Selling on Amazon is a great way of creating a new passive income stream, with a low barrier of entry that is accessible to anyone with an internet connection and a computer.
I like to think of personal income in terms of dollars per day. How much money do you make from your day job in terms of dollars per day? Diving your annual income by 365 and find out.
Now imagine that you're able to sell two t-shirts on Amazon at an affordable $17.99 price point, netting you a daily $7.74 Updated 2019: $7.44 royalty.
If you were already making $50,000 a year, you just gave yourself a 5.6% 5.4% raise! And there's nothing to it - after you upload the designs, it's 100% passive and you sit back and collect monthly checks!
Merch By Amazon Approval
Merch by Amazon is an invitation-only program, meaning you will need to apply and be accepted before you can participate.
People have been accepted into the program as early as 1 week after submitting their application, and in the past, some approvals took over a year.
I can speak from experience on three different instances of account approvals:
- My account: I applied in October of 2016, and then again in February of 2017 (under the same account email address). About 4 weeks after my second application, I was accepted into Merch by Amazon.
- My mom's account: My mom applied for an account in September of 2017 and was let in within 3 weeks of submitting her application
- One of my student's: I had a student apply for a Merch account right around the time that my mom applied for hers, however it took him over 2 months to get approval.
- p.s. it's been just about a year since I recommended Merch by Amazon to both my aforementioned mom & student, and they are both still active & enjoying the extra passive income!
As of 2018, they seem to have intentionally made the program much less exclusive and easier to get into. Wait times seem to be around 1-2 weeks on average now, and upload limits are looser.
Many of us Merchers agree that Amazon has embraced the "quantity of quality" approach to print on demand by flooding the market with new sellers and incentivizing them to upload more designs rather than spend time creating fewer, higher quality designs.
The Merch by Amazon Application Process
Before you apply, you will need the following information:
- Business contact information
- Bank account and routing numbers
- Social Security number or other tax identification number
1) Navigate to the Merch Home Page & click "Request Invitation".
2) Application Step 1: Company Profile
For Business Name, you can use your first + last name if you don't have a registered LLC.
For Business email address, again this is not required to be different than your Amazon account email address, it's just giving you the option. Note: Amazon Merch does send a lot of emails, so make sure you use an inbox that you check & maintain regularly.
3) Application Step 2: Payment & Banking
You will need a valid bank account in the country that you are registering from.
4) Application Step 3: Tax Information
Most people will be registering as an individual (unless you have a registered business entity such as an LLC, in which case click "Business" & then you will need to provide a Federal Tax Classification)
You then need to provide your name as it appears on tax documents (& business name if applicable)
For principal place of residence, provide the address associated with the tax ID you gave them.
Last, provide your Social Security Number as your Tax Identification Number if you are registering as an individual (otherwise, use your EIN)
5) Application Step 4: Sign & Submit
Provide your electronic signature & submit the application! Now the waiting game begins - good luck!
