When you get accepted into Amazon Merch, your account is allowed to upload 1 t-shirt per day, until you have 10 shirts live.
Apply for a Merch by Amazon account today »
From that point on, you can continue to upload shirts, but no more than 10 can listed for sale on Amazon.com at a time. Not until you sell at least 10 shirts - then you will be eligible for a "tier up" to the 25-tier.
Amazon Merch follows this structure through the following known tiers:
- Tier 10
- Tier 25
- Tier 100
- Tier 500
- Tier 1,000
- Tier 2,000
- Tier 4,000
- Tier 8,000
- * there may be additional tiers after 8,000 - but I can't confirm this from my personal experience.
I did a writeup last month about a pricing your inventory based on your upload tier that you can read here.
Pricing is only a small piece of the overall strategy as it related to getting out of Merch'stoughest test: Tier 10.
In this article I'll share how I got both of my accounts out of Merch Purgatory.
Merch Tier 10: Niche Targeting
If you're serious about becoming successful at Amazon Merch, you should strongly consider doing a Merch Informer free trial.
Their software scans live Amazon Merch listings, evaluating how well they're selling based on their best seller rank (BSR). It then attempts to evaluate how much competition is selling t-shirts in that niche.
The result is they're able to algorithmically determine what niches are in high demand with low competition.
This is your best bet at escaping the 10 tier organically when it comes to deciding what designs to slap on your products.
What Niches I Targeted In Tier 10
On my first account, I uploaded designs related to one of my favorite TV shows. None of the designs were copyrighted, and I didn't put the TV show name in the listing.
Which reminds me to remind you: Make sure your designs are not legally protected before uploading to Merch!
I strongly recommend reading my article on how to avoid Trademark infringement if you're new to the game.
I didn't use all 10 upload spots targeting that niche at first, but once one of the designs sold, I took that as a hint and doubled down on it by replacing my live designs with new ones that targeted that tv show, & it didn't take too long before I was in tier 25.
I got my second account (my mom's account) from tier 10 straight to tier 500 eligibility!
I'll even show you the design that did it:
This trendy Halloween shirt put a spin on a popular Game of Thrones quote to make it fit for Halloween, and caught fire on Amazon in October, right after my mom's account was accepted.
I apologize for the really poor quality of this photo, I literally just took a picture of her laptop on the analyze page... but here is the proof:
* click to expand
I had the same shirt uploaded on my main account, but didn't see anywhere close to that level of success. For whatever reason, Amazon's algorithm decided to promote hers more. It probably got lucky and converted the first few customers that clicked it?
More sales = better organic rank.
Merch Tier 10: Pricing Strategy
Target Price: $13.07
I think you should price your shirts as low as possible while in the 10 tier.
This is the same strategy as a real-world corporation delaying profitability when they launch, in an attempt to increase customer acquisition by enticing them with low prices.
I can say with 100% certainty: Amazon customers love a good deal. Not that there isn't a correlation between higher prices and higher perceived value, but at $13.07, most customers will give your shirt a chance amongst more expensive competition.
Don't overthink pricing while in tier 10.
Merch Tier 10: Fast Tracking Your Way Out
The world moves in ebbs and flows, and your sales will reflect that.
I searched Google Trends for "funny t-shirt" and this chart reflects the ebbs and flows of the population at large searching for funny shirts. There's a direct correlation between this chart and sales that take place on Amazon Merch, & it's outside of our control.
If you're in the 10-tier heading into Q4, you shouldn't have any trouble getting 10 organic sales. If you get accepted into Merch AFTER Q4, you're gonna be facing an uphill battle.
The alternative way out of tier 10:
Buy your own shirts!
This is kind of a sad way out, but if you can think of a few t-shirts that you yourself would wear, you should design & buy them.
The same goes for friends & family! They make great gifts for a birthday or holiday.
One year I designed & bought all of my immediately family custom t-shirts for Christmas and they absolutely loved it, so definitely give this option some thought.
There's no shame in buying your own shirts to escape tier 10. Think of it as a business decision - you can 2.5x your maximum uploads by taking this shortcut, and it's perfectly OK with Amazon Merch's terms of service.
