Merch by Amazon Income Report #7

Hey guys!

Welcome back to another Merch by Amazon income report! If you’ve been following along for any amount of time, you’ll know that I put out merch by Amazon income reports every month to document my journey from the very beginning. My goal is to be as transparent as possible, and to give you a realistic expectation of what you can make if you were to start selling on Merch.

If you’re one of the newest members who signed up to my mailing list (and this month – there was a lot of you!), introduce yourself in the comments below!. if you have any burning questions you want answered, feel free to ask those below too.

I had a great month, making almost $600, and selling just over 100 t-shirts organically on Amazon.

With a little luck, I should have no problem hitting my first $1,000 month in either April or May of this year. The one goal I set for myself on Merch was to have it someday pay my mortgage payment, and I’m getting closer and closer every month. That’s what keeps me going.

Outside of Merch, the last 30 days have been equally as exciting. My son just turned 1 year old, my business Merch Ready Designs had the best month of sales to date, and at my day job, I’ve been promoted to IT Manager! The current IT Manager (my  boss), is stepping down and moving out of state after being with the company for 10 years. Not only will I be in a management level position, making critical business decisions on our corporate infrastructure, but I’ll also be managing a small team of IT Support employees. It’s exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time, but mostly exciting.

Despite all that, I’ll still be uploading Merch by Amazon designs every day, I’ll still be writing blog posts here, and I’ll still be running Merch Ready Designs for as long as I can. Exciting stuff all around!

Previous Income Reports

If you haven’t been following along, you should get up to speed by reading the previous income reports first.

Here they are!

Income Reports for Months 1-6

Current Month Income Report

Date Range: 3/1/17 – 3/31/2017

Tier Level: 500, 220 live

Shirts Sold: 105

Total Profit: $562.45

Month 7 Recap

As you can see in the screenshot above, I sold almost $2,000 in t-shirt designs this month, and profited $562.45. That’s pretty awesome for a 30-day period.

I went from 96 live designs to 220 designs in the span of one month. While I haven’t quite doubled sales, I’m definitely on the right track to. You also have to remember that the majority of these new designs were uploaded in the last week or two when I could upload 10 per day, and haven’t had a very long time to be active on Amazon.

I can’t think of a single day without sales which is exciting. It’s almost getting to the point where I can log into my merch account and every time I log in – I see a new sale.

I contribute the majority of my success this month to hitting the 500 tier. It’s really had a snowball effect on my sales. I’m no longer rotating out designs or trying to figure out which designs I should upload first. I just upload every single design that I have allocated for that week. Right now, I’m back down to 5 uploads per day,but there was a good two week period where I could upload 10 per day. I was able to upload almost a hundred new designs in that short time.

I love seeing new designs sell. I mean – I love when ANY designs sell, but there’s something special about uploading a design, and a day or two later seeing someone purchase it. That tells me that I did my research correctly, that I wrote quality bullet points, and that I uploaded an awesome design.

Handling Design Removals

A few months ago, Amazon introduced the infamous 60-Day Removal rule. As of March 2017, it’s now a 90-Day removal rule. If I upload a design and it doesn’t sell within 90 days, Amazon will automatically remove the design. They do have a running ticker on your listings, so at the very least you can see which design is pending removal and when.

If looking under your Live tab, here’s what that looks like:

Once a design is removed, it automatically is removed from your Live tab and filtered into your Removed section.

The Removal Rule can be both a blessing and a curse.

One one hand, it’s super useful because it helps reduce the amount of unsold t-shirts on Merch by Amazon. When it comes to doing research on Amazon, this is a blessing in disguise. I no longer have to sift through pages of unsold designs to find a few winners. (Tip: Merch Informer ranks t-shirt designs by lowest BSR first, so you don’t have to sift through page after page to find best-selling designs. Check out my in depth review here!)

On the other hand, I now have a bunch of unsold designs sitting in my inventory.

