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Advanced Blueprint for

Merch By Amazon
1 Price Points, Psychology & Perceived Value

How much to charge for a T-Shirt?

Short answer: from $14.99 to $19.99

Now let's talk psychology. Studies have shown that prices ended in the number 9 sometimes
outsold lower-priced goods! Researchers were shocked to find out that the $39 price outsold the
$34 one, although it was 24% cheaper. It's called perceived value. I don't know why human brain
works the way it does, but our purpose here is to take advantage of that and not to explain it. So
always end your prices in .99 Period!

The same principle of perceived value applies when you price your T-Shirt for $11.99. It's too
cheap compared to the others. People will think it's low quality and they won't buy.

Of course there's a limit of pricing that it will look too expensive. From my tests everything higher
than $19.99 stops being perceived as high quality and only as expensive. My sweet spot is $14.99
- $19.99.

Now how do I choose exactly what price to use? Research...

If my shirt is unique and there is no competition I go for the $17.99 - $19.99, depending on how
good I think the idea and the design is. If there is competition I choose between $14.99 - $16.99
with the same principle.

You can create your own systems, but this is what worked best for me and should be a good starting
point for you too.
2 Best Selling Colors

Amazon let's you choose up to 5 colors. Although they don't recommend more than 3, I didn't
notice any boost in sells or exposure for just using 3.

The colors check marked are my best sellers. Keep in mind that I have mostly text based designs.
If you're an experienced designer and you will use complex graphics you might need to use other
colors that make sense for the design, but for text based ones these seem to perform the best.

TIP: White text on the dark colors shirts looks the best!

While this is a general rule I follow to get good looking shirts, you should always think on how
your design looks. But if you don't want to complicate your life, just follow this simple rule
especially if you're just starting out.
3 Keywords & Niches Research - Getting Buyers

You might have a great unique idea, the best in the universe that everyone would love to wear, but
if they don't get to your design it's useless.

How do people get to your design? They search for terms like "best dad t-shirt", "funny quote t-
shirts", "dog lover t-shirt".

Let me show you my research process.

Let's go to [Link] and search for

"Lightweight, Classic fit, Double-needle sleeve and bottom hem"

This is an unique element that appears on all Merch By Amazon T-Shirts.

You'll see a Sellers section somewhere in the left column (you have to scroll down a little)

Click on see more and voila! You can see all the Merch By Amazon T-Shirts. Powerful stuff!

Now click on any brand to see more designs. Find some text based ones that you like and then
search for that phrase to see the competition. I randomly got across this shirt.
I search for "Smell of Diesel T-Shirt"

There are only 9 designs. Usually there are 20+ pages so hundred of designs. This is a low
competition keyword. If we create a design around it people will definitely see it...if they search
for these words.

How do you know if they search for these words? Well let's look at the first design to see if it has
any sells.
Go to the listing and scroll down till you get to this section:

If the Amazon Best Seller Rank is none, it means it didn't sell recently. The lower the rank number,
the better seller it is. Being in top 300,000 is a pretty good rank!

So we found a niche and keywords with little competition: smell of diesel and with people
searching for them.

Now we need to create our design! The competition only uses "Stop and smell the diesel" and "I
love the smell of diesel". You can go ahead and use that phrase too. But why not differentiate
yourself a bit?

For example we could use "Real Men Smell Like Diesel" in our design. Or "Real Men Love The
Smell Of Diesel".

Next we can create variations using this template. For example "I Love The Smell Of Campfire".

You can do all this process over and over again to come up with new ideas and also get an idea if
people search for them.
4 Branding, Title, Keywords, Description

You've uploaded your design, you've chosen the color of the t-shirts and now you get to this page:

The Brand Name is like the name of the seller, but in this case the actual seller is Amazon and
this brand is not unique (others can use the same brand as you). There are different theories on
how to use them. Some people use unique brands for each t-shirt and stuff keywords for their t-
shirts in their too to help with discovery. Or they do that so other sellers to not be able so spy on
their other designs. The problem is that the customers won't be able to search through your designs
either!

The solution is to use a different brand name for each niche. For example we might create more t-
shirts for people who love cars. We'd could create a brand called "Super Car Lovers T-Shirts". If
someone buys a design for you they might look for your other ones and buy some more. This is
powerful and you should use it. I think it outweighs the fact that competition can see your designs.
I like to keep the title simple. I always add T-Shirt at the end of it. I usually put the phrase of the
t-shirt in the title. If there are characters left (there's a limit of how long you can make it) I might
add Premium Quality too.

