The Merch by Amazon content policy for both graphics & text content is constantly evolving to becoming stricter & as sellers we need to protect our accounts and do everything we can do avoid rejections.
I call this my "Safe Upload Strategy" where we research, test, & monitor our Merch submissions.
I recommend doing this EVERY time you upload to Merch, just to be on the safe side.
They don't make public how many rejections it takes before your account is shut down, so take it from me - you want to avoid all strikes against your account if possible.
Even if your account is in a low tier and only bringing in $3/day in royalties.
3 * 365 = $1,095 of extra, completely passive, side hustle money would still be generated from your idle Merch account by simply steering clear of trouble that might get it closed down.
Step 1) Search Merch Listings
Before even targeting a niche or creating a design you should follow step 1 & check if someone else has uploaded a design to this niche through Amazon Merch.
Performing a standard keyword search on Amazon.com won't filter out non-Merch products & will make it hard to decipher if we think it's safe to target this design or specific keywords.
You'll want to use Merch Informer's "Merch Research" search tool.
Yes - this is the same Merch Informer that sells the most popular Merch by Amazon keyword research software on the market, so while I'm talking about it let me suggest that you give them a test run & sign up for a free 3 day trial »
When you perform your keyword search, you can select what type of product to search on:
After searching, if you see, lets say 15+ products related to your niche, you are probably OK.
BUT it also needs to be noted that somehow, some accounts are able to get banned design & banned keywords through the automated detection system & manual review.
People have theorized that the people able to do this are Amazon Merch employees. I've also heard that back before the content policy & automated detection existed, people had no upload limits & no limitations on designs or keywords.
Either way, be extra cautious if you think you might be toe'ing the line, it's best to play it safe.
For example, "Beer Olympics" is 100% NOT allowed because it uses the word "Olympics", yet clearly someone got a shirt through:
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Just because 1 person got this shirt through does NOT mean we should try and upload a shirt that says "Beer Olympics" anywhere in the design or in the keywords.
Wait For Processing
Once my Merch account was in tier 1,000 & beyond, I began uploading designs in batches.
This means I'd make 1 design, optimize it for standard shirts as well as hoodies & popsockets (check out my article on how to do this quickly & easily), & upload to all product types at the same time.
Here's the important part:
Before submitting all of them, I'd keep them at the final step of the submission process (so they were technically DRAFTS) & I would submit a single product.
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Once "Under Review" turns to "Processing", you're safe to upload the rest of them.
If you use the new Create (BETA) uploader, I would still recommend employing this strategy.
You'll still be at risk of getting a single rejection, but it's a more favorable outcome than submitting multiple related designs/keywords and getting multiple strikes against your account.
Trademark Alerts
If you've been selling print on demand items on Amazon Merch for a year or longer, you've probably run into this at least once where you had a design up & selling on Amazon for months & all of a sudden it was removed for trademark violation.
Unfortunately, there's nothing stopping people from trademarking most profitable slogans for print on t-shirts, hats, etc.
Thus, we either need to trademark them ourselves (which costs money & takes months) - or - use software to monitor our trademarks (doing it manually isn't feasible).
I'd like to suggest checking out the Merch Titans Trademark Alerts which allows you to add trademarks in about 2 seconds that will be monitored daily & alert you if their status should change, so you can remove the designs before Amazon's automated detection does.
In the example below, I added the phrase "Winter is Coming" to be monitored, and it automatically detected that it's not safe to use.
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If I added a phrase or keyword that was NOT trademarked, it would monitor it on my behalf every day to ensure I'm safe to sell the designs.
Setup a free 3-day trial with Merch Titans »
Print on demand is a long-term business model that grows steadily over time.
You're in this for the long haul, so protect your Amazon Merch account & follow the 3 rules of my Safe Upload Strategy!
