AMA: I make 500/m from POD

Just to answer a few of the questions because I do the same as OP but I`m a bit further down the road at $XXXX per month, my suggestion is to get your designs on as many platforms as you can. Amazon will always bring you the majority of your sales because of the traffic but getting a few hundred bucks per month from Redbubble, Teepublic and Etsy is nothing to spit on considering you are just copying over your designs and keywords. Making your own site sounds great and that's what I'm working on now because any platform can ban you and it's all over. The problem is that having your site costs money for SEO while the others do it for you. If you are on a hot trend and you get your design out first, you have good chances of ranking on the first page when it takes off and then it's money in the bank for years in most cases. So here is what I keep in mind when uploading to platforms:

Amazon: Do not mess with copyright/trademark. No matter how much you make, Amazon will shut off your lights because you are irrelevant. Also, be ready for chinese copycats to undercut all your listings and fighting them nonstop. Pain in the ass but most profitable. XXXX/month from this one and XX,XXX during Q4.

Etsy: Not as bad as Amazon but be careful for trademark. I just had my account banned, which was making 1000$ per month, for putting harry potter in my hidden keywords for a parody piece that didn't have anything else owned by Harry Potter but was clear to fans what it meant. I suggest customizable designs for this platform.

Redbubble: So this is where I put the stuff that I know won't fly on Amazon and Etsy. Be smart about the copyrighted stuff so that people can't specifically write the keyword but will immediately connect your design to what they are searching. For example, if you want to sell something from Michael Jordan, if you write Michael Jordan in your keywords or title, expect it to get rejected or taken down quickly. If you write Jordan Basketball, you'll get through and designs will stay on there muchhhh longer. Eventually they will remove the design once you've make a little fortune with it and tell you not to reupload it. Just move on to your next grey zone niche. I make around 300$ per month off this and it has about 20% of my designs on it.

Teepublic: This one is pretty much like Redbubble but a bit more strict in my case. Some things they seem to catch right away when I submit it. I make about 150$ from this but I only have about 10% of my designs on it.

Some pointers to those who may try this:

1. If you treat it like a hobby, which I do, expect hobby money. If you treat it as a business, you can scale it much higher than I have.
2. It's better to make 10 Good designs than 1 great design. It's usually a numbers game on Amazon.
3. Just because you think your design in amazing doesn't mean you'll sell any. I've made many garbage designs that I wanted to delete but put it up anyway and sold from time to time. Not my best sellers but money anyway.
4. You need to be good at finding trends and upcoming events.
5. If you make a design in a untapped niche and it sells, make 100-200 more to discourage other designers like me from finding it and stealing your customers. Discourage us by showing you own that market.
6. Apply for MerchByAmazon NOW, it can take months to get accepted and some people get rejected for no reason. If you are reading this, apply now, you might thank me in a few months when it randomly comes in.
7. If you are only on Merch, you're missing out. You should also be selling on Amazon Central through Shopify or another platform.

If you put in 40+ hours a week for 2-3 months, you could be living off this passively for years. This is what I did and now I only put in 5 mins per day to see if customers wrote me and I have been pulling in 3k+ for the last 4 years and only add up to 10 designs per year when I'm bored or if there's an obvious new trend about to hit the market. If I took this more seriously, I'd be able to quit my six figure job but I'm not wired that way lol. It pays my bills and I am satisfied with that.

Good luck and sorry to hijack your thread OP.

Good luck and sorry to hijack your thread OP.

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What an amazing post. Thanks for sharing. I don't mind the hijacking because it's good to see someone who is 10 steps ahead of me. It also proves that I'm not the only one doing this and that it's completely possible to be successful in this field.

Hey OP and @Notadouche,

Thanks for the share. You've challenged me to look into a niche I had never considered before.

Was this your first business project?

What made you go into this particular niche?

How does the industry work? Do you just sell the design and the platform deals with actual printing and shipping the T-shirt?

