Dean Soto

How to Sell on Merch By Amazon: Using Picmonkey for T-Shirt Designs

November 20, 2018 by Dean Soto Leave a Comment

Picmonkey is a paid software that helps you to easily create designs to sell on Merch by Amazon. It's online and there's nothing to download so that makes it very easy to use. however, as mentioned before… it is not free so that kind of stinks. But ultimately if you are going to design shirts that have graphics on them, it's super fast and easy to use.

Not to worry though, I share how to use Gimp to create free designs for your shirt.

Without further ado… here's how you use picmonkey to sell on Merch by Amazon.

All Parts in the How to Sell on Merch By Amazon Series

☐ 1. Navigate to PicMonkey website

Go to your browser's address bar and type in http://www.picmonkey.com

☐ 2. Create canvas

Click on “Design” at the top of the screen.

On the side bar menu, click on “Canvas Color”.

Tick the “Transparent Canvas” checkbox. Click on the “Apply” button.

☐ 3. Add and edit overlay

If you want to add an image to your design, click on the butterfly icon on the side bar menu.

Click on the “Add your own” button if you retrieved the image you want to use from another site. A file selection dialog box will appear.

You can also use PicMonkey's wide array of overlays available.

Locate the image file and click on the “Open” button.

Upon adding the image, you can resize it and reposition it across the canvas.

☐ 4. Add and edit text

To add text, click on the text icon on the side bar menu.

Select a font face and click on the “Add Text” button.

Note: You can only use font faces that do not have i crown icon beside it. Font faces with the crown icon are only available to Premium users.

Type in the text that you'd like in your design. You can resize it, reposition it, and even change its color.

☐ 5. Save design

Once you're already satisfied with your design, click on “Save” on the upper part of the screen.

Rename your file and change the dimensions to 600×600 pixels. Click on the “Save to my computer” button.

Click on the “Save” button.

Bam… You have successfully created a shirt design using PicMonkey! Pretty easy huh?

How to Sell on Merch by Amazon Part 5: Design with Gimp for Merch by Amazon

November 17, 2018 by Dean Soto Leave a Comment

This is the next part of the design portion of this series. Here we will take the images we got from our previous design and finish the design with Gimp for Merch by Amazon.

All Parts in the How to Sell on Merch By Amazon Series

☐ 1. Create a new canvas

Note: On this checklist, you will know of few basic tools inside GIMP that are useful in designing shirts in Merch by Amazon. A continuous study whether watching YouTube videos, tutorials and browses are necessary to learn navigating GIMP further and effectively.

Also, you should have GIMP installed in your computer. If you don't have it yet, please proceed and complete checklist 9.03 to get instructions on how to install it to your desktop.

Open GIMP on your desktop.

Once pulled up, click “File” menu.

Choose and click on “New” in the submenu.

A dialog box will appear to set up the canvass.

On the “Image Size”, make sure you are creating a square canvass. For now, we will use 640×640.

On the Fill section, choose “Transparency” so you can create a design with transparent background.

Click “OK”.

☐ 2. Upload the image for editing

Click “File” then select “Open a Layer”.

Select the image then click on the “Open” button.

Your image is now successfully uploaded on the canvass.

☐ 3. Navigate through editing tools in GIMP

Scale your image by clicking on the scale icon in your tool box located on the left side of your screen. Adjust the scale as you desire. Once good, click on the “Scale” button.

Move your scaled image to your desired location by clicking on the “Drag” icon.

Change the color of the image/s matching best the color of the shirt you're designing.

Note: For this example, we are designing a black shirt so we will choose white as the color of the image.

Click on the “Fill” icon to recolor.

Choose a color by choosing any of the tabs (whichever is easier for you to choose color from). Then, click OK.

Hover mouse and click on parts of the image where you want the color to apply.

You also have the option to add another layer if your design needs different images. Click on “File” then “Open a Layer”.

Select the file you want to add then click “Open”.

Scale the additional image by clicking the “Scale” icon. Once done, click “Scale” on the pop-up box.

Move the additional image to your desired location by clicking the “Drag” icon.

Re-color the image as you desire by following the same steps stated above specific to re-coloring.

You also have the option to flip images on your canvass. Click on the “Flip” icon then click the image you want to flip.

You also have the option to add text on your design. Click on the “Text” icon to insert text. Start typing the text. Once done, choose your preferred font size, font color and font style.

Move the text to your desired location though the use of the “Drag” icon.

You also have the option to rotate image to present variations on your design. Click on the “Rotate” icon in your tool box.

