Slow Sales Merch By Amazon | T Shirts Not Selling

Slow Sales Tees Are Not Selling | MBA

This happens for everybody, no matter what you're into to. For retail its a fact of life.

Most sales (not the rule by any means) happen during the 4th quarter. This is the period from October to December.

In between all of the madness of the 4th quarter, you need to have a different strategy.

But when you are new and nothing is selling it can get super frustrating. So we will look at a few things you can try.

We will discuss POD strategy here, Organically, since we are still dealing with POD in the articles for now.

Design

This does help, when I say design I mean, what does that sucker look like on the thumbnails Amazon shows your shirt on.

That's right, how many times have you stopped to look at a thumbnail ( not like your fingernails) because it caught your eye.

The trick here is to make things:

• Big ( you don't see negative comments because the design was to big right!)
• Clear ( make sure the main message can be seen and read ( this doesn't apply to things like "and" etc, but rather the main message like The COW give us MILK) 
• Get some colour in there ( just google colour combos, wheels etc this will help, like yellow and black etc.
• The font should be appealing and current ( yes there are styles and times for the styles, just like any fashion item) or Print item
• Text or graphics or mixed it's up to you ( I do both but mostly text with small graphics

HINT: graphics can consist of banners, ribbons, and boxes too ;) 

My Design Is Good...But It Still Doesn't Sell                      

This is where it gets tricky,  remember the 80/20 rule. Yes, it sucks but its true.

 The 80 percent is the work that makes the 20 profitable.

So keeping that in mind... 

Here is a simple checklist

• Are your Keywords good ( meaning checked on Google, Bing and Amazon search bar as well as a free or paid KW research software)
• Is the Niche saturated 
• Is the Niche popular enough to get sales

Those are the main components, even if the design is not up to par.

Pricing Strategy

This is a pretty hotly contested category.

There are as many opinions as there are stars in the milky way.  Lets look at the popular ones and bare mention of the others.

Ok the less popular price doesn't matter, why work hard price high ($16-$22) Hmmm

The other one is price lowball style meaning go into a niche (some say this works well in saturated niches) price at the bare minimum ($12.99) then slowly go up as sales come in.  Hmmm

The other, go in at $14.99, there is some research on this, believe it or not, that that price is a catchall for sales. And Up after sales.

Some price as they tier up, starting at ? and increasing range of 1$ or so per tier...Hmmm

Do NOT go in as a new designer, unless you have unreal experience and quality, then you won't be reading this ;), and price super high, you won't sell usually. 

What Works Then                                    

Again that's a spaghetti at the wall thing, so for every guy that says this works, doesn't mean it works for all, it could be or is a combination of things like design Key Words, and niche.

I have done tons of split testing on my own account. And have just sort of an idea, it's like everyone else, it sort of works for me. Do your own testing here to find a fit.

What works for me is going $14.99 or $15.99 to start. I have ever only increased two shirts that sell year-round to $16.99, at this writing I am 2 years in.

I am still testing a lot as I go, but that seems to be what works, as well as the niche and KW combo.

How Long Does It Take To Get A Sale

Again that depends, I had ONE sale a day after listing, just pure luck.

I think if you are playing the KW niche rules properly, to get organic sales anyway, it takes a week or more to come up in Google search etc, some are faster, but that depends on the how you do things.

Some say that if in the first three weeks there is no sale to take the design down and do another.

I disagree, since most people don't really have the magic key to know what will sell and what won't, this is a bit ridiculous, I have had them sell from 1 to 120 days so it's a guessing game.

 If its really bad and you know it is, by all means, hit that scrap the crap button.

Hit The Edit Button

This is something a lot don't do or don't know to do.

Assuming all criteria, good design, good niche, some demand on a yearly basis ( evergreen or holiday etc) are met.

Go to the design, if it has not sold in the 3 weeks, go to the niche, look at KW from good selling designs.

Rewrite your KW your descriptions and possibly re-price.

You can do this a few times before scrapping it, as I say don't do things fast this is a slow-moving business, for most of us anyway.

AMS | Amazon PPC

This is probably the thing that will bring in sales the fastest.

AMS is the Amazon platform specific PPC. It is used for FBA and Merch with great success.

But be careful if you don't understand it you will LOSE money. Watch youtube and scrape the groups( FB) for info and direction.

Try to have at least 1 sale on a shirt first, though it's probably not a must.

The idea in any sales job or pitch is to get the item in front of the customer's eyes.

Then let impulse or need/want do their jobs ;)

All About Quantity                                                

As discussed throughout the blog, quantity is key, if you are on MBA or any other POD its all about how many designs you have live. 

In the beginning just get yourself tired up (MBA) because anything less than 1000-2000 is like walking in wet cement or watching paint dry. SLOWWWWW.

This is normal, have patience, develop your understanding of the business. 

You can as always try PPC on Amazon, it works, and you will tier fast, but learn first or you will lose a lot of money and get nothing back.

It seemed for me, and I have heard this from a few that tier 100 I sold more and steadily than tier 500, strange but true.

That's about all you can do to try to kickstart a slow-selling POD.

Sometimes it's just all about timing and nothing else. I will discuss that further in another article while writing this I realize I have 10 more just expanding things here if I wanted to or have time I should say...

Don't lose heart and don't give up, look for other ways, believe me, I used to give up too much on this stuff, and thought I could stick out my regular day job till retirement.

Big mistake, don't make that one unless you are so solid dynamite can't budge you ( BTW I am an authority and tops in my field, and it doesn't help past 50) there are a lot of very greedy employers out there these days.

Well, I hope this helps a little, all the best and the very best in your POD journeys.

Feel free to comment or ask a question I will get back as soon as possible.

EJ