Moving Up The Amazon Merch On Demand Tier System

tier up merch by amazon

Your store is set, you feel your images are great, you have unique ideas. You’ve been waiting for a boost for months and you’ve spent hours studying competing t-shirt designs. And yet, still you’re not selling anything? It must be something wrong with the algorithm! Well, no. It’s simple to point the finger at Amazon and its programming. But that’s not the issue.

The First Step Is Always The Hardest

Perhaps we start with the person in the mirror, the one making all the final decisions. Are your images as good as you think? Maybe your designs are bad. Perhaps your specialty is too broad. Perhaps the unique niche you discovered has been over-used and you have no chance of standing apart.

It’s apparent that getting past the twenty-five shirt-tier is the most difficult part of Merch. That, as well as being disciplined being the other part. If the standard patterns hold true, only 20% of your sales will be responsible for 80% of your revenues. In reality, you’ll only have three or four shirts that sell well out of a total of twenty-five. That is not a great playing field to begin with. The simple takeaway from this is the more shirts you have to sell, the more shirts you’ll sell, and the faster you’ll be able to tier up.

MBA Tiers: A Deep Dive

Understanding the tiers is also important if you want to be on them. Everyone begins in Tier 1. The number of designs you can post in each tier is as follows: Tier 1 limits you to twenty-five designs, Tier 2 maxes out at 100 designs, Tier 3 at 500 designs, Tier 4 at 1,000, Tier 5 at 2,000, Tier 6 at 4,000, and Tier 7 allows you to have 8,000 overall designs. Please note that it makes no difference if you sell twenty-five of the same shirt or twenty-five shirts once each. Your goal should be to get out of the twenty-five shirt tier as soon as possible so that you have a higher chance of making sales once you have one-hundred designs up and running.

In addition, you need to really focus on what the issue is and what it is not. Amazon itself is not the enemy of your sales. The MBA platform has provided the world with a unique method to supplement income, they only need to be selected. You have the advantage of getting in now, while it is only by invitation. All you have to do is upload designs, select a few colors, and establish a pricing. There will be no inventory, returns, nor customer service concerns. Of course, some users are immediately crushing it with organic sales. But keep in mind these successful folks most likely did not sit around waiting for their Merch update. They actively sought out information on how to be successful with Amazon Merch. They learned how to conduct effective Merch by Amazon research, how to create killer Merch product descriptions, or perhaps they watched some Photoshop lessons.

Need To Keep Up Momentum

But back on actual sales, keep in mind that once you get twenty-five sales, you will not immediately tier up. Amazon upgrades users to the next tier in groups, so it may take a week or two to tier up. That being said, how DO you jump to the next tier in the best way? How can you sell twenty-five designs in the shortest amount of time? Well, if you cannot wait, the quickest way to level up is just buy them yourself and sell them (or wear them, give them away as promos, etc.). We are not advocating this, but it’s a way that’s as direct as any other. Or just buy as many as you need to in order to “level up”.

You can also advertise in local Facebook groups that share the topic you are selling. Tiering up with Facebook groups is another excellent strategy to generate quick sales. There are Facebook groups for almost every topic under the sun. This technique entails joining many Facebook groups in a specific niche, waiting to be approved, and then waiting to share your design. These groups’ members can also be extremely close, almost like family. Remember, they joined that group to have meaningful discussions about a specific specialty or issue that interests them. You don’t have to participate in the conversation, but you should at least wait for the proper moment to drop a link. When you upload it, make sure to give it an engaging title or comment. Just do not get over-zealous and post constantly; you could get blocked for being a spammer, which you would be in that case.

Using things like Twitter hashtags marketing on social networks is also a good move. This method is extremely effective if you are pursuing a specific niche. Every now and then, a hashtag will catch on among the community. You will make a lot of sales if you can learn to dominate just one niche. Then, spread the word and include the hashtag you want to go with in your tweets as well.

Offer Merch to Local Events

Is there going to be a local event of some sort in your area? Find out who is organizing those events and contact them. Inquire whether they require t-shirts for the activities. Even better if you can find patterns from the prior year. You can create a similar design, and give them a live design immediately, or even before you contact them. Learning how to tier up utilizing local current subjects is a definite method to increase sales, and it’s also a terrific opportunity to get engaged and give back to your community.

Are you a fan of your local music scene or involved with any bands that are not yet playing Madison Square Garden? Make contact with them, as they will always want good merchandise. It’s free publicity for them when people wear their band shirt. Contact a band member via social media to see if they’d be interested in having some Merch manufactured for their act. They most likely already have a band logo, which is fantastic. They can simply email you the logo and you can begin right away. If they are unsure about the contract, ask if they would be interested in seeing a live example of their band’s t-shirt on Amazon. Any group would want to be listed on Amazon. In exchange, you may be required to reach a 50/50 agreement or something similar. If you do reach a deal, you will most likely only have to provide them a monthly report with sales totals. Simply use a payment app to send half to an agreed-upon member or the band’s manager from there. Bands are continuously exploring for new revenue streams. It’s not only a risk-free way for them to get Merch, but they’ll probably spread your link all over social media for you. They might even place substantial orders ahead of a big show.

It’s also entirely acceptable to just wait for organic sales. It does work perfectly for a lot of individuals. The amount of time it takes to tier up is determined by so many factors that no two vendors will have the same experience, but getting out there are trying to drum up sales can never hurt you in the long run.

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