Once clicked, a dialog box will appear. Control the rotation bar until you get the right view of your image. Click the “Rotate” button once done.

Utilize different editing tools in your tool box as necessary until your design in mind is achieved.

☐ 4. Save your edited design

After your preferred design is achieved, save the design in your computer.

Note: We want to make sure that we are saving the design exactly as what we edited. Note that the normal saving process when we use MS Office or other tools does not work with GIMP as we need to “Export” the image to save it.

Click “File” then choose “Export”.

A dialog box will appear so you can set up exporting process. Create a file name then put “.png” as extension then choose your desired directory where the image will be saved.

Choose “PNG image” as the file type.

Once everything is set up, click the “Export” button,

You will be prompted to another dialog box entitled “Export Image as PNG”. Make sure that the “Save background color” is checked so the image will retain it's background transparency.

Once checked, click “Export”

You have successfully saved your design. You have reached the end of the checklist for this specific process.

Boom! That's it. It's a super fun and easy way to design with Gimp for Merch by Amazon. You can do this with anything your heart desires. Next I'll show you some other ways to get quick designs for Merch by Amazon

How to Sell on Merch by Amazon Part 4: Design for Merch by Amazon

November 17, 2018 by Dean Soto Leave a Comment

This is going to be the first part of learning how to design for Merch by Amazon even if you have no design skills at all (I know I don't). This is how you can use Google images and Gimp to come up with some creative designs.

In this article we will first come up with the idea and then in the next article we'll develop the design even further.

All Parts in the How to Sell on Merch By Amazon Series

☐ 1. Determine the design you want to do

Designing inside Merch By Amazon is really fun. It involves your creativity and there's really no limitations as to what design it should be (avoid designs idea of course which are foul, indecent and the like).

First, you need to decide what design you want to put and images that should be in it. It is very important as you will be searching for different images over the net and combine them using different tools (will be discussed in separate processes).

☐ 2. Option 1: Google Images

Go to www.google.com, click on “Images”

Key in your search string and click on the search icon or press “Enter” on the keyboard.

Once results, we want to avoid conflicts in the future specific to copyright and trademark. Filter results by click on the “Search Tools” button.

A submenu will appear. Choose and click on “Usage Rights” button. Then, click on “Labeled for reuse and modification”. By clicking this, you will be presented results you can use and edit freely.

Go through results and click on the images you desire to get.

Note: It is preferable to already get an image with a transparent background as that would make the word easier considering the next processes.

Save the image/s in your desired directory.

☐ 3. Option 2: Pixabay

Go to www.pixabay.com

Key in your search string inside the search box and hit “Enter”.

Filter the results by Color to show images with transparent background. Click on Color and choose transparent.

Go through the results until you get your desired image/s. Click on “Free Download”. A submenu will appear. Choose the most appropriate size and type of file you want to download. Click on “Download”. Once downloaded, save the image/s to your desired directory.

☐ 4. Get different images to complete your designs

There are cases wherein the design requires different images. Hence, follow the same process in getting images, both in Google Images and Pixabay (step 2 and 3 of this specific process).

That's how easy it is to come up with ideas. In the next article we'll use what we found here to complete our design.

How to Sell on Merch by Amazon Part 3: How to start Merch by Amazon with Some Free Tools

November 17, 2018 by Dean Soto Leave a Comment

If you are looking to sell t-shirts on Merch by Amazon then there are some tools that everyone needs in order to get going. Here's how to start Merch by Amazon by getting you familiar with some easy and free tools to make your Merch experience a breeze.

All Parts in the How to Sell on Merch By Amazon Series

☐ 1. Download GIMP

Go to Google and search “Gimp download”

Click on GIMP – Downloads.

Determine whether you're using it for Mac or Windows before proceeding.

Note: In this case we will download GIMP for Windows

☐ 2. Sign in at Merch by Amazon

Next, open a tab and search “merch by amazon”

Once you get to the Merch by Amazon page, click on Sign in

Click on Resources at the upper right hand.

Click Tools

Click on T-shirt templates

And download the appropriate template for you.

Note: Since we have GIMP installed, we will download Gimp template.

☐ 3. Optional: Download 7-zip

The template file will be in zip format. If you don't have a software to unzip the file, search for “7 zip download” on Google.

Choose the appropriate version for your computer.

☐ 4. Extract the template

Right click on the file. Choose 7-zip or Winzip whichever you have. Extract the files.

