Are Hoodies A Worthwhile Merch by Amazon Niche? Let’s Go Beyond T-Shirts
With roughly 2 million Sellers on Amazon, the platform is undoubtedly the place to be if you have products or designs to sell. Merch by Amazon makes things even more attractive, given that you don’t have to do any of the heavy lifting.
Print-on-demand merch Sellers don’t have to worry about investing in their own materials, renting or buying their own storage space, or delivering products to consumers. All of this is handled by Amazon for you. Your sole responsibility is to create top-selling designs, make them visible to buyers, and enjoy the profits.
But Merch by Amazon isn’t called that for no reason. Although t-shirts are by far the most popular category, and the most common product type in most Seller portfolios, there’s another type of merch that is well worth your attention, and that’s hoodies.
Is Designing And Selling Hoodies A Good Merch By Amazon Strategy?
As a Seller on Amazon, you certainly want to offer designs for products that are trendy and highly sought after by buyers. However, it’s also key to diversify your portfolio and scale your business. This will help you grow your sales at a breakneck speed and potentially turn what started as a side gig into a fully reliable source of income.
It just so happens that hoodies are a perfect fit for the description above.
Let’s hop off the Amazon space for a second and think about hoodies from a buyer’s perspective. They’re always in demand, they make a great gift, they’re highly versatile, and certainly trendy. Hoodies can be matched to any type of clothing, which is why we see so many people wearing them. Plus, they’re a great fit for any body type and a comfortable piece of clothing.
When looking at hoodies from a Seller’s perspective with strategy in mind, the picture remains just as dandy. They’re a great way to diversify your portfolio, attract different buyer personas, and guarantee sales during certain seasons when hoodie sales are on the rise.
What does all of this tell us? That you can grow as a Seller and expect to generate a lot of hoodie sales, as long as your designs are top-notch.
The Best Print-On-Demand Hoodie Niches To Tap Into
What does a top-notch hoodie design mean anyway? Will it be enough to guarantee the sales that you’re after?
Probably not. However, an outstanding design combined with the right choice of niche is a completely different scenario. It’s a winning combo and it’s exactly what we advise Sellers to do with all their Merch by Amazon strategies.
Choosing the right niche for your hoodie designs does require a level of dedication and research. To save you some time, we’ve prepared a few of the best print-on-demand hoodie niches to tap into.
Considering that a niche is a combination of several things, we’ve divided our observations into three different categories – themes, colors, and fonts.
We’re not going to talk about keywords here because they are influenced by a whole other range of factors. In general, a Merch by Amazon strategy can be keyword-driven (most interest, least competition) or best-seller driven (emulating the success of the most profitable listings).
For beginner Sellers, we definitely recommend the latter. So, pick a niche that’s selling well and you’re comfortable with, create something unique, and then strive to enrich your listings with the right keywords. Once you’ve gotten a bit of experience, you can switch strategies and try the most-interest, least-competition keywords approach.
Below are the niches we recommend targeting when it comes to hoodie designs, complete with their detailed characteristics.
Themes
Whenever you’re on the lookout for a top-selling niche for your print-on-demand business on Amazon, it’s always best to start by looking at the best-performing themes. Using Merch Informer’s research capabilities, we ran a search for the best-selling hoodies. The following themes were the most popular among the best-sellers:
- Anime
- Politics
- Lifestyle
- Holidays
- Pets
- Sports
If you already have experience selling on Merch on Amazon, these may seem familiar. They’re also among the top-selling themes for t-shirts. What does this mean? If you decide that it’s time to add variety to your portfolio, you’ll be one step ahead of the competition. You already know what’s selling well on t-shirts, all you have to do is apply it to hoodies. Talk about a good deal with minimal effort.
Of course, before you choose your themes, it’s worth checking out the business insights from Merch Informer to make sure that buyers are actively looking for similar hoodie designs. At the moment, the top three hoodies on Amazon are themed with sports, lifestyle, and politics. They represent a hockey team, an “I love hot moms” lifestyle design, and a Ukraine flag hoodie following current political events (but this is against the Amazon policies on human tragedy, don’t do this!). What this means is that you can take advantage of themes that sell all year long, but you can also use world trends and events to create hoodie designs that will perform exceptionally well.
Colors
Colors can play an important role in determining the success of your hoodies designs. They can either play to your advantage and make your designs pop or they can turn a great idea into a misunderstood reality.
When it comes to the top-performing choices of color, there are not many ambiguities. Without a doubt, the most popular choice of a background color is black or navy blue. Why? Because darker colors create a nice contrast with lighter ones, making the design stand out. Black is also a color that goes well with anything, making a hoodie of this choice extremely versatile and wearable. When it comes to the actual designs, Merch Informer revealed that some of the most popular choices include white, red, and green.
So, say you have a few designs that you use for t-shirts on Merch by Amazon. Try adapting them to fit the color patterns from above and use them for hoodies. This is a great way to test the results and find out if you need to make some extra tweaks.
Fonts
The last bit of niching down is related to fonts. When it comes to hoodies, there’s one unwritten rule – always keep it readable. Although there are a ton of abstract and creative fonts, using them for your designs is not the best idea. Why? Because the end goal is to sell more designs by making them attractive to potential buyers. A font that is hard to read can be extremely off-putting. No matter how creative and powerful your design is, it can be completely ruined by a poor choice of font.
A pro tip is to make sure your fonts are cleverly aligned with the theme you’ve selected and the imagery. For example, the ‘I love hot moms’ design from our previous example uses a bold and rounded font that is very simple and easy to read. The design with the Ukrainian flag, on the other hand, uses a Cyrillic, slightly wavy font and perfectly matches the theme. What does this mean for you as a Seller? That there’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to the font choice. All you have to do is make sure it’s readable and easy on the eye.
All The Reasons To Sell Hoodies On Amazon
Hoodies are a popular product on Merch by Amazon that can help you pave the way to becoming a successful Seller with a diversified portfolio. But why is diversity important? Won’t it be enough to have a few top-selling designs in a category? The answer will depend on how ambitious you are when it comes to making sales.
Although several top-performing t-shirt designs, for example, can generate a certain stream of profit, there are always risks. For example, the designs may only be popular at a certain time, especially if themed around a holiday or event. They may only be attractive for a certain target audience. After the majority of people from that audience have either seen or bought your design, there are not a lot of extra opportunities. However, by tapping into the hoodie category on Merch by Amazon, you can gain interest from more buyers, stay competitive and enjoy higher profits.
That’s right, we did just say higher profits. Hoodies cost more than t-shirts, meaning that Sellers will receive slightly better returns from making a sale. For example, the highest price for a hoodie among the best-sellers on Amazon is $55, while the highest price for a t-shirt is roughly $25. This is a difference that is hard to ignore. Apart from receiving higher returns, by selling hoodies you can also attract buyers who are prepared to pay more for your designs. Why is this important? If they’re impressed with your work, they could be tempted to view other designs you’ve created. This ultimately increases the chances of more sales coming through to your merchant account.
Summing It Up
Although t-shirts are an all-time-favorite when it comes to product categories on Merch by Amazon, as a Seller, you can jump beyond their potential and tap into the hoodie market. This will allow you to offer a diversified portfolio, attract a wider group of potential buyers, and niche down even further. Take advantage of this opportunity and use Merch Informer as your business intelligence weapon along the way to make the best decisions for your print-on-demand business.
