If you are a budding designer or artist, seeing your designs or artwork on T-shirts, cups, and other everyday items may seem like a dream come true. Recently, Amazon launched a program that could make this dream reality – Merch by Amazon. There is a catch though – you need an invitation. There is also a way out – requesting the invitation. So how can you make it to the Amazon invite list?
Merch by Amazon is a program that enables you to earn money from your artwork and designs. You upload the artwork, choose a clothing item type and color and add a product description. This is where your part of the job ends. Amazon then creates the product page, handles production, shipping and customer service – and you get a royalty on every product sold.
Why is Merch by Amazon a great opportunity?
It is a great way to increase your visibility, build your brand and audience and make money. Merch by Amazon is a great thing for beginners who cannot afford to invest in creating their own online store (or just don’t want to bother with it).
Under Amazon’s wing, you have an access to a huge audience and priority in search engines. Also, if you want to use Merch by Amazon as sort of a test for developing your own online business, it’s a low-risk opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t. It enables you to use Amazon’s analytics tools so you can track your revenue and the audience’s response to your designs.
At the moment, Merch by Amazon is gradually rolling out the access to Amazon Advertising account for its March community. This feature is still not available to everyone, but once it becomes, it will become an additional powerful tool you can use to boost your traffic and sales.
A particular upside to this program is that Merch by Amazon does not limit you by acquiring rights to your intellectual property. This means you can freely submit the same designs to other programs or manufacturers – which gives you more opportunities to sell via different channels.
What are the downsides to Merch by Amazon?
Just like any other big name taking budding content creators under its wing, Amazon makes a good buck with Merch by Amazon program – and this will not be a case for you. The royalties are pretty modest. For example, for each $15.99 T-shirt you sell, you earn $2.36. These are more detailed comparisons.
So, if you are looking to make some serious money through Merch by Amazon, you need to sell a lot – which probably means that you will have to put in some time in marketing the product all by yourself. You can see detailed royalties calculations here.
Furthermore, all your designs have to comply with Amazon’s content policy, so if you are known for edgy artwork and strong political statements, your freedom of artistic expression will be fairly limited.
So should I apply for Merch by Amazon?
All these upsides and downsides are the reality of piggy-backing an established marketplace in the e-commerce business. Starting an online business on your own terms is more difficult, pricier and riskier option, but it provides you with more flexibility, growth possibilities, and branding potential.
However, Amazon Merch can serve as a great introduction to the world of online sales, especially if you are not sales- and marketing-savvy. Although chances are you cannot earn a lot, you cannot lose anything either – so you might as well give it a try.
Even if your sales aren’t too large in volume, Merch by Amazon can be a platform for acquiring your first loyal customers and building brand awareness.
What is the catch with Merch by Amazon?
Obviously, this kind of risk-free, no-investment opportunity attracted a lot of interested designers and artists. That being said, the competition is pretty intense, and at this point, Merch by Amazon works as an invitation-only system.
However, you do have the option to request the invitation and throw yourself in the mix of potential Amazon merchandisers. But how do you make sure you live up to the Amazon’s standards? This is where we will help you.
How to request a Merch by Amazon invitation
You will find the Amazon Merch request form at the bottom of this page. This is how invitation request form looks like – and it will give you an idea about the things you should focus on if you want to be accepted.
Now, the slots for consideration are also limited – so you can wait for quite a while before someone even looks at your application. Amazon will not contact you until they have an opening available to offer.
However, you shouldn’t sit around and wait – this time frame can be a perfect opportunity to boost your bid. The application form gives you a general idea what you should focus on – mainly building a strong website that represents your art and designs. Let’s see how you can do that.
Boosting your Amazon Merch bid
If you want to catch Amazon’s eye, one thing is clear – you have to have an impeccable online presentation. Now, this can be your Facebook or Instagram account, but I strongly recommend that you create a website of your own.
This website can be an online store or simply a portfolio of your artwork – but you want to make sure it has a branding potential. How do will you do that?
In this article, I wrote in great detail about selling art online – you can find info on starting your online store and specific marketing strategy for selling artwork. It will definitely come in handy if you want to expand your audience, so click on that bookmark button and keep it close.
In this guide, however, I will focus on the specifics of an Amazon Merch worthy website. Maybe you’ve already been through some of these steps but bear with me to make sure you did everything right.
1. Create your website
Depending on your tech-savviness and coding experience, you can opt for a using a website building platform with predesigned templates or creating your website from scratch. I have two recommendations for beginners on a budget.
WordPress
I will recommend WordPress because it enables you to run a blog, which is an important part of your strategy to create a buzz around your work. Also, it integrates with WooCommerce in case you want to add a shopping cart to your website.