And you will have the template that you will need in order to start making some shirts. 🙂

Sell on Merch By Amazon Part 2: How to Find Keywords for Merch by Amazon

November 17, 2018 by Dean Soto Leave a Comment

When you want to sell t-shirts on Merch by Amazon, one of the big things you need to do is find a niche. In this article you'll learn how to find keywords for Merch by Amazon that are high traffic and low competition.

All Parts in the How to Sell on Merch By Amazon Series

☐ 1. Why find keywords?

Keywords are what would help you reach your customer. Customers search for products using keywords so it's very important that you list your product with appropriate and relevant keywords. If you choose and use the right keywords, it would help your product go up in the sales rank on whatever website you're selling on.

We're doing Keyword Research for anything that we're creating design-wise

No matter what we're using, when we're doing print-on-demand stuff, we want to do Keyword Research because it helps out a lot of things.
1. It lets people who are searching on Amazon to find our stuff –which means more sales in the long run.
2. It helps you to know what our target customer is when you're creating this.
3. It allows us to actually go and create stuff based off of keywords or to pay other people to create stuff based off of keywords. When we know what keyword we're targeting, and we have ideas based around those keywords, then we can outsource them to other people to create and design.

☐ 2. Option 1: Keyword Inspector

First thing that we're going to do is go to www.keywordinspector.com and click “Login” on the top right corner.

Login to the application

Once you are logged in, you want to click on the “Keyword Trends” tab.

☐ 3. Look for Relevant Keywords

Note: Keyword research can happen before you have an idea or after you have an idea of what you want to end up doing. In this example, we already have an idea that we wanted to do –“Mugs that are about waking up”. (Note: I am using mugs in this example because we also sell text-based designs on other platforms such as www.gearbubble.com. It's easier to kill 2 birds with one stone since T-shirts can have the same words).

Where it says “Keyword List (Broad Match) up to 50”, list as many items/keywords as possible.

And then, scroll all the way down and click “Search Amazon.com Keywords”.

Important Note: We always want to look for relevant keywords. We never ever want to find very high traffic keywords with low competition that are irrelevant. We need them to be relevant. Even though we might find that people are searching for “Garbage Pail mug” we can't just use that keyword if we have a mug the says “I love you” or whatever because it's irrelevant.

Even though a bunch of people might be searching for it and it has low competition, because it's irrelevant, it will actually hurt us in the long run. Amazon will basically hide our listing because it's not relevant to their buyers.

The first thing we want to look for is the amount of searches for these keywords. So when it says “Current Volume” that means “morning coffee mug” has 7000+ searches per month.

Note: We want to have at least a thousand people searching for the keywords you are going to use.

Next, check “Amazon Results” —that's how much competition we have.

Note: In this example, “morning gorgeous mug” has 1000 people searching for it which is okay. We also see that it has 263 competitors which is very low. Generally, we're going to see it in the thousands which is fine but when you see it in the hundreds of thousands, we are to stay away from those.

☐ 4. Login to Merch Informer

Go to http://theonlineempireacademy.com/merchinformer and click on “Log In”.

Enter your username and password. Click on the “Log In” button.

☐ 5. Check Keywords' Score

On the left side menu of the main dashboard, click on “Advanced Competition Checker”.

Copy all the keywords on your shirt listing in Merch by pressing Ctrl+C to copy.

Note: It is expected that you did keyword researches already.

Paste all the keywords on your shirt listing in Merch starting with your product title down to the keywords spread out in the description. Press Ctrl+V to paste.

Note: A blue button with a countdown will appear after clicking the search button. That countdown indicated the time it can fully process the search.

Results will be presented. Look at the column titled “Score (based on merch only results).

Note: The scores per keyword is ranked from A to F, A being the highest. A score means that the keyword is great to use specific to ranking.

By checking the results, you will be aware the most effective keywords for your shirt listing in Merch. Highlight the keyword that scored “A”. Press Ctrl+C to copy.

☐ 6. Check Shirt's Market Competition

Hover over the left side menu of the page. Select and click on “Products Search” to know your shirt's market competition.

Press Ctrl+V to paste under the “Keyword” tab. Check the box which says “Only by Amazon” then click “Search”.

Down the result page, you can see list of shirts (with images, feature and description). Check the column which says “Sales Rank”.

Note: We need to check relevant products to see if the shirt we will be positing will likely to have sale. We are always looking for sales ranking of not more than 100,000. The result should have at least one shirt with an acceptable ranking. If the shirt has a ranking of more than 100,000, it is imperative that the shirt will unlikely to generate sales. In these cases, the process ends here.

