Developing new designs to print t-shirts and sell online – actually a great business idea. But what if you sit on your great printed T-shirts afterwards? Quite simply: You don’t let it get that far in the first place. Because Merch by Amazon is the best way to ensure that T-shirts don’t end up in the bin, but with the customer. And that’s how it’s done.
Antonia Klatt
Last Updated on 30 November 2021
Getting started in online trading: to risk it or not to risk it
Every retailer knows the problem: you have developed an interesting product or an exciting article that has real market potential and you now have to decide how much you want to put in your warehouse. Especially when it is not about exchangeable consignment goods, but about individualized products such as a printed T-shirt. Everything now depends on the question of how well the goods are received by the market.
The answer is actually quite simple. At least when the goods are textiles: print-on-demand. That actually means nothing else than that T-shirts are only printed after they have been ordered by the customer. This idea is actually not entirely new. What is new is that Amazon has perfected it. In such a way that it now pays off even for individualized products in very small quantities – without risk and with only minimal investment.
Pre-production is a thing of the past
Merch by Amazon is therefore a great offer for everyone who is able to develop an interesting design, but for various reasons does not want to have it made themselves. This opens up new opportunities, especially for those market participants who do not want, cannot or do not want to raise the high investment costs for their own production of the designed articles.
Because it used to be common that every retailer who did not want to pre-produce at their own risk had to wait for a certain amount of incoming orders before they could order or print the goods. This of course led to a considerable delay in delivery or, in the worst case, even to the fact that he even had to cancel orders that had already been received due to a lack of demand. In both cases, dissatisfied customers and significant reputational damage should have been the result.
Amazon – Mail order business becomes service company
Merch by Amazon removes the risk of retailers getting stuck on their goods because they are only produced after the order has been received. And so quickly and individually that it can be delivered to the customer within a very short time. To this end, Amazon has continuously expanded its mail order business in recent years and expanded it with a whole range of additional service offers. This includes not only the aforementioned print-on-demand, but also other service offers for beginners and professionals in online retailing, such as Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing as a seller’s program for books in digital form or the well-known Amazon FBA, which stands for “Fulfillment by Amazon “And includes warehouse logistics including customer service.
But back to Merch by Amazon: As a print-on-demand service, Amazon takes on the storage of the unprinted T-shirts and the printing process, while the retailer takes care of the designs and only uploads them via Amazon. If a shirt is ordered, Amazon takes over the production of the goods, while the retailer who uploaded the design receives a commission of around 5 euros. Since the goods only exist virtually as an offer, the retailer cannot sit on them. If the initially virtual goods cannot be sold, they are digitally removed and not actually destroyed – an aspect that should not be underestimated in terms of sustainability.
If you want to use the MBA service for yourself, you can open up a very attractive source of income in this way without large investments and with even less risk. The advantages are obvious: the dealer needs almost no start-up capital and no warehouse of his own. He has the opportunity to develop his own designs without bearing the risk of his own production. The costs for shipping and returns do not affect him. And – also not entirely unimportant – external traffic or costly advertising measures are not necessary.
T-shirt design: quality before quantity
However, there are still a few hurdles to overcome on the way there. The first of these starts with the registration. Because, unlike usual, the budding t-shirt retailer or designer has to apply to participate in the program. With this approach, Amazon wants to put a stop to an oversupply of different designs that cannot be bought. A flooding of the market offer in virtual form with irrelevant designs according to the motto “One of my 1,000 designs will sell” is to be prevented. After all, the quality of the designs should lead to an attractive offer and not the sheer quantity.
In contrast to the sale of its own products, Amazon also takes on the product image on the Amazon page, the printing and the logistics of the ordered items with the MBA service. And the whole thing at the typical Amazon speed: after just two days, the customer receives his T-shirt as if it had been ready in stock and only had to be bagged. Only the intense odor when opening the packaging indicates that this is an extremely hot off the press item, whereby the odor according to the packaging information does not come from toxic chemicals, but on the contrary from the use of environmentally friendly dyes.
