Baby Steps Into POD | Merch By Amazon

Stepping Up

Great Hopefully you are on the first steps of your POD journey as a business or a hobby. Either way, you will definitely find it addictive after you make a few sales.

 If you decided to apply to MBA (Merch By Amazon)  first that's all good. It takes time.

I applied in March 2017 and wasn't accepted until late September 2017 yes, it takes time and yes, it's an application process.

We will discuss a few Merch Specific things here.

Either way, taking action is a good thing.

Learn  ie: join unpaid groups, look for blogs like this, look on youtube and subscribe,

There are some good people in that genre that actually give as much as they sell, if you get into the culture (mostly MBA) you will figure out who is who quickly enough.

The Application

Yes, it says to apply for an invitation but its an application.

 I don't remember what it asked me,  I do know I had a few blogs that I owned the domains on and had hosted by Word Press, one being a woo-commerce storefront.

It helps if you show some experience if you don't have any fake it. 

Seriously Start on Redbubble or Tee Public to get a small portfolio not to mention experience, get a feel for the industry. 

This would be beneficial on any applications for Merch.

You can live anywhere now so no worries there When I first found merch ( 2015-16) it was only open in the states.

Most of the pretty big accounts were in then, easy money, not so now.

Setup

Here you will simply add your personal information.

• Name 
• Address 
• Country
• Bank
• Tax ID

Name

The following is just an opinion, not a law, there are always ways around this stuff.

Ok, the first isn't so thoughtless; You will want to be a business IE: JOE Tshirt Co.

Why...well if you have built a great account up but want to sell it, you cannot change names. 

You would need to sell it as a Business. 

Not to mention a few benefits, this doesn't have to be an LLC or INC but registered biz at the least.

Country

Here the importance is: if you haven't done anything for Amazon or any legit online business based in the USA and don't live in America then you need to pay attention:

• You take a tax interview online.
• You will need to look up your tax treaty to see if you are exempt
• Amazon will withhold 30% if you do not fill this out
• Your tax ID (the number you file your taxes under, can be a business number)
• If you live in a non Tax treaty Country you will pay what the rate is
• You will fill out a W8Ben for me and digitally sign it.

IF you have the patience to dig through the IRS website it has everything you need.

You can also apply for an EIN which will be the same as a tax id. It's easy when you are done pick up the phone do a phone interview with an IRS employee(very nice) and that's it.

Facts About MBA

Like anything Amazon, you really are not in control of your account(business), if it is perceived you are wrong and it is full of dirty players you will be banned. 

There are a ton of pitfalls. But if you play clean and don't break TOS (terms of service) you should be fine. I like MBA a lot.

New products are slow to come as of this writing, but the big players all get these a few months before smaller accounts, so you can guess what is left niche and market wise by the time you get there.

• It's still a new venture and full of bugs, but it is a platform well worth learning.  

• It's Free, pretty new and growing and can be fairly passive if you play it that way.

• Its a massively great learning experience for POD and E-com in general, win win win. 

There are a lot of copycats don't be one of those, you will eventually be weeded and cut.

Tier System

It is described much like a video game leveling as you complete each level and learning as you go.

The first Tier is 10 - 1 upload a day to a maximum 10 total. 

Tier 25 - 2 uploads a day to a maximum 25 total.

Tier 100 - 10 uploads a day to a maximum 100 total.

Tier 500 - 50 uploads a day to a maximum 500

Tier 1000 - 100 uploads a day to a maximum 1000

And so on to the 100,000 plus.

How Many Sales Do You Need To Tier Up

To advance you have to sell X amount, that changes from time to time. For Instance, If you are Tier 10 it can be 2-10 sales, this always depends...on what, we don`t really know.  

It's an Amazon Mystery.

If you can buy your own products, do so to get out of tier 10 and if possible Tier 25.

Merch Does not deliver out of the USA, so if you live in Canada, where MBA hasn't set up shop, you will have to find another way, UPS mailbox in the USA cousins, friends etc., gift someone in the program, maybe you have family in the Britain or Germany.

Where there is a will....there is usually a Lawyer....joking, I think.

TOS

Read this when you get your account. It's up to you how you run this.