It is available in multiple languages, it has various extensions and easily customizable themes, and managing this website is a relatively easy ride given WordPress’ worldwide popularity. In the free package, you get WordPress.com subdomain, essential features, free templates, and basic design customization, as well as 3GB of storage space. Paid plans start at $4/month.
On review site Capterra, WordPress has a 4.5-star rating based on more than 4,000 reviews.
Jimdo
Jimdo is a website creator and host, where you can simply start a website for free. There are plenty of predesigned templates, but you can easily customize them with color palettes and fonts you choose.
On review site Capterra, Jimdo has a 4 out of 5 stars rating based on 10 reviews. With Jimdo free plan, you get their subdomain (which will look like this: yourwebsite.jimdofree.com), 500MB storage, 2GB bandwidth, and HTTPS encryption.
Paid plans come with free hosting, larger storage, no ads, and mobile device optimization and integrated shopping cart. Pro plan is $7.50/month, while a Business plan is $20/month.
If you want to build your website as an online store, click here for detailed instructions.
Which one to choose?
Good graphics and high-quality pictures are an absolute must for any designer’s or artist’s website. Storage should be among the priorities when you are making a decision about the right platform – you want your website to run smoothly even with a high-volume of high-quality images.
This means you will probably have to upgrade to some sort of paid plan – which shouldn’t be too difficult, given that both WordPress and Jimdo offer reasonably priced monthly plans.
2. Boost your branding potential
Your website should be well-designed, that is a given. I won’t waste your time telling you things like that, because I am sure you are perfectly capable of creating something original and eye-pleasing.
However, regardless of the design or template you’re using, it is easy to oversee the importance of branding your artwork and designs. This is why I strongly recommend that you use a customized palette and font when you design your website. Also, create your own logo and make sure it is visible, recognizable and present in each piece of your work.
Apart from making you look professional and brand-worthy, the logo also makes you stand out in the eyes of your audience and customers.
As you may know, each artist has something unique to them. For some it’s the technique, for some, it’s the lines, for some it’s the colors. Now it really depends on your work and style, but if you aim to use artwork for merchandise, it’s always a good idea to add a distinct and recognizable tweak that all of your works have in common. You definitely know Sarah Andersen’s work when you see it, right?
3. Have a marketing strategy
Even the most beautiful website isn’t worth much if it is just going to sit there without any traffic. But there are a few ways to start networking and building an audience.
Be active on social media
Create accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, and share your work with people. If your budget allows it, you can also run ads on these social networks. Engage with your audience – reply to their comments and listen to their suggestions or (constructive) criticism.
Start a blog
In one of the previous sections, I recommended WordPress as the perfect website building platform, mainly because it is a full package. You can easily add a blog to your website and make sure your SEO is on point.
A blog is a great way to assert yourself as an artist and influencer. The topics you can write about depend on your interests, niche, and goals. You can create tutorials, write commentary about classic art or the latest news. Apart from attracting the audience through organic search, blog posts shared on social networks are a great way to start a conversation and engage with your audience.
Grow your email list
Using pop-ups and hello bar, you can maximize your traffic by allowing your website visitors to subscribe to your newsletter.
This way, you can stay in touch with people who would otherwise visit your site once, never to come back. Adding simple, yet cheap lead generation tools like quizzes can also be a great technique for engaging your website visitors and learning more about them.
Although less experienced marketers would think that email marketing is dead, the truth is quite different. Email is one of the most successful marketing channels out there. If you think about it better, it makes sense. People on your email list are people who willingly gave you their contact information, which means they are interested in what you have to say.
Furthermore, when you are in someone’s inbox, you have their undivided attention – which is a great way to engage or sell, whatever your goal may be. If you are interested in creating a popping newsletter, click here to learn what it takes.
Finally, remember that you need to be patient and constantly track the results of your marketing strategy. This way, you can learn from your mistakes and adjust both your strategy and your artwork. Success won’t come overnight – but with a little bit of consistency and creativity (both of which you have, otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now), you can go a long way.
Conclusion
As you may have noticed, this advice does not apply exclusively to your Amazon Merch bid. In fact, following these steps can help you turn your artwork and designs into a good source of income, regardless of Amazon team’s final decision.
Of course, Merch by Amazon, as I said before, is nothing to sneeze at. It can be your sole source of income, a testing opportunity, or it can become one of the many ways you can sell your art and designs.
If you are interested in additional options for online sales, continue your journey with this article. If you want to know how much money you’ll need to start selling online, check out this guide for beginners with a tight budget.
