Preparing for 2022’s Halloween season on Amazon Merch on Demand: products, keywords, and more

A quick search on Amazon.com reveals that there are over 200,000 Halloween-related listings on the marketplace. It goes without saying that this special holiday is a popular event among the North American audience and beyond.

However, as a seller looking to cash in on the demand for Halloween-themed merch, there are a couple of essential things you need to know. To help prepare you for this massive event, we’ve prepared an in-depth analysis of some of the most important criteria that will help you optimize your listings and get in front of an audience faster and better.

So, without further ado, let’s dive right in.

What are the main Halloween-related niches this year?

As a starting point, we headed over to Merch Informer’s “Products search” module to explore some of the most popular keywords in the Halloween niche this year.

Although the best-sellers rank (BSR) for t-shirts in the “Halloween” category is comparatively high at 6,332,279, the search volume is absolutely astounding at over 2.5 million.

Since this is proof enough that the holiday is a smash hit, we continue our research with related keywords and their associated attributes (BSR, keyword count and search volume).

Here’s what we found:

• “Costumes”: BSR – 457,398 ; keyword count – 206; search volume – 58,507
• “Ghosts”: BSR – 597,293; keyword count – 103; search volume – 185,820
• “Witches”: BSR – 2,059,659; keyword count – 124; search volume – 49,679
• “Bats”: BSR – 2,533,248; keyword count – 126; search volume – 2,619,696
• “Horror”: BSR – 5,763,118; keyword count – 145; search volume – 38,758
• “Costume”: BSR – 5,986,730; keyword count 1,274 ; search volume – 49,704
• “Halloween”: BSR – 6,332,279; keyword count – 5,710; search volume – 2,619,548
• “Spooky”: BSR – 6,052,929; keyword count – 342; search volume – 11,301
• “Skeleton”: BSR – 6,123,269; keyword count – 202; search volume – 58,647
• “Ghost”: BSR – 6,418,759; keyword count – 239; search volume – 151,861
• “Boo”: BSR – 6,465,083; keyword count – 112; search volume – 68,025
• “October”: BSR – 6,557,732; keyword count – 103; search volume – 5,991
• “Trick”: BSR – 6,629,701; keyword count – 438; search volume – 7,150
• “Treat”: BSR – 6,678,752; keyword count – 303; search volume – 151,966
• “Zombie”: BSR – 6,739,147; keyword count – 128; search volume – 183,086
• “Witch”: BSR – 6,787,572; keyword count – 442; search volume – 28,016
• “Pumpkin”: BSR – 6,793,854; keyword count – 565; search volume – 48,840
• “Scary”: BSR – 7,072,294; keyword count – 299; search volume – 2,345

Looking at the first few results, one can immediately see the type of items that people are mostly looking for.

Costumes that depict Halloween-related themes, such as ghosts, witches and bats are at the market’s forefront. In the second tier, we’ve got spooky ghosts and skeletons that go “boo”. And classic Halloween iconology, including pumpkins and trick-or-treat are at the tail end of the niche.

Listings saturation

As for listings saturation, we headed over to Amazon.com to discover what quantities of listings are currently available for the t-shirt category in the Halloween niche.

We discovered the following keywords and their related listings count: “witches tshirt” (90,000), “bats tshirt” (80,000), “ghosts tshirt” (80,000), “October tshirt” (70,000), “Halloween tshirt” (50,000), “costume(s) tshirt” (50,000), “pumpkin tshirt” (20,000), “scary tshirt” (10,000), “witch tshirt” (10,000), “ghost tshirt” (10,000), “horror tshirt” (10,000), “skeleton tshirt” (10,000), “spooky tshirt” (10,000), “trick or treat tshirt” (9,000), “boo tshirt” (8,000), and “zombie tshirt” (5,000).

Here, it’s important to identify which themes sell well and which themes have a low listing saturation. Earlier, we determined that witches and bats sell extremely well. However, we also see that they have the largest listing saturation at 90,000 and 80,000 respectively.

Ghost-related t-shirts are also quite popular, but their related listings count is only 10,000. This means ghosts are high in demand and low in supply, or what we call high-search volume, low-competition keywords. These are the types of sub-niches that will net you the most sales.

Sales volume and price

And speaking of sales, we now turn to sales volume. We see that multiple t-shirts on the Amazon marketplace are selling at between 12 and 50 pieces per merchant in the top-performing categories. This is a good indication of the type of sales volume you can hope to realize.

The average price for “Halloween”-related t-shirts is $17.27, which will net you a pretty decent profit when all is said and done.

What are the most popular categories of merch in the Halloween niche this year?

A category search on Merch Informer also helped us get a glimpse into the market for other types and categories of merchandise on the Amazon platform.