Copy the sales ranking by pressing Ctrl+C.

☐ 7. Check Estimated Sales Per Month

Note: It is expected that you are already aware of the product's sales ranking and relevant shirts are within the acceptable ranking range.

Go to www.junglescout.com/estimator. No need to sign in, scroll down to pick a category. Choose and click on “Clothing” since we're selling shirts.

A dialog box will appear. Paste the sales ranking inside the box. It will automatically generate the estimated sales per month making you aware if the shirt you will be listing is worth a shot.

We do want it to be at least 30 sales per month.

☐ 8 Get More Keywords Using the Reverse ASIN Search Tool

This method is going to help you find more keywords that you could potentially use for keyword research and the keywords that you can use for your different listings and things.

Sometimes you'll find products that even though you've done the keyword research and you check the number 1 item for that particular search term, you'll find that the second or maybe the third or fourth item in the row down the line actually has a better sales rank and is actually selling more –why is that?

That's because those items are generally ranking for other search terms as well. And this method is going to help you to find those other search terms.

So first, go to Amazon.com and put the keyword you're going after and click the Search button.

Note: In this example, we're going to use the keyword “personalized gifts office”.
Go click on the first item — “Personalized Office Desk Name Plate”.

Next, scroll down and find the Best Sellers Ranking and take note of the BSR number and category it's ranked in.

Do the same on the 2nd and 3rd or even the fourth item in the search results.

Note: Here are the BSR's of the Items ranking for “Personalized Office Desk Name Plate”:
1st item (Personalized Office Desk Name Plate) – BSR of 90,467 in Home & Kitchen.
2nd item (Signature Pens) – BSR of 39,939 in Office Products.
3rd item (Personalized/Engraved Jotter Pen) – BSR 34,376 in Office Products.
4th item (Personalized NamePlate) – BSR of 16,512 in Office Products.

Next, go to junglescout.com/estimator, select the Category and put the sales rank and press Enter.

Note: We'll see that with the keyword “personalized gifts office”, the fourth one actually is selling more than the first.

Here's the result after checking the estimated sales of each item:
1st item – 48 sales per month
2nd item – 36 sales per month
3rd item – 44 sales per month
4th item – 108 sales per month

Basically, what's happening is, the fourth item is ranking well for “personalized gifts office” but it's also ranking well for other keywords that might be better than “personalized gifts office”.

☐ 9. Get the ASIN and Go to the Reverse ASIN Search Tool

So now, we're going to find more keywords.

Note: You can do the following steps on each item to get more keywords. But in this example, we're gonna go to the fourth item.

Open the listing you want to check.

Next, we're going to take the item's ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) –it's a unique identifier that Amazon uses.

Look for the ASIN in the URL and highlight it and do Ctrl + C on your keyboard.

Note:You can get it in the URL (usually starts with “B”) or in the “Additional Information” section of the listing where it says “ASIN” but it's preferred that you get it in the URL.

And then go to keywordinspector.com and Login

Go to the “New Reverse ASIN Search” tool. This allows us to find what other keywords things are ranking for and gives us better ideas. This is a very easy way to do find more keywords for our research as opposed to using Trends Tool.

Note: Basically, what it does is it looks at a particular listing and finds out and it knows what customers actually used to get to that listing –keywords/customer search terms they typed in to actually get to that listing, which is extremely powerful, and not what is actually in the listing.

Scroll down and paste your ASIN into where it says “ASINS (1 per line)”.

☐ 10. Start Reverse ASIN Search

Make sure that the “Search Type” selected is the “USA: Extensive (3 Credits per ASIN)” and then click “Start Reverse ASIN Search”.

It's going to say “Your ASINs are Processing”. Click on the link that says “Click Here to See your Processed Reverse ASIN Searches”.

It will show a list and sometimes, if you don't see the listing, you can click on the “Reverse ASIN History” on the left hand side.

Note: It should say “Processing (1)”. Sometimes it errors out and so the “Errors (#)” would increase by 1. Sometimes you just have to reload the page as it could take a minute to process it.

So once you have the listing, just click on it.

You'll see the keywords it's ranking for.

Note: Ignore the very first column which is the “Best Keyword Rank (extensive)” column and the rest not mentioned below.