Good quality instant prints
The print quality as such, but also the qualitative appearance of the textiles, including their haptics, are definitely impressive. In any case, they by no means give the impression of being hastily created in a low-wage production process, but can withstand the qualitative comparison with high-quality branded goods – assuming a successful design when printing.
In return, the designer receives up to 25% of the sales proceeds just for uploading his designs – a very generous margin with very low investment costs and minimal risk.
The MBA service is now also offered in all important European markets, not least because of its high level of customer acceptance. These include Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain, Italy and Spain in particular. This enables designers to present their designs to an extremely wide audience right from the start.
Relatively large selection of printable textiles
By the way, these are by no means just standard T-shirts. Long sleeves, hoodies, popsockets, tank tops, V-neck shirts and raglans, i.e. shirts where the sleeves are sewn diagonally up to the neck, are also available. Phone cases, premium T-shirts, tote bags and throw pillows, however, are only available for the American market. This means that the designers have a whole range of highly attractive textiles at their disposal that they can happily try out.
Participation in the MBA service begins with an application on the official Merch-by-Amazon page. And the application feels just like one. Because in addition to the usual personal data as well as a tax identification number and business registration, Amazon also requires a personally formulated letter in which you explain the reasons for your application to the company. And for a good reason.
MBA: unfortunately a non-transparent application process
Unfortunately, due to the extremely high level of interest, it is not possible to guarantee a place in this program for every applicant. This may be the reason why an applicant has to wait a few weeks up to three months for an answer to his application and often even receives a rejection. However, since new contingents are always activated, it is worthwhile to reapply for a place after a certain period of time. Once you have finally made it, the dealers have many interesting options available.
How many of these designs actually make it onto the market as a finished product depends, as I said, not only on supply, but above all on demand. To this end, Amazon initiated the so-called tier system. This is a step-by-step program in which every MBA participant is initially allowed to upload ten designs on ten different days in the first stage. If a certain number of designs sells, the seller rises to the next higher level and can upload 25 designs from this point in time. He can usually reach the next level after around five to 15 sales.
“Tier” as a means against an oversupply of design
The key figure behind “Tier” always indicates the number of designs that can be uploaded. This strict procedure naturally pursues the goal of ensuring that the participants in the MBA service only upload their very best designs and that Amazon customers are offered really attractive designs on the marketplace. The MBA service becomes interesting from around 100 drafts. Because from this threshold, products can also be advertised on Amazon, which in turn boosts sales noticeably.
There is no upper limit. The American Amy Herberger was able to catapult herself up to over 100,000 designs and has thus achieved considerable fame and probably even more wealth within the MBA community.
Buy or make designs yourself?
It is hard to imagine, however, that the American actually designed more than 100,000 designs herself. After all, this is not even necessary, because such designs can be bought on the Internet for little money. On various platforms such as Vexels, for example, you can get a large number of designs with a monthly subscription.
However, if you have ideas yourself and bring a good dose of creativity and the necessary specialist knowledge, you can of course implement yourself in programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator or Indesign and create your own print templates. This is always useful if you are offering products for a very specific niche and are familiar with the codes of the respective target group. Then it is often more efficient – assuming you have the right talent – to develop the designs yourself according to your own ideas.
Be careful with the usage rights!
Whichever approach you ultimately choose – in any case you should pay particular attention to the respective rights of use. In the case of purchased designs, these should be transferred to the buyer – in this case the dealer – in terms of time and space with the purchase price. Otherwise there is a risk of damage claims in an unknown amount.
But copyrights and rights of use can also be violated when developing your own designs. For example, when trademark rights are disregarded through logo images or through unauthorized naming. Motifs that you have photographed yourself, such as a photo of Uluru in Australia, can also violate the rights of use of the respective rights holder. Thorough research is always recommended here.