Halloween-related hoodies

In terms of BSR, hoodies have an average BSR of 8,310,090 and sell at an average price of $32.45.

One of the bestsellers in this category has sold 27 items at a price of $28.99 with a comparatively low BSR of 95,646. Amazon offers more than 10,000  listings for this search query.

Halloween-related long sleeve shirts

Long sleeve shirts have a much higher BSR than t-shirts at 8,174,781, with average prices going for $23.05. Some of the top merchants have made around 42 sales, selling at $24.99 with a low BSR of 57,736.

As for the listings saturation, we see that Amazon.com is home to 10,000 or more listings for the “Halloween long sleeve shirt” search query.

Halloween-related sweatshirts

Sweatshirts fare slightly better than long sleeve shirts with a BSR of 7,651,923 and an average price of $31.28.

One of the bestsellers in this category has made 99 sales at a price of $32.99 with another low BSR for their product at 26,877. And in terms of listings saturation, we see that Amazon.com again offers more than 10,000 listings for this search query.

Halloween-related v-necks and tank tops

V-necks for the Halloween niche do not yield any results, while tank tops have a high BSR of 7,994,347. Average prices for these items are $19.51. The bestseller in this category has sold 18 items at $21.00 and a BSR of 149,216.

The overall winner here is the Halloween sweatshirts category, since their BSR is the lowest and their bestseller sales volume – the highest. At the bottom of the list we have hoodies, with the highest BSR and tank tops with the lowest bestseller sales volume.

Based on these findings, we recommend turning to Halloween-related sweatshirts if you want to diversify your product offering this year. As is the case in almost every niche on Amazon Merch on Demand, t-shirts should be your primary focus.

What is the profitability of Halloween-themed niches and categories of merch?

By exploring each separate category of merch in the Halloween-themed niche, we come to the following conclusions regarding turnover and potential for profitability.

Our findings are based on the bestsellers in each merch category. We multiplied the highest number of sales by the price charged for each product.

• Sweatshirt: $3,266.01
• Long sleeve shirt: $1,049.58
• T-shirt: $916.980
• Hoodie: $782.73
• Tank top: $378.00
• V-neck: $0.00

A word of caution: we already established that t-shirts and sweatshirts are the best product category in the Halloween niche. Our advice is to stick to those, regardless of the fact that the bestsellers in the long sleeve category earn a hundred bucks more than those selling t-shirts.

What is our advice to sellers looking to capitalize on the Halloween niche this year?

For those of you who are convinced of the profitability and potential of the Halloween niche and want to capitalize on the ability to earn valuable sales, the following tips and tricks can help guide your sales efforts.

Keywords

Keywords are your key to getting noticed on Amazon. We saw from our research that a high search volume keyword such as “Halloween” not only has a comparatively low BSR compared to other search queries in the niche but it also has a high keyword count, meaning many sellers are using it.

If you want to compete effectively, consider utilizing a combination of powerful keywords, including “Halloween”, but also supplementing it with a wide range of other high search volume, low competition keywords such as “ghost”, “skeleton” and “boo”.

Pricing

Pricing your merch items will very much depend on the category of merch that you choose to sell. T-shirts, for example, are priced in the $17.00 region but this amount goes much higher for items such as sweatshirts or long sleeve shirts.

The reason for this is that these items literally are made up of more material and fabric and require a higher price. However, charging in the region of the average, irrespective of your chosen category, is almost always a winning strategy.

Category

And speaking of categories, you need to be sure that you select the right one to target. Based on our research, it appears that despite the vast supply of t-shirts, sweatshirts are both popular and profitable.

Carefully consider your target audience and the items they are looking for in order to cater to the Halloween niche. Another option you have is to broaden your portfolio and cast out a wider net by ensuring that you target a combination of categories at the same time with the same design.

Designs

Finally, it would be a big mistake not to talk about the design of your apparel product. This is crucial and will fundamentally be dependent on your target audience.

Children’s Halloween products tend to be more cutesy with pumpkins, friendly ghosts, and little lettering.

Adult Halloween products, on the other hand, are certainly much more detailed although they are never truly scary. In fact, adult Halloween merch is often found to be on the humorous side, with t-shirt designs such as “I’m with the witch” and an arrow pointing to the right.

Wrapping up

All in all, the Halloween niche on Amazon Merch on Demand can net you profitability in excess of $1,000.00. That is, if you select the right category of merch, price your products correctly, have visually stunning designs, and make intelligent use of your keywords.

This process can seem lengthy and time-consuming but it really doesn’t have to be. With Merch Informer, you get all the data you need right at your fingertips.

And for only $9.99 per month, it’s possibly the best investment you can make in your Amazon merch side gig.