Are you good at design or do you just view it as slapping something trendy on a T-shirt

blckkevhckr said:

Hey OP and @Notadouche,

Thanks for the share. You've challenged me to look into a niche I had never considered before.

Was this your first business project?
What made you go into this particular niche?
How does the industry work? Do you just sell the design and the platform deals with actual printing and shipping the T-shirt?
Are you good at design or do you just view it as slapping something trendy on a T-shirt

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Was this your first business project?

No, I started with dropshipping using Facebook ads. Very low budget just to try it out. I had no idea what the rules were and I was told to simply go to Aliexpress, find something people can't find in stores and sell it on Facebook for a big profit. So this was in 2016 and I was looking for something to sell. I remember hearing that the Chicago Cubs had just won the world series after over 100 years so I looked up that niche and saw that there were knock off World Series Cubs rings on Aliexpress and they looked fantastic. So I made a website about sports merchandise on Shopify, imported all the rings the seller had and put the Chicago cubs one as the main promotion. I asked the seller for HD images that were not on the site yet and he gave me a bunch of them including a video of it spinning. I made the pictures better via Photoshop, changed the prices of ALL the rings on my site to 499$ per ring and made the Cubs one on sale for 149$ instead of 499$ in honor of their win for the next 24 hours (this wasn't true, it was always on sale). I sold about 220 within 4 days before my ad got pulled. The beautiful thing is that these rings cost me 16$ shipped with a case so I made a small fortune. I remember telling friends and family about my new way to make money and they are pretty much said that I was deceiving people and that it will get me in trouble. I found myself having to choose between money and being a better person so I looked up a new way to make money and saw a guide in BHW about starting your own t-shirt business and gave that a try. I still think about my dropshipping and definitely want to get back into it eventually but legitimately. Looking back now, you can understand how easy it is to go down the wrong path when money is rolling in and you are making thousands per day. This experience is probably why I got my Etsy account locked for using Harry Potter keywords. It was a stupid obviously wrong move that anyone knows but I was trying to find a grey zone to boost my sales without going to far. Lesson learned and now I advise others to avoid shortcuts like these

What made you go into this particular niche?

I was eager to try new methods and this looked very legit. I kept reading about OGADs and other methods that seemed to me like it didn't have a future. I wanted to build an empire legitimately and I tried this out.

How does the industry work? Do you just sell the design and the platform deals with actual printing and shipping the T-shirt?

It depends on the platform. If you sell on Merch, Redbubble, Teepublic and others alike, you only worry about submitting a design you made and they pay you a commission if it sells. As for traffic, it's up to you if you want to pay extra and make ads but the margins are so low on shirts that I don't bother. For Amazon, you can also join Amazon Seller Central which is about 40$ per month and combine it to a Shopify Store where you can add a bunch of suppliers who will take care of whatever you sell. The difference is that your supplier wants to be paid right away so if you sell a shirt that way, you will have to pay the 12-13$ right away and wait 2-3 weeks for Amazon to deposit your 18-19$ from the sale. You pay off your credit card and keep the balance. It's more of a pain in the ass like this but you have access to soooo many different products that aren't offered on Merch. I make more from Seller Central than Merch.

Are you good at design or do you just view it as slapping something trendy on a T-shirt

I'm horrible at designs. 90% of my stuff is text and slightly modified on Photoshop. Once I found a niche that isn't saturated, I usually make a few text based shirts and if they sell, I will use someone from Upwork to make me a good design for 3-5$.

The most important thing of all is that people see your shirt. Aside from upcoming trends which you should put out right away, you should be spending most of your time finding longtail keywords that are untapped so that you will be on the first page. Once you found it, start thinking a design for that niche. Competition is fierce nowadays and many niches are saturated but not all of them and there's always new niches popping up but you need to find them!

do you use any tool for bulk uoload design in multi platform?

do you use any tool for bulk uoload design in multi platform?

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No.

the most important thing is finding trends and upcoming events. anyone give me some tips for this?

Hi op and all. I'm interested in getting into pod, but I need help. Lol. you guys have pushed me to want to actually pull the trigger.