Don’t forget to create a “Removed Designs” folder on your PC (I’ve got a really great Merch by Amazon organizational guide here, if you haven’t read it!) That way, you can just move the design from your Uploaded folder to your Removed folder and not have it lost in your sea of designs.

I also encourage you to take a more proactive approach and check your Merch reviews when you can too.

Even though Amazon places your design in the Removed tab, it does not preserve any bullet points or descriptions. Some people like to watch their removed designs like a hawk and save any title, bullets, and keywords to a separate spreadsheet, but I don’t. If a design hasn’t sold in 90 days, it’s either a bad design or I need to rewrite my bullets and title.

I take the opportunity to rewrite my listings and a few more targeted keywords into my listings. For instance, instead of saying “fishing t-shirt”, I may say something like “cute deep sea fishing t-shirt”.

Final Thoughts

My plan for April is to max out all 500 slots, which can prove to be challenge as designs are slowly being removed, and Amazon has knocked those of us in the 500 tier down to 5 designs per day. But, I’m staying positive that I’ll get bumped back up to 10 uploads per day.

I apologize for the semi-short post this month, but as you can imagine, transitioning in an IT Manager role at work (and completely taking over in less than 30 days), is no small feat. I’m in charge of finding my replacement, sitting it on meetings, filling my knowledge gaps, and still doing my normal day-to-day tasks and projects.

Merch is a GREAT way to make some passive side income, and I really love everything it’s done for me, but you should never quit your day job for it. Your career should always come first.

So I’ll still be uploading designs as frequently as I can, but I do have to spend the next few months dedicated to this new position. Like I said earlier though, I will always find time to upload designs and keep up with these income reports, and write useful blogs posts. These are things I enjoy doing. Rather than watch TV, I like to fill my time doing something useful such 🙂

Anyway, if you’re new around here, and havea question about anything Merch-related, let me know in the comments below!

Happy merching!

Get some t-shirt idea inspiration below!

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Futju

7 years ago

Hey Danny,

following you now for quite a while. Iam happy, that things working actually fine for you.
You wrote that for sure before, but i cant find it: Did you hire one designer? And if yes, on which tier-level?

I were accepted just a few weeks ago and have to deal with the tier-10-level.

Not able to get even one sale until today, with 8 designs live. Bulletpoints should be okay and all designs are selfmade. I even draw some nice stickman-comic-stuff. So i think about ways to get behind that first two tier-level. Maybe hire one designer just now?

Best regards from germany,

__________
Futju

Danny

7 years ago

I actually have 3-4 designers that work for me, but the majority of my designs are sold in my Merch Ready Designs shop. Having only 10 slots is tough. I would say target something seasonal to get your first ten sales. For instance, it’s springtime, focus on a sport, hobby, or activity you can do in the spring and create a design around that.

Mark

7 years ago

I’ve seen a major slow down in sales the past week to week and a half. Have you seen anything like that?

Danny

7 years ago

Quite the opposite, actually. I’ve almost sold as many so far in April as I sold in all of March.

Jeff

7 years ago

Congrats Daniel……on both your Merch success and the promotion

Danny

7 years ago

Thanks Jeff! I really appreciate it.

Michelle

7 years ago

I got accepted to Merch on March 20th. So far I have 7 designs–some our own designs and others are from Merch Ready Designs — and so far, 0 sales. But your blog gives me hope. I’m a single mom and working a corporate job for 11 years with no raise/nor promotion/nor bonus of any kind for 3 years now. I started a Shopify store back in October with about $3000 in sales a month, but only about $400 is pure profit. I need another $1000 a month to help pay for student loans, so I started looking for an evening job too. But because of my daytime job (I’m over qualified they said) no one wants to hire me. So I’m hoping that Merch is the answer to my prayer … and just like I said, your blog gives me hope. I’m hoping that soon I will be able to sell something and start earning the extra income I desperately need.

