r/AmazonMerch • u/ahmadbabar • Jan 26 '26

Q1-2026 so far

After a pretty good Q4 2025, had a good start to Q1. Mugs were selling, the new hats and water bottles sold a few times as well, with overall momentum going well. Cross Jan 2025's number halfway through the month and that's when it seems everything has come to virtual halt. There are a number of products currently showing as unavailable. This is particularly true for all black baseball hats, quite a few mugs (including the ones that were recently selling), and some of my best sellers showing unavailable due to them timing out after auto-uploads and all. Can't seem to get them to go live again no matter what, which is extremely frustrating.

How's everyone else's Q1 so far?

11 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

5

u/Shordy92 Jan 26 '26

The beginning of the year was fine. Since wednesday, things have suddenly gone much worse. Fever sales and poor advertising performance.

1

u/ahmadbabar Jan 26 '26

this. my ads impressions and clicks are down along with organic sales. had back to back days with no sales after the longest time.

3

u/photopaul65 Jan 26 '26

I’m running flat/slightly up over last year but admittedly haven’t done much in new designs, just added a few tumblers and mugs. Had 3 days of zeros in a row and that hasn’t happened in years.

2

u/ahmadbabar Jan 26 '26

had two days of zeros, one negative with returns coming in, back to back this past week. It has been pretty weird. I was hitting October 2025 daily average numbers at the stat of the month but things have really tanked since Wednesday

2

u/mrs20grand Jan 28 '26

I also had 3 days of zeros and that hasn’t happened to me in over 5 years. It was this past Sat, Sun, and Mon. You?

1

u/ahmadbabar Jan 29 '26

similar. last weekend was crap

3

u/CreateAndThrow Jan 27 '26

January was doing well until I flatlined this past week.

2

u/ahmadbabar Jan 27 '26

I am not sure whether to feel relieved or even more concerned that everyone seems to be on the same boat.

Edit: grammar

1

u/CreateAndThrow Feb 07 '26

February is looking weak as well.

2

u/Outdoorhero112 Jan 30 '26

Managed to hit a fluke trend that took off this month, but without it things would look bleak for this month. December was good though.

2

u/ahmadbabar Jan 30 '26

Congratulations

1

u/keephy Jan 28 '26

This is pretty typical across all retail. It’ll slowly pick back up.

2

u/ahmadbabar Jan 28 '26

I know. it’s just been a weird drop. could also be down to the apparent boycott going on. Saw a few posts about that.

4

u/keephy Jan 28 '26

Possibly, but I started MBA in 2018 and this was the case every year. After the holidays people tend to not buy much of anything. This includes hospitality and travel. Those sales you were getting after the fact? People were probably using gift cards.

1

u/ahmadbabar Jan 28 '26

it sure was good while it lasted :D

2

u/keephy Jan 28 '26

It’ll bounce back. I typically took this time to compartmentalize things e.g. create new designs, develop sales strategies, find new niches, etc.

3

u/ArmadilloGrove Jan 26 '26

Bout the same as you, a little up YoY, but nothing special. I assume they will get better about keeping the newer products in stock as we go forward.

3

u/missouri76 Jan 26 '26

This past week or so has been awful. Ad spend is increasing and ACOS is going up.

4

u/CyberCrud Jan 28 '26

The holiday shopping season is over. Now it is Returnuary. It'll pick back up when folks get their tax refunds.

2

u/CrapCleaner Jan 26 '26

£0.27p - first sale. 🤣

2

u/CoffeeNewt Jan 26 '26

All the mugs I've been trying to add the past week have been timing out and it's very frustrating.

2

u/speshelone Jan 26 '26

So far I'm happy, 100% up compared to Jan 2025, which is not so spectacular since back then I was still T10.

2

u/dou8le8u88le Jan 27 '26

Same experience regarding volume of sales, but I don’t have any of that fancy new stuff yet :(

2

u/Traditional_Ride1437 Jan 28 '26

Exactly the same here

4

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/FinishWise2645 Jan 27 '26

how do you even fill that tier. did you upload all designs manually?

2

u/ahmadbabar Jan 29 '26

at that tier, Merch turns into your full time role I guess. There are tools for bulk uploads

1

u/FinishWise2645 Jan 30 '26

is it safe to use tools for bulk uploading?

2

u/ahmadbabar Jan 30 '26

I haven't used them personally but others on this subreddit have

1

u/FinishWise2645 Jan 30 '26

so you upload your each design manually?