Say Let me know in the comments below if you've had any good, bad or ugly experiences with Merch by Amazon. Is Merch by Amazon worthwhile? How much work do you need to put into Merch? How much are you making from Merch by Amazon at the moment.
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