Danny

7 years ago

$3,000 in sales on a Shopify store is no small feat. Congrats on your success so far!

The first few months on Merch are hard. I had 25 design slots when I started, but new Merch sellers are now only allowed 10. It’s the chicken and the egg problem, it’s hard to make sales when you can only upload so few designs. The designs you do have live need to be awesome. I normally recommend targeting evergreen niches, but for someone just starting out – I would recommend targeting seasonal niches instead. What’s something someone might do in the spring? I think of planting flowers, outdoor activities, sports, and things like that. If you’d like me to check over your title/bullets, I’d be happy to give you a hand.

Michelle

7 years ago

Thank you, Danny. I have a feeling that it could be my poor “titleing” and “bulleting” that is causing this zero sale, because I’m weak in writing good contents. Here’s one example that you can go see https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XY8CVJF if you have the time … it’s one of the designs I bought from your Merch Design site. I think it’s a great design. I just don’t know how to get customers in Amazon to find it. But I’m never giving up. 🙂

Danny

7 years ago

Hi Michelle –

Actually, that’s not a shirt you bought from my site. Regardless, I agree with you, I think there’s room for improvement on your bullet points. Let’s look at the 2nd bullet, the only keyword anyone could find your shirt is the word “love”. Love is too broad of a term, you need to think a little more. I like to formulate a short story – the Who, the What, and the Where. This is the perfect shirt for _____, ____, and _____. It’s perfect for Activity 1, Activity 2, and Activity 3. Wear it to the PLace1, PLace 2, Place3. That’s a little oversimplified, but at least it’s guaranteeing a few additional keywords. More keywords = more eyeballs on your listings!

Michelle

7 years ago

Oh wow, thank you for the tip. That’s very helpful. And yes, I’m sorry I confused that shirt as one of your designs. It was actually from a lady on Fiverr. She sent me 10 random designs for $15 … but only one is good enough. LOL. I already bought 7 from you, but only posted 4 so far because I didn’t want to waste them with weak bullet points. Your tip is going to help me tremendously. Hopefully, I will soon be able to sell something and start earning extra income. Thank you, again.

Sycar

7 years ago

Hello Danny,

I just got approved for my Amazon Merch, you guys have given me lots of hope. I am not a designer and knows nothing about designing shirts. I need some tips.

I have gotten a designer paying 5 per design.

Please Help!!

Danny

7 years ago

$5 per design is a pretty reasonable price. If a design isn’t selling, it’s usually because of keywords. Read over this article if you haven’t already: https://merchpursuits.com/improving-your-merch-bullet-points/

John

7 years ago

I guess you can upload 10 design per day for 500-tier? Thanks !
How long you wait to tier up?

Danny

7 years ago

Depending on how big of a backlog Amazon has, it’s either 5 or 10 designs per day.

Keira

7 years ago

Love your blogs Danny, you obviously work very hard which is very inspiring! My first ten designs have been uploaded for around 3 weeks now and I’ve had two sales so far both in the last week! It’s only two but I’m super proud of myself as I have designed the Tees solely on my own (I’m not a designer and have basic computer skills) I’m really enjoying following your journey, it gives me something to aspire too!

Thanks again!!

Bo

7 years ago

Hey Danny, I’m enjoying reading ur blog, thank you for your honesty. I’m taking a slightly different approach focusing on moving units as opposed to making money initially. I’m selling my shirts for one penny royalty and I’m moving lots of shirts. I’ve sold 42 shirts in the first 19 days. I tiered up from 10 to 25 to 100 shirts in two weeks. I’m still only able to add 2 shirts a day so it’s taking a bit. I’ll probably continue to sell cheap until I hit the 500 or 1000 tier and then I’ll look at increasing my prices. A word of advice to people initially is to focus on any upcoming holidays, appreciation days, nationally recognized “weeks”, national marches or gatherings such as the science march.

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I'm a full time father of 2, IT Manager, and Merch by Amazon seller.

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