“Keyword” column – shows the keywords it's ranking for.
“Estimated Amazon Current Search…” column – estimated search volume per month (it's just like the “Current Volume” in Trends tool). You may put the keywords in the “Good Traffic Low Competition Keywords” spreadsheet.
“Common Misspellings” column – misspelled words that it knows.
“Number of Products found to have the Exact Keyword Phrase in its title” column – pretty powerful in finding competition. Just click on the “Refresh” icon and if it doesn't show anything, usually that just means zero number.
“Number of Results found on Amazon” column

Generally, you can use this to find more keywords for your mugs, shirts or any other print-on-demand thing you are doing. And that's it.

☐ 11. Keys To Success

Keys To Success = Keyword Relevancy + Decent Traffic + Low to Medium Competition

Take note of the following when you start choosing your keywords.

Main keyword and full quote in title is priority #1.
You can sprinkle in secondary keywords in the bullets.
And then other keywords in the description.
No need to use the same keyword twice or more in the same listing. 1 time will do.
You can use the same set of keywords on multiple listings. That way, you can dominate a few areas of the search results.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The most important section of an Amazon listing is the “TITLE”. Next most important are the “BULLETS” and then the last most important would be the “DESCRIPTION”. Also, make sure that you PUT THE MAIN KEYWORD that you are going after IN THE VERY BEGINNING of your mug listing's TITLE.

When you've already compiled your product keywords for Amazon, you can use these keywords on any other site where you're going to list the product because people will most likely use the same keywords whether they're on Amazon, on Etsy or even just on Google.

☐ 12. Option 2: Manually Check

Navigate to Amazon. Go to your browser's address bar and type in http://www.amazon.com

Note: When you're manually checking for keywords, it's important that you do it before you actually list the product on Amazon.

When you type something on the search box, you would see that Amazon gives you suggestions – these suggestions are what people are actually searching for. Type in the keywords you have in mind that are relevant to your product and if you see keywords among Amazon's suggestions that you think would work well with your product, list it in your idea file. You can list up to five keywords because that's how many you're allowed to have when you're listing on Amazon.

☐ 13. Rank keywords

Rank your keywords according to how well they match your product. Use your best judgement on this.

You can also choose to manually check on Amazon how well products listed with those keywords are selling. Type in the keyword and click on the Search icon. Open the product pages of first three results as these are the best-selling products for that keyword. If you deem the search result as irrelevant to what you're looking for, just skip it and proceed to the next product.

Scroll down to Product Information where you can see the product's Best Seller rank. Sometimes, products won't have Best Seller rank because they're not selling at all.

Do this for all your keywords and compare the rankings among the products you've checked. Rank your keywords accordingly.

☐ 14. Option 3: AMZ Tracker

Go to your browser's address bar and type in http://theonlineempireacademy.com/amztracker

This a great tool for finding keywords because it gives you keywords that you may not have even thought of. It's also helpful because it gives you data on the search volume of keywords, AND it can help you track your product's ranking based on each keyword that your product is listed with. This tool is paid and the fees can range from $50 – $400 per month.

Note: Use this tool after you've already listed your product on Amazon.

First, click on the “+Add Product” button on the upper right hand corner of your screen.

A form will appear asking you for either the URL or the ASIN of your product. Input whichever you prefer then click on the “Add Products” button.

Your item will then appear on the AMZ Tracker product list. Click on the plus icon to add potential keywords.

An “Add Keywords” form will appear. Type in all the keywords you have in mind, one keyword per line. Click on the “Add Keywords” button.

AMZ Tracker will tell you how much search volume each of your keywords have. This will help you choose which keywords to use because you generally want to list your products with keywords that people actually use.

☐ 15. Keyword suggestions

If you want to generate more keyword suggestions, click on “Keyword Research” on the left hand side bar.

The first column will auto-populate with all the keywords that you currently have. Click on the “Generate Suggestions” button.

You will be given keyword suggestions that are relevant to your current set of keywords. Check the box for keywords that are most relevant to your product. Click on the “To Keywords” button to add these keywords to your list. Click on the “Add Keywords” button to get the search volumes for your new keywords.

You can also choose to generate more suggestions using keywords you've chosen, just click on the “To Seed” button then click on the “Generate Suggestions” button.

You will be given new keyword suggestions relevant to the keyword you've seeded.

☐ 16. Option 4: MerchantWords

Go to your browser's address bar and type in http://merchantwords.com

This is a tool you can use if you want to check the search volume of your keywords. This must be used before you list your product on Amazon. This tool is paid and fees can range form $30 – $900 per month.

It's very simple and easy to use. Type in your keyword and click on the “Search” button. It will give you the estimated monthly search volume for all the keywords relevant to what you've entered.

