I'm outlining the upload process to Amazon Merch as a part of my [FREE] Merch Mini-Course which walks you through the following steps prior to uploading:
- Requesting an invite to Merch
- Optimizing your workspace for long-term success on Merch
- The Golden Rule - avoiding trademark infringement
- Niche research
- Design tips
After you've finished the aforementioned steps, you're ready to upload!
Create multiple products (BETA)
On 3/26/2019 it was announced on the Merch dashboard that they were releasing a Multi-product creation upload tool, now known as "Create Multiple Products (BETA)".
This dramatically reduced the amount of time required to create Amazon Merch products & was a massive step in the right direction for the platform, as you can upload a single PNG design file & publish it to all products that share those design dimensions:
4500 x 5400 px
- T-shirts - front and back
- Women's v-neck t-shirt - front and back
- Baseball t-shirts - front and back
- Tank tops - front and back
- Long sleeve t-shirts - front and back
- Crewneck sweatshirt - front and back
- Pullover & Zip Hoodie - back only
If you want to upload to following additional products, you'll need to render your design at the specified non-standard dimensions:
4000 x 4050 px
- Pullover Hoodies - front only
- Zip Hoodies - front only
485 x 495 px
- PopSockets
You can drag & drop your designs into the free Merch Resize browser-based tool and have them optimized for Hoodies & PopSockets in seconds.
Read the full Merch Resize walkthrough »
Additionally, uploading using the Merch Titans Automation tool will automatically convert your standard dimension designs for hoodies & popsockets.
When you're ready, first click the "Select Products" button in the top-right corner & then select what you want to upload to.
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Then, you can simply click into the "Upload Artwork" section and select your design file.
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Then click the "Edit details" button and select the fit types & up to 10 colors to offer the design on.
Fit types: Offer unisex designs in Mens + Womens fit, unless the design is specifically optimized for one sex. If you offer designs in Youth fit, understand that your Brand, Title, Bullets & Keywords will be subject to a stricter content policy
Colors: Only 6 standard t-shirt colors are suited well for dark designs, while at least 18 colors work well with light designs overlaid on top.
Last, enter a price.
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I wrote an extensive article outlining a pricing strategy, optimized for your Amazon Merch tier in 2019 that you can read by clicking the link below:
Amazon Merch Pricing Strategy 2019 »
In short, I think you should defer profitability and sell your products at $13.07 (generating a $0.00 royalty) while you're in the lower tiers.
From there, I suggest different target price points based on your tier, the quality of the design, & the level of competition.
They now give Merch products 365 days to make a sale before being removed automatically (it used to be 90 days - how lucky are you if you're new!).
Therefor it's less important to entice customers with a low price to get an initial sale to ensure it remains in Amazon's catalog.
Right now I'm using this approach:
- Upload price: $14.99
- Price after 1st sale: $16.95
- Price consistent sales: $17.99
- Price after receiving ANY review (1-5 stars): $19.99
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Regardless of product type, I think you should follow a similar approach in your pricing.
Amazon Merch Keywords
First & foremost, I want to state that:
I firmly believe that people place too much of a importance on keywords when it comes to Amazon Merch & Amazon FBA.
Hear me out:
Amazon's catalog is very saturated, because people like you & I looking to sell things to the masses followed the crowd, & they lead us here!
I just searched for "funny cat shirt"... Amazon said there's over 10,000+ results!
Think about the nature of online sales & print on demand... they can offer an infinite catalog of products because online real estate is basically free & print on demand products don't exist until after they're paid for.
Plus if I had to guess, there's probably way closer to 50,000 t-shirts indexed on "funny cat shirt" than 10,000... but look at how they lay out the pagination - it prevents you from accurately gauging the true scale:
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You can click page 2 or 3 from page 1, then they indicate that there's a 7th page, but they mask the number of the last page and give no indication of what page # that might be.
Another key takeaway is the importance of being on pages 1, 2, or 3.
Imagine if you're on page 4 of results... customers can't even click the page 4 button without first going to page 2 or 3! But let's be honest:
Customers aren't going beyond page 1 of results to find your product.
Amazon's current search results page displays 10 rows of 6 products on page 1, coming to 60 products total.