The description and key product features are something I never use. Some stuff keywords in there,
but that's not acceptable by Amazon and could get you into trouble. Not worth loosing your
account. You can include useful descriptions with keywords. I think the benefit is too little to be
worth the time especially when you have a lot of shirts to upload. It's even debatable if Amazon
uses the keywords from there. So it's your call..but make sure you're not just writing keywords.
5 Tiering Up On Steroids

After you're approved you'll see a similar thing on your page. If you just got approved you are at
tier 25. That means you can only have 25 designs live. Once you sell 25 t-shirts you'll be leveled
up to tier 100. After you sell 75 more (100 in total) you'll get 500 slots. After that 1000, 2000, etc.

I consider the first tier to be the worst one especially for beginners who have no experience of
what sells and what doesn't. And they don't have enough slots to test more ideas and strategies.
Hopefully for you you've learned how to do proper research to create t-shirts that sell.

The second reason I think it's bad is that tiering up is not instant. They only do tiering up a few
times a month so you'll have to wait a bit.

The fact is that sometimes a t-shirt will start to pick up traction after a few weeks. I've had a lot of
situation when a shirt started selling like crazy after 2 weeks without any single sell. I don't know
why this happens but that's how it works.

You already know how to do proper research and you'll probably get good sells in time (if it's
instant lucky you), but if you don't want to wait you can do some things.

If you're in a community offline or online (facebook groups that you manage, don't go spamming
people around) you can create a t-shirt for them, maybe even price it at minimum.

If you're not active in any community but have the budget you can buy the shirts yourself or ask a
family member to buy too. Again you can price the shirts at minimum when you buy them. I had
people do this with success.
Lowering price here doesn't matter for value perception because you but it for yourself or you
vouch for the quality to the community you're selling to and explain you're offering a discount to
the point of no profit. The goal here is to get out of the 25 zone so you can really scale this business.
6 Copyrights & Trademarks

It's important not to infringe on copyrights and trademarks. So never ever use names or titles from
TV shows, movies, games, companies. Even though you'll find listings with them when you
research, they will be taken down with the risk of losing their accounts. While it's obvious that you
can't use words like "Google", "Disney", "Harry Potter" or company/product logos, there are
sometimes phrases that are copyrighted and that you would never guess.

Here is where you can search for that: [Link]

> Basic Word Mark Search

You might've thought of the slogan "Keep Calm And Love". Let's do a search and guess what...

So be careful and do this research, otherwise you will get your shirts rejected or unlisted and you
will risk loosing your account after repeated strikes.
7 Scaling Your Business

Now you've reached the great 1000 or 2000 tier. You can't possible do all the work alone. You
have all these free slots that would take ages to fill by yourself.

Now it's time to think of this as a real business. Now you have a steady income stream, it's time to
reinvest into scaling it up. You need employees.

Here are a few great site where you can find high quality designers from $400 a month:

[Link]

[Link]

You can teach them how to do the research and come up with the ideas themselves and also how
to search for copyright. Now you'll have the flexibility to create designs with images too if you
find a good designer.

You can even give them instructions from this book to teach them how to do the research.
8 F.A.Q.

This section of the book will be updated regularly with your questions that didn't fit in any of the
chapters.

Where do I see what t-shirt I sold?

Go to Analyze > Select the date range > Go

Where do I see the color or size of the sold t-shirt?

Go to Analyze > Select the date range > Go > Click the arrow next to the shirt title to expand the
row and see the color and size

I've sold 25 shirts, when do I get tiered up?

They don't tier you up instantly. They usually do that a few times a month for all those who qualify.

How long does it take to be approved?

It depends. Read the Application Letter module to understand how approval works.

How do I know I'm approved?

You will get an email. Sometimes the email is not delivered, so it's a good idea to try to log into
Merch By Amazon from time to time to see if you're approved. If you see the approval form it
means you were not approved yet.

How to prepare until I'm approved?

You should read all this book and start working on the designs. Do the research and have the
designs ready.

Can I edit a design?

You can only edit the Brand name, title, description. You can not change the image or the t-shirt
colors.

How do I edit a design?

Go to Manage > Actions > Edit

I don't have that option?

If the design is in review or processing you can not edit it. You need to wait.

I made a mistake and I want to delete a design.

You can delete a design once it goes live. Go to Manage > Actions > Delete. You won't be able to
delete it while it's in review. Wait for it to go live and delete it after that.

Can I use google for images?

No. It doesn't mean the images are free for commercial use.
Can I use celebrities names or images?
No. You can't use public figures.