On the trail of customer tastes with analysis tools
Basically, however, you should be guided less by your own passions and design ideas than by actual demand. To determine this, Amazon MBA offers a handful of interesting tools that can be used to determine the market potential. This includes, for example, the free tool MerchReport, which allows a look at the bestseller ranking. In relation to the selected category, this key figure provides information about the respective competitive situation in the segment. With the help of this tool, niches for product offerings can be identified quite easily.
If the rights of use to the designs are beyond doubt with the respective MBA participant, the first ten drafts can be uploaded. What all files should have in common are certain basic parameters. This includes a size of 15 x 18 inches on a transparent background in a resolution of 300 DPI. The file must also be written in PNG format and must not exceed 25 MB in size. If these requirements are met, nothing stands in the way of small-scale production.
The next step is to select the products that are to be printed with the newly developed design. After all, there are not only t-shirts to choose from, but also, as mentioned above, hoodies, pop sockets, tank tops, V-neck shirts and raglans. The colors to be used for printing are then determined before the product description continues.
Earning possibilities
The MBA participants are completely free to set their prices, but they should orientate themselves to the usual market sizes and of course they should exceed the production costs. For example, T-shirts start at 15.99 euros, pullovers at 29.99 euros and PopSocket mobile phone handles from 10.99 euros. The margins that are achieved are as different as the cuts of the products: the retailer earns at least 4.34 euros on a standard T-shirt for 19.99 euros, while with the significantly more expensive hoodie of the 31 , 99 euros only 2.01 euros can be transferred to the dealer. The margins are by no means determined at will, but are rather the result of a complex calculation from all price parameters.
Although the standard T-shirt with its high margin seems to be the most attractive product in the range from the MBA retailer’s point of view, it falls slightly behind due to the high competitive pressure, as there are of course an extremely large number of competitors in this segment. So do you prefer the hoodie? A look at the MBA license fees and the MerchReport will certainly serve as a good decision-making aid.
If you want to sell, you have to find niches
One of the most important key figures from the MerchReport should therefore be the BSR Best Seller Ranking. This number can be used to derive how often a product has been sold within a certain category – in the case of “clothing”. Of course, this is followed by other sub-categories, for example “Men” and “Tops and Shirts”, but these again do not play a role for MBA.
How well a niche fits can easily be seen from a BSR: the lower the value, the more often a product is sold within this category. A niche can be considered appropriate when a large number of t-shirts are sold in the niche from not too many vendors.
From a BSR for the German market of less than 1,000,000, a niche can be worthwhile, while a BSR of 100,000 can be expected to have around 8-10 sales per month. That doesn’t sound like wealth and prosperity, but with around 100 T-shirt designs in the “20 euros” price category, around 350 euros can be earned a month.
Correct keywording helps to ensure that a good design is found well. A little time should really be invested here, since it also revolves around the important keywords with which products are filtered out from a huge range through the search queries of the customers. The topic of keyword and SEO is certainly too big to be dealt with in a single paragraph here.
For whom is the MBA suitable – and for whom it is not
Everyone who opts for the MBA service naturally wonders what is financially possible for them. Of course, you have to be realistic and realize that it certainly takes a certain amount of time to write relevant sales. After all, the program is designed so that strong qualitative competition develops between the providers and only the providers with the best designs reach the next higher level. In addition to a high level of graphic expertise and a feeling for the demand, staying a little longer is crucial here. Assuming these three virtues, however, medium-term success is certain to be achieved.
However, if you prefer to calculate with large numbers right from the start, you are in better hands with the FBA service. FBA stands for fulfillment by Amazon. This offer is aimed at everyone who offers their products directly on Amazon and uses warehouse logistics. However, this path is more suitable for existing companies or those who want to start one. Of course, this requires appropriate investment capital, ideally your own shop and a certain amount of experience. Anyone who cannot demonstrate all of this is definitely on the safe side with an MBA.