If you're not ranking there, you're out of luck. The good news is that Amazon's algorithm seems to be pretty generous in giving various listings a "chance" at page 1 on occasion, almost in an attempt to let them "prove themselves"... but there's no guarantee if or when that will happen if you decide to upload the 10,001st "funny cat shirt".
There's a reason behind me sharing this:
I believe it's better to be concise & direct with your keyword optimization than to "stuff" broad keywords into your listing.
Title
Amazon's algorithm weighs the Title field the heaviest when it comes to matching a customers search input against their catalog of products.
Question:
Does this mean if someone searches for "funny cat shirt" and out of all 10,000 products, yours is the only one with the EXACT MATCH title "exact cat shirt", so you rank in the #1 spot?
No.
They also factor in other things, primarily:
- Sales history
- Sales velocity
- Conversion rate
Amazon makes money when we do, & as a result they grant the most exposure to the top-performing listings.
But it absolutely does help your chances of ranking on page 1 when your listing title is an exact match against the customer search.
Brand & Bullets
I read a case study on the Merch Informer website where they experimented with uploading the same design to create 3 different listings with variations in the keywords:
They then searched for related terms & audited the search results to measure the impact of the keyword strategy
- Upload #1: Contains key phrase in title ONLY
- Upload #2: Contains key phrase in title + brand
- Upload #3: Contains key phrase in title + brand + bullets
The result was probably predictable: Upload #3 ranked highest in search results, as it repeated the primary key phrase in all 3 fields that get indexed.
As a result, I suggest honing in on the single most relevant key phrase and repeating it as your Brand, Title, & in your bullets.
Read the case study on Merch Informer »
Description
It's OK to skip product descriptions:
- They don't get indexed, meaning they won't effect your search rank positively or negatively
- The majority of Amazon shoppers shop from mobile devices, & descriptions are hidden on mobile
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The one pro to filling the description field out is that on desktop (where it's visible by default), it makes your listing look more "complete" which will boost your conversion rate (but the actual statistics wont be visible).
But it comes with a risk: any keyword you enter into the description field can result in a content policy violation, getting your submission rejected & resulting in a strike against your Merch account.
How NOT To Do Keywords
I'm not a fan of keyword stuffing.
For instance, let's say you're selling the following "Avogato" shirt:
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I would target this string of words as my primary phrase & make it by Brand, Title, & copy+paste it into one of the bullets:
Avogato Shirt Cat Avocado
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This should assist our chances of ranking when customers type in phrases like "Avogato Shirt" & "Cat Avacado Shirt", which are probably the two most high-est trafficked long-tail keywords that drive traffic to the listing.
I'm OK with adding phrases like "funny cat shirt" to the bullets, but understand that it's only going to rank you on page 2+ where you'll never be seen, unless your design is truly amazing.
Even if it is amazing, you'll likely need to pay Amazon to advertise your shirt and build the initial sales volume. That's just the way it goes on high-volume, high-competition keywords!
There's two primary reasons why I stopped believing in the keyword stuffing approach:
- The content policy keeps getting stricter & each additional word increases the likelihood of a strike
- On 3/29/2019 they announced that they were going to be stricter on listings that keyword stuffed in an attempt to "reduce customer confusion".
Plus, with the inevitable saturation that comes with more accounts being accepted into Merch, & existing accounts getting tiered up, getting indexed on less-relevant keywords is less & less likely to result in your product showing up on the only page of results that matters... page 1.
TL;DR Be concise with your keywords & don't risk getting a submission rejected due to content policy violations!
Amazon Merch UK & Germany
To round out this article I just wanted to note that you can also make designs available on UK & Germany from the same screen:
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Please remember that each international market is also subject to a unique content policy!
I've recently been using the Merch Titans Automation uploader to re-upload all of my existing designs to UK & Germany (it translates English to German for you), and I've had numerous instances where a submission was rejected in 1 of the 3 markets, but not the other 2.
It shouldn't deter you from uploading to UK/DE, but it's worth making note of.
Last, I'd like to recommend reading my article on my "Safe Upload Strategy" which will help further protect your account from receiving multiple rejections.
