Interesting Facts Anomalies | Merch By Amazon

Interesting...VERRRRRYYY Interesting Facts About Merch

I thought I would write this piece on some anomalies I have noticed between the Two accounts we have in our home.

There are some super interesting things here that I was sure were just strange occurrences, not even coincidence, just weird.

Like this is spooky stuff here ;) 

This is sort of a fun Urban myth thing maybe... or is it.

Try to do a couple and see if it is fact or fiction, I'm sort of baffled myself.

So Read on...

A Strange Beast  Is MBA

In the last year, as we became a two account home within that period, loosely give or take a couple months or so we started to see some strange things start to occur.

At first glance, it just looks like some kind of strange thing going on. Hardly so thought-provoking as stats.

Then you start to see the same things and patterns develop over time.

Ghosts, Gremlins, I'm not so sure, but these are a few things that have popped up for us.

It could be just a thing, I doubt the high-end players would even notice because they sell a lot every day.

But it does start your wheels turning. Mostly because the Amazon enigma called Merch seems to be uncrackable, and indecipherable in what it wants from designers as far as KW and Seo goes.

Not Logging In For Days

This is perhaps the biggest of these anomalies. Most POD platforms reward you with activity.

In some cases like Etsy, it's pretty much a known fact that unless you are actively managing, changing, listing, or the other million things to do there daily, your traffic and sales will suffer greatly.

But, this is not a singular event, Merch seems to reward you for being passive?

A couple of cool things we noticed over five months ;

• I log daily, have 500 slots live
• My wife logs maybe once a week even if it's more, its a quick look while I am working on mine (unless she spurts and gets the urge to fill her 100 slots)
• Her slots are RARELY full, 70-80 even at times 50-60
• As mentioned mostly PopSockets because they are not labour intensive and usually take her minutes to produce. (Plus its a split test between the two accounts)

Between us, she actually gets more sales, on a weekly basis, she spends maybe 2 hrs and that's being generous.

I spend much more time, even though its a side but I get less overall sales in a week?

Never Researching (Barely)

My wife rarely if ever researches, she may pop on to Amazon and look for something similar to what she wants to make. Just to see if it might sell.

I do research, Keywords, SEO, Niches (Seo simply looking at search terms or keywords throughout Google and Bing)

Niche means a nice place to put a painting or vase to her.

All her titles and 99% of her designs are off the cuff as I have stated in previous articles.

Promotion

I do some social media, My wife does not.       

She doesn't have a Pinterest account, Never watches youtube, unless she needs to see how to do something, which is barely ever, and isn't quite sure what Instagram is, who does.

I put things out on Pinterest, I do some in other forums (NOT reddit) bunch of snotty folk there(sorry to the few good ones, I was there when it started but left years ago).

She never goes on Facebook to learn or get info from  Merch Groups. She doesn't even want to meet any people from Merch.

She sees how I do things, then does her own twisted version of that.  When she feels like it!

Full Slots And Drafts

My slots are usually full, and as time permits, I take down non-sellers or stuff I just threw at the wall that never sells.

 I try to keep extra designs in the queue, so when I do run one out or change it up it's easier. 

One of the Urban Myths is that extra designs in draft mode, which simply means unpublished, the better the Merch crew looks at your account.  And you will get the nod for an early or quicker Tier up.

Your designs will have a better chance of being seen and sold.

 This Myth Never helped me and my wife has never ever had an extra design in her lineup.

At this time tiering has been slowed up and may have reverted back to sell 100 get to 500, sell 500 get to 1000 not to sure though.

Your Designs Suck

 I can't call BS enough on that one. As stated in an earlier article, yes quality matters to me, but does it matter to everyone, and who decides where that benchmark is set.

 

The subject matter whether its text or graphic is more important.

I just sold a shirt that was so plain and not well done, in text, the subject is what sold it, not the quality, no offence to the buyer.

The week before a pretty badly designed text with graphics tee sold, again only subject matter, there were better shirts for the same price, but with slightly different presentation, wording.

It's only a matter of the right eyes seeing it.

You Have Sell Holidays

I have never sold a holiday shirt in the just over two years in the market.

All of my sales are pretty much evergreens ( stuff that has no season).

This could be why I am still in a fairly low tier, though I doubt that. (a bit more on that later)

I know other high tier players that try and fail at holidays, and concentrate only on evergreen stuff, though as of late there is a movement to lesser known days and events.

Awareness shirts do sell well.

You Have To Sell Cheap To Start

Again I'm calling BS. I sold ZERO Tshirts at $12.99 but have always sold at $14.99.

This may or may not work with AMS ads, not sure though, as I will not spend $400 bucks USD to make nothing, and hope ratings will sell the item later at higher prices.

I sold one Popsocket for $11.99, most of my wife's PopSockets sell from $12.99 to $14.99. She repriced once and thought all that editing was more work than making a new product.

My Popsockets go in at $12.99 then I will try to raise up to $14.99 if they sell ok.

And My tees also at $14.99.

This works for some, not all. And again I believe that's only subject matter unless your a Copy Cat Troll then you will undercut :P

It's Not Your Tier 

Again BS, though I kind of doubt I could fill as many slots without outsourcing than I have now, I'm too busy.

Merch (unless you are one of the VERY few Really good designers) is a total numbers game.

The higher the tiers the more you have up, the more eyes see it, the more sales. 

Then the snowball starts to roll and you grow, after tier 1000 I think. Maybe 2000 with the saturation level as of today.

Are We On A Rotator 

This is cool. Because we are not big players, this is a real pattern, and really jumps out, maybe on bigger accounts as well I'm not sure.

I also noticed this with FBA, some days get more volume than others.

For FBA Mondays to Thursdays are pretty good, then it usually drops off, and restarts to...Tuesdays to Fridays, then...and it cycles like that for a month.

Merch for me goes like this, and this is pretty much every week:

• Saturday
• Sunday
• Monday

Sometimes Tuesday

My Wife Usually

• Thursday
• Friday
• Saturday

And once in a while Wednesday

These are pretty consistent stats.

What Is Selling

This is a bit confusing still though some things are multiple sellers.

We have designs that come and go, some awareness shirts that sell well all year and some that sell once in a while.

Then out of the blue some tee you did 4 months prior sells. And then the one you just did sells.

Not a lot of rhythm here, I guess that depends on where your tees go as far as the carousel swings around.

When I say sells well, I mean it sells multiples and consistently, but for us that could be 1-8 a week right now.

My wife's count this week is twelve mine is one :s

Yes, we are small, but usually one a week is the lowest, though we do still get those odd zero week counts. And the way it goes we will tier up in the next ohhh 4 years or so :P

So there you have it these are a few anomalies that seem to be pretty common, looks like they should be entered as stats now, yes they have made it to my STATS list officially, I just wish I could tier, fill all my slots and then see if it continues.

But that would take a lot of work on my part and I'm not there yet, I made a choice to go with FBA as my number one side hustle at this time, but that could change down the road as I grow in both businesses.

They are side because I work full time, I'm committed to at least 60 Hrs of that crap with commute time, then I do my sides, I may be a WORKAHOLIC!

I will say I have shirts in the Uk and German sites, the UK is at 6 sales in two months and Germany one.

Not enough data to call any stats on.

Though I sort of think the British humour is a tad different as to what they are willing to wear in public, I'll leave you to figure that mystery out :P

Wishing you all the best and I really hope you had some fun with this article, all true from my experiences by the way, as a bit of fun stress relief, don't obsess have fun.

And remember your the GURU, your experiences will teach and guide you, take your time keep it clean, and you . will grow,

life is short, so have fun and enjoy it.

EJ