That's it on how to find keywords for Merch by Amazon. Stay tuned for more on how to start designing your Merch by Amazon Shirts.

How to Sell on Merch by Amazon Part 1: How to Find Creative Ideas for Merch By Amazon

November 17, 2018 by Dean Soto Leave a Comment

Wouldn't you like to start a T-shirt business and start profiting without having to buy a silk-screener or the materials themselves? Well guess what… you can! In this series you'll learn step-by-step how to sell on Merch by Amazon, a platform that lets you just create the designs and Amazon does all of the hard work selling your designs to their millions of customers around the world!

It's easy and one of the best ways to make passive income with very little upfront cost.

All Parts in the How to Sell on Merch By Amazon Series

☐ 1. Find Proven Ideas and Look for Word-based Designs

Note: Skip this if you have existing designs unless you want to come up with more variations.

If you choose to proceed, open an idea file for your own tracking. You can use notepad, sticky note, excel sheet or other tools you deem is helpful to track your creative designs ideas.

It is important to know that you don't need to overthink and just let your creative juices flow. Ideas will come continuously so don't be afraid searching ideas that comes to your mind.

☐ 2. Option 1: Google Images

Note: Word based designs are very easy to come up with, are easiest when learning how to sell on Merch by Amazon, and are inexpensive as it costs you nothing. Once you get sales on those, you can get more complex designs.

There are different options you can try to get word-based designs:

Option 1: Google Images

Note: Google Images might be the most commonly used tools as it's so much easy to look things which will lead you to zillion of ideas.

Go to www.images.google.com and type whatever niche you want to start off with.

Look for different things that might work really well for a T-Shirt

Collect as many interesting word-based design as you can until you create a compendium of ideas.

Note: You can also search for word- based design written on shirts, mugs, walls, etc. (again, you have infinite sources you can use to get results related to what you're looking for.

☐ 3. Option 2: Pinsearcher or PinterestSort

Pinsearcher or PinterestSort is a chrome extension we use to find creative ideas from Pinterest. It finds products that have the most pins and people using Pinterest put them on their Pinterest board. They shop in there so definitely, you can search for what is trending.

To start, make sure you have the Pinsearcher or PinterestSort chrome extension saved in your system.

Go to www.pinterest.com and on the search bar, key in your search string.

Click on the icon of the added PinterestSort extension on your browser, choose a sorting category and click on “Sort”. This will automatically sort the pins of the results showing you the most trending.

Note: Don't forget to update your idea file.

☐ 4. Option 3: Keyword Inspector (Preferred)

The advantage of using Keyword Inspector when looking for creative ideas that we can use on our shirts, is that it provides us keywords that people are actually using – more or less proving that products listed with those keywords are most likely to sell. It also provides the monthly search volume of a particular keyword and allows us to view products that are listed using those keywords.

Navigate to Keyword Inspector. Go to your browser's address bar and type in http://www.keywordinspector.com

Click on “Login” on the upper right hand corner of the screen. You will be directed to the Keyword Inspector login page.

Click on “Trending Keyword Search” on the left side bar of the screen to open the Trending Keyword Search tool.

☐ 5. Find Ideas from Great Keywords

This is if you've already done Keyword Research. Basically, we're going to find ideas from great keywords and making stuff from that idea.

Note: An example of a great keyword I found in Keyword Inspector is “ugh mug” with 82k searches per month, at the time only 4 people have that exact keyword in their listing, good BSR, and it gets about 58 sales per month. Even though this is for a mug, the same goes with T-shirts. I use Gearbubble too so I like to find phrases that work well with Merch by Amazon as well as other print on demand platforms.

Next, go to www.amazon.com, paste the keyword into the search bar and press Enter, and see if it actually brings up relevant stuff.

Note: In this example, you can see different types of “ugh” mug.

Remember, you don't want to copy or make it exactly like the ones on Amazon but we could change it to something that is very similar or do different memes.

You don't have to do just 1 T-shirt. You could do 20 T-shirts that have different variations of “ugh” on it. Doing that allows us to dominate that particular keyword.

☐ 6. Go Through your List and Start Making Slight Variations

After getting sets of ideas, go through your list and start making slight variation.

Note: Never use trademarked or copyrighted names or phrases (these are very rare). To check for trademarked or copyrighted names or phrases, try checking on this:

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=searchss&state=4808:rt41od.1.1

And that's the first part of how to sell on Merch by Amazon… you are on your way to creating some amazing designs!