Best products from r/AmazonMerch

Hi the ARTpillow
I took your concept for a skull on a tee and looked for skulls on a tee that have sold well. I hope it's ok to post links but I want to post 3 here:

1. Estimated 38 monthly sales on the ARRish Funny Irish Pirate Saint Patricks Day Shirt: https://www.amazon.com/ARRish-Pirate-Saint-Patricks-Day/dp/B06XCCYYD4
   
2. Estimated 28 monthly sales on the Pirate Mom T-Shirt Skull and Crossbones Tshirt Tee Shirt: https://www.amazon.com/Pirate-T-Shirt-Skull-Crossbones-Tshirt/dp/B075D4TZXT
   
3. Estimated 27 monthly sales on the Pirate Sister T-Shirt Skull and Crossbones Tshirt Tee Shirt: https://www.amazon.com/Pirate-Sister-T-Shirt-Crossbones-Tshirt/dp/B075DGPF1K
   
   One thing in common is they all have an image with text. Another thing, they are giving people more of a reason to buy it with a skull, being a pirate, celebrating, Saint Patricks, being a mom, and being a sister.
   
   There are so many tshirts with just images only of skulls. Personally, I would like your shirt even more if you got a really cool font. For example, the font "Sketch Bones" is free and can be used commercially. It's a bone font. :) But anyway, the part of the skull near the top that has open space, I think it would be fun to put the text there, maybe something funny...
   

I don't know anything about GIMP but make sure you're saving your images as .png not .jpeg you can't have a transparent background with a .jpeg. As for designing questions like what do colors actually look like and what percentage of fill to use I created this shirt!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XXPRC45
It's front and back so I'm only making $3 off of it but it's been a great tool for me and my team that I used a lot when I first started designing for T-shirts. I have a background in working for Traditional screen printers and they always had shirts like this around the office for us to use and see what things look like when they are printed. If you have any more questions feel free to PM me I'd be glad to help!

Simply put: Trademarks are not a completely objective matter. Also there is a big difference between actual, legitimate trademark infringement, and just sending a takedown notice to a merch seller or having seller support deny your shirt.

If I trademarked "Got Milk?" and I was solely a t-shirt company and this was my big slogan, it is fair to say that "Got Milk" would be infringing if they were also a t-shirt company. Please note that this will not be the issue with nearly anyone on this sub. You are probably not going to get involved in an actual trademark suit over merch sales. Instead you will be having your shirts denied, or having your shirts pulled because a rights owner complained.

Let us assume for a moment that "Got Milk" does not infringe on the trademark mentioned above. (It very likely does infringe and you would likely not come out on top in a dispute, but lets just assume it does not infringe). This is such a nuanced issue that Amazon is going to act with caution. If they find similar marks or their system detects similar marks, it is going to be denied. Just dont risk it.

If the rights owner of "Got Milk?" sends a C&D or has Amazon take down your shirts, Amazon will almost always comply and tell you two to sort it out. This is simply how it works on Amazon. Even if you are in the right, Amazon is going to remove the shirt.

Because of this, I think the best advice is that if something is trademarked, just stay away from anything similar. If you wanted to make a shirt saying "Got Gorillas?" Maybe you could get away with it in a civil dispute (Although, probably not), maybe you couldnt. It doesnt matter, though, because you likely wont make it through Amazons approval process and if the rights owner complains you will definitely get taken down. Each takedown and denial does stack up against you as we have seen in the past. There will always be more designs. Longevity is important in this business.


If you want a basic understanding of this sort of thing, you can buy and read this: https://www.amazon.com/Trademark-Legal-Care-Business-Product/dp/1413322948/ref=dp_ob_image_bk

I've heard of some professors using this as a supplemental for intro courses. It isnt designed for university so its easy to read, but still gives great information which will at least give you a basic understanding of trademarks. That doesnt sound like much, but most users here dont even have a basic understanding of these things.

I would agree. I would never try to compete with them, but somehow that one shirt on top has best BSR compared to them all (10k bsr), so I'm wondering if that person is doing something different (marketing) or lucky.

https://www.amazon.com/Womens-TShirt-Plaid-Matching-Family/dp/B01MAY3LNI

Think of the niche-est, kitschy-est thing you can, and make shirts for that. Did you know women buy Christmas ornaments of swole mermaid business men? https://www.amazon.com/December-Diamonds-Fifty-Merman-Ornament/dp/B00DCCRFCO

I wonder if there is a similar market for beefy centaurs?

Think of a niche, and then niche-down, for example: Do goths go camping? I mean, maybe?

If you can think of a question that somebody must get asked all the time, make a shirt. I'm a linguist, and people always ask, 'how many languages do you speak?' I must have heard that one a million times. I made shirts that said like: 'I'm a linguist. The answer is 5' and similar.

Good luck, dude!

