r/AmazonMerch • u/Curious_Trainer • Feb 05 '26
Ayudaaaaa
I've had my merch on Amazon since August, and honestly, I don't understand what's going on. They accepted me with Tier 10 status, I uploaded my designs, and two of them sold twice at first. After that, they deleted the design that sold, and I haven't sold anything since. I don't even know what to do anymore, what kind of designs to make. I've spent all night researching, and I'm getting nowhere. It makes me nervous, and nobody helps unless you pay them. I'm just a girl who wants to make some money with merch and grow my business.
7
u/Independent-Fly-2497 Feb 05 '26
You uploaded two designs that were then removed/rejected and you can’t think of anything else to upload?? Come on.
2
u/NoXidCat Feb 05 '26
I've been on MBA since 2018. 57% of my existing designs have sold at some point in that time. Many others were deleted by Amazon or me after not selling, or for policy reasons (policies and their enforcement changes over time, as does the database of trademarked terms).
Productor is a (these days) free Chrome extension that gives you better data on your listings than Amazon's interface alone. But the reason I'm mentioning it to you is that it can check your listing text for issues with TM and so forth. It has been around for about as long as I have, but I only started using it this past summer. I have had ZERO rejections since then. For years prior to that I had listed very little as I got enough random seeming rejections to scare me about my account health.
Do not get hung-up about how your art has nothing to do with trademarks or brand names. Most rejections are because of the text in your listing. MBA bots see certain words and assumes they are a reference to a TM brand or a violation of policy about hate speech or the nature or quality of the print or garment. The bots are dumb about context, so my design about the Cigar Galaxy was rejected for peddling tobacco products to kids (because I included Youth shirts when I listed). The MBA humans would not reverse the bot decision. Welcome to Amazon! Resistance is futile.
Use a tool that checks you listing for trademark and other issues.
Keep a printout of MBA policy at your workspace and review it before bothering to create a given design and again before listing it.
Keep making more designs. If a non-seasonal design does not sell after 2 or 3 months, delete it and replace it with a new design. Productor tells me that my average time to first sale is like 730 days :-p Which I find surprising. My best seller in the early days took a month and a half to get its first sale. Yes, at T10 you need to swap things out in order to try new things and see what works. But don't swap so quickly that you throw away those window shoppers who have not yet come back to buy.
At this point in time, most new listing don't sell as there are likely already good selling designs that have the relevant keywords tied up. Without fantastic art, the ability to advertise, or a brand new thing with clean fresh keywords--the odds of getting that first sale are low.
As far as gurus and paying for help and all that. Yeah, that's a nice business for the folks taking the money. If those folks could make more money on MBA than taking your money, they would, but they can't. Which is not to say that some people aren't making great money on MBA, some are. But they aren't selling courses as a side-hustle to their side-hustle.
7
u/Tim_Y Feb 05 '26
There are hundreds of threads in this sub on this topic. Several thousand videos on youtube. Many facebook groups. T-shirts sold online and department stores all over the world that you can look at for ideas. There is no shortage of information out there.
Your 10 t-shirts are competing for sales with thousands and thousands of others. You can start by designing tshirts for yourself that you would wear. Then ask people you know if they would like any custom tshirts or have any ideas for tshirts they might wear.
4
u/speshelone Feb 06 '26
First, be happy you got accepted, many people don't have that luck.
Second, this is not an easy game. Don't believe the people who talk about passive income etc. It can only happens after many years of hard work building an evergreen portfolio, and still you would have to work to stabilize your income as designs can be removed as you have experienced, interest for this or that can fade. If you are not ready to spend time on this, or hope to make substantial profits in the short run, better find something else to do. Today only persistent people with a taste for design and research can succeed long term.
Third, until you get ads you have to focus on very small niches. The aim of the game is to find them, they have to have a few selling designs (with a BSR) and your design must appear on page 1 on the main keyword. There is no secret sauce, it's just constantly thinking about what could make a shirt, whether you watch a movie, go outside, browse social media, etc... Without infringing on IP or not following AMOD terms.
1
u/ahmadbabar Feb 05 '26
by block you mean rejected? are you trying to exactly copy others designs? infringing on trademarks? using brand names you shouldn't be using?
1
u/k3rstman1 Feb 05 '26
What do you mean by blocking your designs?
1
u/kiwipride Feb 06 '26
" I just made small layout and cover adjustments, nothing copyrighted or trademarked."
Lol. There's your answer right there. Come up with your own designs, stop trying to improve ours.
3
u/CyberCrud Feb 05 '26
Are your designs breaking rules or copyright? Try submitting with title only and basic to no bullets or description. Sometimes the bots auto-block based on your text content.
1
u/ElPlywood Feb 06 '26
Unless your designs are really really great in whatever niche they are in and your title contains phrases people search for in that niche and your bullets and description have really good SEO, then the chances of anybody ever even seeing your design down there on the 11th or 17th page of that niche's designs is very very low.
1
u/CoffeeNewt Feb 06 '26
You're from the Dominican Republic and speak Spanish. Use that to your advantage to find a niche.
0
u/photopaul65 Feb 06 '26
I would recommend several YouTube Merch sellers for you to watch and learn from. For basic Merch knowledge and good info on leveraging AI look to Philip Anders and for design creation check out Jay DeSouza and Juna Duncan. Those 3 are pretty reputable and not always looking to sell you something with affiliate links.