The Newbie Entrepreneur Dream: Merch by Amazon

Why are freelancers, artists, designers and even major companies rushing to get into Merch by Amazon? In a lot of ways Merch by Amazon is a newbie entrepreneur’s dream come true.

In a time that Amazon introduced their Merch by Amazon program year ago, it was the 15th way that users could make money with them. In short period it created such a hype that currently new members are accepted by invitation only with the usual waiting period of 3–6 months.

What is Merch by Amazon?

Merch by Amazon is a do-it-yourself program developed specifically to assist people to earn income through selling branded t-shirts. These products will be designed by the seller but will be manufactured, distributed and sold by Amazon. A result of this is a Print-On-Demand service, you will only be selling the t-shirts that your consumers are interested in purchasing.

Is it a new idea?

It is not even remotely the first Print-On-Demand platform for T-Shirt designers. In fact, it is quite late compared to other big players such as Zazzle, CofePress, CustomInk and others. Other players are not limited only with T-shirts as Merch is, and provide a wide range of clothing or other media on which you can print your designs.

The major advantage that has people in a lather to join the program is free access to Amazon’s large marketplace. The number of prospective customers shopping on Amazon translates into much higher sales potential than other competitive and more specialized sites. Results of testing sales on Merch to other P-O-D platforms is a significant increase in sales no matter sellers use the identical design on all tested platforms.

What are benefits?

No costs for starting, if you know how to design then you are literary without running costs. Stil even without knowledge of creating a design, it is quite simple to hire a freelance designer on Fiverr to do the job instead of you. The complete process of preparing design and shirts is done online through the simple user interface. Making thousands of dollars per month in such simple process makes Merch by Amazon appealing to many.

Also, no need to bother yourself with making accounts, taking stock or incurring out of pocket expenses. Once any of the t-shirt designed by you is sold, you secure a royalty. The more t-shirts sold, the more the royalty you get. It is that simple.

How to participate in Merch by Amazon?

Getting started is easy once you got invited, and once the ball is set rolling, just within a few hours, your custom t-shirts will be selling across the world on Amazon, and your royalty will begin to spike.

Currently, the program is limited to by-invitation-only. The process of requesting for an invitation is quite simple (using any active personal or business Amazon account). Current waiting period is three to six months.

Even before receiving an invitation, you can start making your designs to save time. After your request has been approved, you then just proceed to the Merch by Amazondashboard and upload it there. You will subsequently place the uploaded artwork on a shirt and choose up to 5 colors for each uploaded design. It is also important to know that if you are finding difficulties making your custom design you can easily take advantage of Amazon templates to create your artwork.

Who determines prices?

Since you get a royalty on each t-shirt that is sold, it is important that you set your list price because your fee earned on each t-shirt will be dependent on the list price you set for that t-shirt. Amazon’s cost and a small listing fee will be deducted from your set list price, and then you have your royalty. You need not worry about the calculations; Amazon has made it easy for you to calculate your fee. You just need to input your list price into the royalty calculator, and it will be spontaneously calculated for you. One impressive thing about the royalty, however, is that the royalty percentage is not static. It is naturally expected that the expenses accrued to Amazon on a custom t-shirt will reduce over time due to an increase in the sale of the t-shirts; if such occurs your royalty percentage also increases. This means the savings are being passed on to you.

How is marketing made ?

This can happen in two ways. First, Amazon will provide a page on Amazon.com for each of your t-shirt designs. To an ordinary customer, it would just be buying a regular shirt on Amazon, but to your specific customers, it would be your design and they will also be eligible to get customer benefits such as Prime shipping. This product page gives you the opportunity to add links to your t-shirts when you are promoting it on your blog, social media platform which can be Facebook, Twitter or even on your website. You can consciously promote the sale of your t-shirts without penalty.

Secondly, Amazon has made it possible for you to include your t-shirt promotions on iOS, Android and Fire OS devices. They will be seen as house ads. This is implemented through Amazon’s current cross-platform Amazon Mobile Ads API. This is obviously a great opportunity for you to put your t-shirt out there through these Ads.

Merch by Amazon started as the idea to have a platform for mobile video game developers so they could sell T-shirts with their games logos. The platform has expanded beyond developers. As a benefit, the user does not need to have Seller Central account, as Merch is made as a separate business.

How profitable is Merch by Amazon?

Merch by Amazon is very lucrative. It is important to remember that there are no incurring costs by starting the business; no running costs, no shipping costs, no warehousing costs. The only thing needed to start is a vivid and creative imagination which fetches you a royalty on each sale. If you tap into the marketing opportunity provided by Amazon and create Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and ads from other social media platforms for your t-shirts, you can be assured that you will make a profit. You can generate a few thousand dollars every month depending on your promotion and marketing skills.

A 40 percent royalty rate is expected for the seller, so no matter at other P-O-D services available none offers such potential profit margin.

Who for is Merch by Amazon perfect?

Merch by Amazon is a business opportunity that is perfect for everybody. If you are lucky to be a graphic designer or an artist, you are the perfect person for this opportunity. Just keep designing and your designs will do the work for you; they will bring in profits. If you are not a graphic artist but you are an entrepreneur, you can employ a graphic artist who will create the designs for you and upload them. If you have a job or business, you can employ a graphic artist to make the designs for you and then employ a virtual assistant to upload it for you. You do not need to keep tracking sales of the t-shirts or start thinking of what to do about the t-shirts that are probably not selling as much as you intended. Just keep uploading new shirts.

Verdict ?

Merch by Amazon is definitely a dream come true for most of the newbie entrepreneurs who like to make passive income online and it is certainly what most people want; at least what every entrepreneur wants. The fact that it is free to start and remains active on zero cost is mind-blowing.

The only thing that can act as a clog in the wheel is the invitation process, which can take up to 6 months, and the payment process which is always 30 days after the end of every month. This means that any royalty you earn in January will not be paid out until the end of February.

This should not come as a surprise or discourage you especially if you are already a seller on Amazon. Since it’s a long-term business venture time of payment should not be a problem as long as it will eventually generate money. The more attractive your products are, the more likely people will buy.

Till new dream for the newbie entrepreneurs gets created, Merch by Amazon will remain most lucrative and simplest. It is cost-free, simple way how to test your entrepreneur’s skills.

Where You Can Find Me

• LinkedIn (Articles about state of e-commerce, inbound marketing and growth)