If you break TOS(Terms Of Service) you will be banished to the ether. Absolutely when you're done, consider yourself cooked..there is no appeal

Amazon takes things seriously.

If you do a design that is considered infringement IE DISNEY etc without the proper rights to do so, and Amazon misses this (automated system) when you upload, rest assured it will be discovered and BOOM you're done.

You are in the end of things responsible for the account, not Amazon, blame yourself.

Does It Pay

Payouts are not gigantic, it takes a very long time to tier up, though I have heard rumors this way may end and a pay system may be implemented like seller central.

There are accounts with 100,000 slots to fill, competition is fierce and can be dirty like anything else where money is involved.

But yes you do progress and you will start to make money slowly. I can't say how much you will make. 

You have the chance to run Amazon platform specific ads and that can really pay off in Q4 but works year round in a scaled way.

If you can Tier to approximately 1000 you will notice a difference, mainly because you can flood niches with your designs.

Niche

This is the only way to go in merch. In the beginning, this is super important because you are really at a disadvantage with only 10 slots.

Hit a niche with the least competition but good sales,, look for BSR under 600,000.

This will signal a selling niche, the lower the BSR the better the sales are.

Fill it with your designs.

Stay Focused

Don't lose heart it takes the time, go in for the long ride its worth it.

Ignore all the noise, you hear about people that just started and in 2 months are tier 2-3000, then as quickly, poof, gone because they were cheating.

Breaking TOS by infringement etc. This is tempting...very, but don't do it, as mentioned it will take time but you will be caught then its done, once you are banished to cyberspace, you are done.

Research

Decide on a Niche or subject. Let's say fishing.

There will be 20k in results...narrow down, Bass Fishing, Seabass, Dad Sea Bass 

you get the idea ..this is called Nicheing down or drilling down 

Look at the autocomplete bar in Amazon for niches as well as Key Words(KW)    

• Google same
• Trends
• Google KW search
• Bing KW search
• Any KW research tool is good
• Holidays (St Patricks)
• Awareness (Autism)

These are Niche finding and KW finding tricks.

Locales

Last year MBA rolled out a European connection expanding its POD capabilities, Germany and the UK are unlocked, but much slower than the American sales.

It's not worthwhile in a  low tier, I would not go there, till tier 500. You would be spread to thin and a huge numbers game. The more you have in any niche the better the chance of sales.

Unless you live in the UK or Germany stay away till tier 500 or more!

Design Specs

These are slightly different for different POD`s but I find that the MBA standard T shirt template works great for all.

Make your design 

1. 4500 px X 5400 px or 15 x 18 in.
2.  Transparent Background
3. sRGB 

Whatever program you are using...save as..for me it`s .ai

Export as:

• PNG
• 300 dpi
• Transparent BG

Templates

There are downloadable templates for the items Merch sells.

Use these at the start if you are not experienced in design,

TShirt

Popsockets 

HINT: Popsockets may sell faster and are a pretty fast way to tier.

As of this writing, there are not many products.

 Premium Tshirts(tighter fit) Hoodies, Long Sleeve Shirts and Sweaters with the above. 

And that's the beauty, it is NEW even after 5 years in existence.

Upload

Once you have your design upload ready, sign into your MBA account choose upload :

Your item (Tee) or what you want
Your Locale: US, UK, DE

Then run through the rest of the setup, since this is a lot to take in in one shot, and honestly a lot to write, I will do that in a new post at a later date.

There is so much info to write it just can't be all here, in future I will break things down.

These guides are simple informational steps, containing a few NUGGETS that will help you get started.

Info to follow soon, a few great free or paid programs (not affiliate links) that you can use to design, which is pretty paramount.

Next up: Redbubble establish your account then we will get into the possible graphics programs you can use.

At this point, I have time to do this, so I am trying to cram a ton of info into it as fast as I can.

READ ALL POSTS

They really all have valuable info in them and although I repeat a lot to drive things home I don't expand on every post.

All The Best I hope this helps you along a bit and is useful, even if disjointed at times, I'm Canadian ;)
  Leave a comment or if a question I will try to answer when I can.

Anything of value is a good thing

EJ