I got word this week that I have been accepted into Amazon’s Merch by Amazon. Merch by Amazon is a service for creative people to generate revenue through the sale of branded t-shirts designed. I design the t-shirts and Amazon produces, sells and ships them.
There is no risk or out-of-pocket cost to me. I simply set up a Merch by Amazon account, upload the artwork for my t-shirt and push submit. Amazon takes care of the rest. I can make money through the sale of branded t-shirts I design. I earn a royalty for every t-shirt sold with no out-of-pocket cost to me.
Merch by Amazon is built on Amazon.com’s worldwide sales, distribution, logistics, shipping and customer service. Amazon takes care of the details so that I don’t have to.
Merch by Amazon is similar to TeeSpring. TeeSpring is custom t-shirt platform. I am already a creator on TeeSpring. Merch is by invitation only while Teespring is sign up and get to creating. I submitted the application for Merch about 3 months ago. I feel special that they have accepted my invite :).
I have over two dozen T-shirt design ideas lined up. I am working on choosing a free graphics editor for doing the t-shirt designs. TeeSpring has it’s own tools that I use to create designs, while Merch just allows me to uploaded complete designs. I have to do the designs outside of Merch using a graphics editor; preferable a vector graphics editor. I am rearing to go on my designs.
Good luck in your merch business. I've been a member since the first month. It really is a set it and forget it business. Create a design (I use Gimp) upload and you are done. Create a dog that won't sell? No worries. Amazon will take it down if it doesn't sell within 90 days. Create, upload, repeat. Let them worry about the rest.
Thanks for the advice. I am looking at Inkscape and Gimp for my designs. What made you chose Gimp over Inkscape or even Krita? Also did you ever trade mark any of your T-shirts?
I've used Gimp some in the past so I was most familiar with it. I've heard some people say Inkscape is better but I downloaded it and it looked to complicated for me. I've never trademarked any of my designs, they are all pretty simple and not really worth the cost to trademark. I figure if someone steals them, they steal them. I don't invest a lot of time or money in putting them together.