AMA: I make 500/m from POD

[Comrade Luigi]

Based on your experience, how much of your POD income comes from fully designed shirts, hoodies, mugs, and other POD merchandise? And how much of that comes from just plain text designs?

Most of it is t shirts.

What do you think about that concept? And does it work in your particular situation?

Plain text shirts are what sells the most for me.

How long did it take for you to get approved on Amazon Merch?

My very first account took a few months to get in. My second and third accounts I purchased.

Hello, i got accepted on Merch by Amazon but do you know how much time before i can find my stuff on the amazon search engine. That make like one week my t-shirt is live on the dashboard and i can't find no one. thx

Few weeks.

don't know, it is hard. The fact is you can have hundreds of designs, but only few will sell. The Pareto principle is very dominant in POD (Print On Demand), originally it would sound like this: 20% of your designs will bring 80% of your profits, but I would say, it would be more like this: 5% of your designs will bring 90% of your profits.

Your post is 100% true. It's getting harder.





This on top of my redbubble income which is pretty small puts me at 800/m. Goal is to push it to 1k/m and onwards. The income is so passive I love it.

I'm back to take on questions so feel free to take this opportunity to do so.

 

[Comrade Luigi]

Q4 going strong for me so far. Just hit my first 1k/m.

 

[kryssluck]

I'm curious about the standard quality of a design that sells. I'm not a graphic designer but if there is a way to design easily, I would start this journey asap.

Thanks for your help btw

 

[Comrade Luigi]

What do you mean by standard quality? Making designs isn’t that hard just need to have practice. Or you can outsource them.

 

[singabecerro]

I also do POD. Averaging $300 a month now. The text designs you do, do they have anything extra? Colors, vintage, etc?

 

[blackengine]

how to get approved by merch amazon especially for non us citizen?

 

[Comrade Luigi]

I also do POD. Averaging $300 a month now. The text designs you do, do they have anything extra? Colors, vintage, etc?

Congratulations on the 300/m. That was me a year ago. There’s nothing special to them. Some of them have different fonts, some contain pictures of animals or special effects. It varies.

how to get approved by merch amazon especially for non us citizen?

so it’s definitely possible to get an account if you’re a non US citizen. I recommend to keep on applying or buy account from someone who has stock.

MBA isn’t the end all be all though. Half of my sales comes from teepublic so that’s a route worth exploring. Sometimes you have to think outside of the box to make money.

 

[singabecerro]

Same to you man, best of luck!

 

[MAPlus]

This thread has been super helpful.
Definitely taking notes.

Do you think branding helps in any way?

 

[Comrade Luigi]

Do you think branding helps in any way?

No. Not in my experience. It's all about niche targeting, keywords, and tags. It might be worth a shot though. I'm just not wasting my time building a brand on other platforms. Only worth it if you have your own website.





Been a solid month so far. Now's the time to get into the business now that Q4 is here.

 

[ajabahey60]

Thank you for posting learned a lot from you and the OP as well.

 

[MAPlus]

No. Not in my experience. It's all about niche targeting, keywords, and tags. It might be worth a shot though. I'm just not wasting my time building a brand on other platforms. Only worth it if you have your own website.

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Been a solid month so far. Now's the time to get into the business now that Q4 is here.

Thank you for the response.

If you need any help with some designs, feel free to contact me.
I'm pretty good with illustrator and photoshop and have quite a bit of clothing production experience.

 

[ttmschine]

Are your designs likely to get pulled if they are political / controversial / too satirical (mocking).

Like if you did one making fun of the police / feminists / trump / left wing politics / right wing politics.

Basically do designs have to be vanilla or can they be edgy?

Are their topics / memes / themes to avoid?

Thanks.

 

[H.Marzoug]

How to get accepted on merch by amazon

 

[733899]

How many designs a day do you upload?

 

[Comrade Luigi]

Are your designs likely to get pulled if they are political / controversial / too satirical (mocking).

Yeah for sure. Anything that has to do with politics I don't touch. Nothing about current events. I remember when Ginsburg died people were trying to jump on that trend and people's shirts end up getting removed. But that's regarding Merch by Amazon. RedBubble and Teepublic are more lenient with controversial stuff. It's MBA that's the most strict about this stuff. Be conservative on MBA and go wild with the other platforms is my policy.

How many designs a day do you upload?

I'm on and off with regards to uploading. On the days that I upload I try to do 30-50 designs per day across three platforms.

How to get accepted on merch by amazon

Try the other platforms. Redbubble, spreadshirt, etsy, and teepublic. If you can't generate sales there then there's no point i ngetting a MBA account. Once you've proven yourself there then I'd consider buying a account.

 

[MAPlus]

Yeah for sure. Anything that has to do with politics I don't touch. Nothing about current events. I remember when Ginsburg died people were trying to jump on that trend and people's shirts end up getting removed. But that's regarding Merch by Amazon. RedBubble and Teepublic are more lenient with controversial stuff. It's MBA that's the most strict about this stuff. Be conservative on MBA and go wild with the other platforms is my policy.



I'm on and off with regards to uploading. On the days that I upload I try to do 30-50 designs per day across three platforms.



Try the other platforms. Redbubble, spreadshirt, etsy, and teepublic. If you can't generate sales there then there's no point i ngetting a MBA account. Once you've proven yourself there then I'd consider buying a account.

30 - 50 is a lot!

Do you automate it in any way?

 

[powlow29]

Hi and congratulation for your success.
May I ask for teespring, what price are you setting for each product ? Only a 4$ profit or more ?
Thank you

 

[ttmschine]

I'd made a design about 3 years ago and stuck it on one of the sites, forgot all about it (it was a really rubbish design) but got an email the other day I'd sold one.

I was wanting to do some satirical political ones, but was worried they might be a bit too controversial, so thanks for the advice on that. Might give it a go and see what happens, if they get banned - well nothing ventured nothing gained.

 

[Zakch93]

One thing that's keeping me from POD on platforms like Etsy and RB is having to upload products one by one.

Did you try outsourcing that? Giving your login and password to a trusted VA should be fine.

Oh and I have a good question: I found sellers selling POD designs in BULK. They're probably already uploaded on the platforms though by other buyers. Is using those okay?