Are there any people using amazon to sell printed t shirts?

Just wanted to start a discussion on amazon for those who own or have started your own t print biz, interested in knowing if there are any people on dp and how you find it.

 

Amazon comes to me over and over again asking if I would like to become an Amazon Vendor and sell my products (BMW car parts) on there. The only issue is Amazon steals a hefty fee, something like 12% plus it's $40 per month to sell your products on there. They also require you to charge X amount for shipping depending on what good it is. With them stealing 12% of my revenue, it just kills my profit margin and would require me to sell my products on there for like 10% higher than they are already priced. And this kills sales because it makes my prices non-competitive.

Also, another big issue is PayPal fees. When amazon transfers your revenue $ to you, you still have to pay a 3% PAYPAL fee, which brings the total fee for selling on Amazon to 15%. Totally unworth it to me unless your costs are dirt cheap and your profit margin is high.

 

Actually, I have dealt with Amazon extensively over the years. For the average seller, fees will be 15% of the combined product cost + shipping, as well as the monthly fee for the privilege of selling there. Then you have the $0.07 shipping label charge and whatever charges you incur through Paypal. All in all, Amazon is only worth it if you are selling products you got for free, manufacture, or got at an excellent wholesale rate.

Another issue with Amazon is that only the lowest priced product will get displayed when multiple vendors are trying to sell the same thing. For instance, let's say you have 20 Samsung Chromebooks you paid $180/ea for them and want to sell them for $269/ea so you can make a profit. Now, let's say someone else, "Joe Blow", is buying these for $150/ea and decides to piggyback your listing (a common practice on Amazon) and sell them for $235/ea. What ends up happening is the listing you created now gives any sales to Joe Blow selling his product for $235 because it is the cheapest. The only way to get the sales now is to undercut Joe Blow's price, but then you end up losing money instead. Sure the customer can click the tiny little link under the product listing that says "20 more starting at $269", but no one ever does.

My advice about Amazon is to stay away from it. Selling there is nothing more than a catastrophe waiting for a place to happen!

 

It's a great place for buyers and a great place for companies in China that can manufacture things for cents on the dollar compared to the US, but not a good place at all for people without killer profit margins, which is near impossible if its a competitive niche.

I suppose if your T-Shirts are unique then you could do alright on Amazon, but you better hope your making them in house and cheap, or the fees will kill you. If you're selling similar shirts, like one with an American Flag on it, that hundreds of people are selling then there is no chance.

But yes, also forgot to mention that: the shipping they require you to charge goes directly to them. I used to sell my unique product on Amazon and they would require me to charge $4.99 for shipping, but they would pocket that shipping cost! So I still had to cover shipping which cost me $2.24! So at the end of the day, my gross revenue per sale would be $10.99, then take away 15% for Amazon and PayPal fees which leaves me at $9.34. Then take away a $2.24 shipping charge. So my overall net revenue is $7.10. The take into consideration my costs on the product, the product itself, packaging box, packaging card, shipping envelope, etc. so all in all in the end my Net Profit would be a measly $3 roughly. Whereas when I sell it on my own website it would be closer to $8 profit.

 

Like stated above, Amazon is a good market for unique products that are not easily copied. However in your case I would recommend using a service like Zazzle to get your designs out there.

 

Really helpful info you guys posted here on this thread, thank you very much!


Keep it coming!

 

Hello Coopzie, selling is imortant but designing is the most important. You should have some unique collection of Tshirts to be success. Be a designer and create some designs online. u can try RaFtshirt in starting to create your own Tshirt Designs and get them printed by them easily. I found some Intresting_work on portal of RaftShirt. Try and explore.

 

If you can create something unique you will benefit from selling on Amazon. Of course there are countries where the manufacturing is very
cheap and if you live in a western country it will be hard to compete. For example if you want to sell a t-shirt with for example a Batman motive. A Chinese seller can get a good unit price from a local manufacturer and that will then be reflected in the cheap price. For you to compete with the same price will leave you on the negative side rather than doing profit.

If you want to find a good marketplace for your design without the risk of having your basement full of unsold t-shirts you could start with Redbubble.com You submit your design and people can then buy ready printed t-shirts and other related products. You get a percentage for every sale. Also you can spread the link on social media to promote the product. If you then do well, you can start with finding a t-shirt printer. If you live in the UK I would recommend you AdKingo.com They can provide you with both t-shirts and the print. And the price is good.

 

Hello Coopzie, I have a men's clothes store and from last 6 months I am selling my products on all the Indian local marketplaces including Amazon by using Selluseller software. By using this software I am able to manage easily my inventory and sell products, track orders as well as analytics data.

 

Amazon now has a Print On Demand t-shirt program. How it works: "Simply upload your artwork, choose a t-shirt type and color, set your price, and add a product description. We'll create a product page on Amazon.com and when customers buy your shirt, we'll handle production, shipping, and customer service — all with no upfront costs. "
Site: https://merch.amazon.com/landing
I've had limited success with this but others report major success. Here's a link to a Facebook group with over 40,000 members.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/MerchLife/

The big drawback is you have to ask for an invite on the home page and it can take weeks or months to get invited.

 

I would use teespring.com for print on demand. I believe you can start for free.