I would have relisted it in white only, since that dark color is the first thing you see. I couldn't see the design. Also, don't forget to click the "youth" button on your uploads. I noticed this is only for sale for adults. Here is one my 18 year old son designed (different from mine). I think it's cute. Didn't sell a single one (except the one I bought for him). I think in my case, the dog isn't vivid enough on the background, but my kid wouldn't change it. Plus we didn't get it uploaded until after the New Year. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079W89DVP?customId=B07537TYTF&th=1

I think it's interesting that your best seller was put together in 10 minutes. I've heard that so many times--people in frustration uploading just anything, only to have it sell. There's probably a lesson in that: simple sells, maybe?

Keywords. I would like to do a thread on this at a later time but I'll give a quick and dirty example.

Go to Amazon and search for the following:

Shirt Dog Mom

Dog Mom Shirt

And you'll notice slightly different search results.

If you try to make a basic Dog Mom Shirt (with basic title and descriptions) it would end up getting lost in the sea with other dog mom shirts.

Now, I searched for "Shirt Dog Mom" and found this. It's not an MBA shirt and has a good BSR so I'll use it as an example (link below).

https://www.amazon.com/JINTING-Womens-Printed-Summer-T-Shirt/dp/B078PHMM7K/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1538998002&sr=8-15&keywords=shirt+dog+mom

Now I'll pretend I'm a female and my favorite color is rose gold, I stumble upon that shirt above and would really like some variation of it that's in rose gold, maybe the heart? Or maybe a paw print in rose gold. Maybe I had a dog pass away that had a rose gold collar and there's some emotional attachment towards that color and dogs...who knows.

So I search for "Shirt Dog Mom Rose Gold" on amazon to see what is out there....and nothing comes up.

As an MBA Seller, I see that as a problem and as an opportunity.

Now, I HAVE NO IDEA how many women are searching for that search term, hell their may not be any at all. And I'm not saying go out and make this design.

What I'm trying to point out is how a small change in your product title, descriptions and design can vastly change where your shirt shows up.

"The U.S. may be the only country in the western world not to recognize intellectual property rights in typeface design. The U.S. Copyright Office has unequivocally determined that fonts are not subject to protection as artistic works under the 1976 Copyright Act."

I understand what he is saying. My point is that in the US only the software is protected. Like if you created some new software that uses some fonts in it that you don't have the commercial licenses to then that's infringing on software copyright. If you make a shirt design that has only the typeface on it but not the software font it's not infringing(in the US). At least that's how I understood it.


>Upload a shirt with the Helvetica typeface, describe the font in the description, and see what happens.

Something like this from Jan 2018?
https://www.amazon.com/Typegeek-Anatomy-of-Helvetica-T-shirt/dp/B0795W4QFK/

The best part is, that Amazon recommends this one ( BSR 23,939,928) on the same page: https://www.amazon.com/Expression-Tees-Woman-Womens-T-Shirt/dp/B00SVB3P34/

D

Just thought I'd give an update: just made my first sale! It was on this product which I tried my best to apply the tips from this thread to!

Thank you for this AMA and thank you for you use of examples. I realized what my problem is: I spend too much time being a t-shirt DESIGNER versus being a t-shirt SELLER. I remember someone on this sub said that a while ago but without having a successful reference point, I couldn't properly judge. Between too much time on designs and haphazard keyword research, I am surprised I sold any shirts.

So in an effort to show what i mean:

• Here is a design I love (but no sales) probably due to keywords:
  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078L3T5Q6
  
  
• Here is another design which I feel has the start of something but I can't seem to refine it (no sales):
  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077VM79HV
  
  
• Here is a design which sold a few but took minutes to create:
  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SZNG6W
  
  Keyword Research is one of those skills that I know once I master it, it will continue to pay off for me for the rest of my life in offline and online based business.
  
  And I am open to any suggestions, tips, tricks or hints. I am at T100 if it matters, about 10-20 sales away from T500.
  
  EDIT*: Formatting
  

Just saw this gem today and the first thought was to search this post and tag it here. xD

try searching the ASIN.

for instance, take this product (not a shirt, but the process should be the same):

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-128GB-microSDXC-Memory-Adapter/dp/B073JYC4XM

The ASIN is B073JYC4XM

so we do a Google search for that ASIN

https://www.google.com/search?q=B073JYC4XM

first result is the Amazon listing. I also see a link to CamelCamelCamel as well as the following link:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/686642/amazon-selling-128gb-u1-sd-card-with-adapter-for-2195-wfree-shipping/

where someone posted a link to the product in a forum, and their link includes an affiliate tag (the &tag=b0c55yh-20 is their affiliate link)

He actually have some kind of brand on Amz called Heathen and looks like he owns quite a few related trademarks.

https://www.amazon.com/Heathen-Mens-Chief-T-Shirt-Small/dp/B07483BZ7N?ref_=ast_sto_dp

https://trademarks.justia.com/owners/david-a-lancaster-3381264/

There’s like thousands of designs...

Proof: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081DKK2D3

Ok here’s mine. It doesn’t even make sense but at least it’s not as low effort as the person who flooded our brand with 35 versions of the same shirt. (I’m assuming that’s not anyone here)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TS9F1Z5