My main concerns are, if I get into it, and outsource some designs, what's to stop the artist from taking my design(s) and tweaking a little thing then selling and making money off it? I know that my design ideas might not be that good for them to do so, but I've always been afraid of this. I don't have a shit ton of capital to start with. I've had friends do this route with some sort of NDA, but the artist had tweaked some little thing and ran off with money. Practically undercut the original businessman with the original idea.

Second question, is that I'm wanting to get into pod for doormats. I have a good idea for a bunch of designs, but can't either find any legit rugged duracoir doormats (only the crappy rubber thin ones), along with the previous issue I explained above. Do you guys know or can point me in the direction for that sort of pod? There's a store here in my town that sells them for kinda cheap, that I can just make stencils and diy-paint them myself,but that would require quite some work.

Thanks so much and again for the help and ama in this thread!

Was this your first business project?

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Have had many failed projects. The only one that had any long term success for me is POD. So I've stuck with it.

What made you go into this particular niche?

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Applied for MBA. Randomly got in. Decided to give it a shot.

Are you good at design or do you just view it as slapping something trendy on a T-shirt

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No I'm pretty bad at it. You don't need to be good at design to be successful in this field.

the most important thing is finding trends and upcoming events. anyone give me some tips for this?

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I don't agree. You can make make money off things that aren't trends. If that's what you want to do however it's quite easy. Look up upcoming holidays and events. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day etc. You should get your ideas flowing now that I've mentioned it.

My main concerns are, if I get into it, and outsource some designs, what's to stop the artist from taking my design(s) and tweaking a little thing then selling and making money off it? I know that my design ideas might not be that good for them to do so, but I've always been afraid of this. I don't have a shit ton of capital to start with. I've had friends do this route with some sort of NDA, but the artist had tweaked some little thing and ran off with money. Practically undercut the original businessman with the original idea.

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You're overthinking it. No one cares about your designs. No one cares what you do. I haven't had this problem at all. Designers like making upfront money. You should probably hire designers that aren't knowledgeable about digital marketing though. Don't let your fears and doubts prevent you from taking action.

Second question, is that I'm wanting to get into pod for doormats. I have a good idea for a bunch of designs, but can't either find any legit rugged duracoir doormats (only the crappy rubber thin ones), along with the previous issue I explained above. Do you guys know or can point me in the direction for that sort of pod? There's a store here in my town that sells them for kinda cheap, that I can just make stencils and diy-paint them myself,but that would require quite some work.

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I think printful has door mats. Probably not what you're looking for. Just work with the crappy rubber thin ones. That's what people buy. Then do your stencil painting and see if that works out.

Comrade Luigi said:

You're overthinking it. No one cares about your designs. No one cares what you do. I haven't had this problem at all. Designers like making upfront money. You should probably hire designers that aren't knowledgeable about digital marketing though. Don't let your fears and doubts prevent you from taking action.



I think printful has door mats. Probably not what you're looking for. Just work with the crappy rubber thin ones. That's what people buy. Then do your stencil painting and see if that works out.

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Thanks for the support and suggestions!

Puts me at 680 for May.

Thanks for sharing you experience. I have few questions.

Which POD supplier do you use?
Which POD product do you sell? And recommend?
Which T-shirt do you recommend?

Which POD supplier do you use?
Which POD product do you sell? And recommend?
Which T-shirt do you recommend?

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If you review this entire thread you’ll find the answers you seek. Will not repeat tnem.

got denied by merch by amazon, is it possible to reapply with another gmail account but from same ip and get accepted ?

Yes. Getting into MBA is luck based, You can also buy an account. I’m wondering if there would be a market for MBA accounts on BHW.

can i use seo in pod? if so, can you give some sample keyword ?

Sure. That's something that you could possibly do. Keyword research is something you'll need to do yourself.

Thank you for this captivating AMA

which of the 4 platforms you mentioned will also print labels and tags?

Oji-san that's pretty awesome stats keep it up.