(Part 2) Top products from r/AmazonMerch

Hi the ARTpillow
I took your concept for a skull on a tee and looked for skulls on a tee that have sold well. I hope it's ok to post links but I want to post 3 here:

1. Estimated 38 monthly sales on the ARRish Funny Irish Pirate Saint Patricks Day Shirt: https://www.amazon.com/ARRish-Pirate-Saint-Patricks-Day/dp/B06XCCYYD4
   
2. Estimated 28 monthly sales on the Pirate Mom T-Shirt Skull and Crossbones Tshirt Tee Shirt: https://www.amazon.com/Pirate-T-Shirt-Skull-Crossbones-Tshirt/dp/B075D4TZXT
   
3. Estimated 27 monthly sales on the Pirate Sister T-Shirt Skull and Crossbones Tshirt Tee Shirt: https://www.amazon.com/Pirate-Sister-T-Shirt-Crossbones-Tshirt/dp/B075DGPF1K
   
   One thing in common is they all have an image with text. Another thing, they are giving people more of a reason to buy it with a skull, being a pirate, celebrating, Saint Patricks, being a mom, and being a sister.
   
   There are so many tshirts with just images only of skulls. Personally, I would like your shirt even more if you got a really cool font. For example, the font "Sketch Bones" is free and can be used commercially. It's a bone font. :) But anyway, the part of the skull near the top that has open space, I think it would be fun to put the text there, maybe something funny...
   

I don't know anything about GIMP but make sure you're saving your images as .png not .jpeg you can't have a transparent background with a .jpeg. As for designing questions like what do colors actually look like and what percentage of fill to use I created this shirt!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XXPRC45
It's front and back so I'm only making $3 off of it but it's been a great tool for me and my team that I used a lot when I first started designing for T-shirts. I have a background in working for Traditional screen printers and they always had shirts like this around the office for us to use and see what things look like when they are printed. If you have any more questions feel free to PM me I'd be glad to help!

Simply put: Trademarks are not a completely objective matter. Also there is a big difference between actual, legitimate trademark infringement, and just sending a takedown notice to a merch seller or having seller support deny your shirt.

If I trademarked "Got Milk?" and I was solely a t-shirt company and this was my big slogan, it is fair to say that "Got Milk" would be infringing if they were also a t-shirt company. Please note that this will not be the issue with nearly anyone on this sub. You are probably not going to get involved in an actual trademark suit over merch sales. Instead you will be having your shirts denied, or having your shirts pulled because a rights owner complained.

Let us assume for a moment that "Got Milk" does not infringe on the trademark mentioned above. (It very likely does infringe and you would likely not come out on top in a dispute, but lets just assume it does not infringe). This is such a nuanced issue that Amazon is going to act with caution. If they find similar marks or their system detects similar marks, it is going to be denied. Just dont risk it.

If the rights owner of "Got Milk?" sends a C&D or has Amazon take down your shirts, Amazon will almost always comply and tell you two to sort it out. This is simply how it works on Amazon. Even if you are in the right, Amazon is going to remove the shirt.

Because of this, I think the best advice is that if something is trademarked, just stay away from anything similar. If you wanted to make a shirt saying "Got Gorillas?" Maybe you could get away with it in a civil dispute (Although, probably not), maybe you couldnt. It doesnt matter, though, because you likely wont make it through Amazons approval process and if the rights owner complains you will definitely get taken down. Each takedown and denial does stack up against you as we have seen in the past. There will always be more designs. Longevity is important in this business.


If you want a basic understanding of this sort of thing, you can buy and read this: https://www.amazon.com/Trademark-Legal-Care-Business-Product/dp/1413322948/ref=dp_ob_image_bk

I've heard of some professors using this as a supplemental for intro courses. It isnt designed for university so its easy to read, but still gives great information which will at least give you a basic understanding of trademarks. That doesnt sound like much, but most users here dont even have a basic understanding of these things.

I would agree. I would never try to compete with them, but somehow that one shirt on top has best BSR compared to them all (10k bsr), so I'm wondering if that person is doing something different (marketing) or lucky.

https://www.amazon.com/Womens-TShirt-Plaid-Matching-Family/dp/B01MAY3LNI

Think of the niche-est, kitschy-est thing you can, and make shirts for that. Did you know women buy Christmas ornaments of swole mermaid business men? https://www.amazon.com/December-Diamonds-Fifty-Merman-Ornament/dp/B00DCCRFCO

I wonder if there is a similar market for beefy centaurs?

Think of a niche, and then niche-down, for example: Do goths go camping? I mean, maybe?

If you can think of a question that somebody must get asked all the time, make a shirt. I'm a linguist, and people always ask, 'how many languages do you speak?' I must have heard that one a million times. I made shirts that said like: 'I'm a linguist. The answer is 5' and similar.

Good luck, dude!

The best part is, that Amazon recommends this one ( BSR 23,939,928) on the same page: https://www.amazon.com/Expression-Tees-Woman-Womens-T-Shirt/dp/B00SVB3P34/

:D

try searching the ASIN.

for instance, take this product (not a shirt, but the process should be the same):

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-128GB-microSDXC-Memory-Adapter/dp/B073JYC4XM

The ASIN is B073JYC4XM

so we do a Google search for that ASIN

https://www.google.com/search?q=B073JYC4XM

first result is the Amazon listing. I also see a link to CamelCamelCamel as well as the following link:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/686642/amazon-selling-128gb-u1-sd-card-with-adapter-for-2195-wfree-shipping/

where someone posted a link to the product in a forum, and their link includes an affiliate tag (the &tag=b0c55yh-20 is their affiliate link)

He actually have some kind of brand on Amz called Heathen and looks like he owns quite a few related trademarks.

https://www.amazon.com/Heathen-Mens-Chief-T-Shirt-Small/dp/B07483BZ7N?ref_=ast_sto_dp

https://trademarks.justia.com/owners/david-a-lancaster-3381264/

Here's an example I found by searching for new arrivals in women's novelty shirts. Uploaded on 11/23. Not throttled as I found it by simple search.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078BNNQV9

When I choose man/black/xl, the URL I'm seeing is:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078BNNQV9?customId=B07538GWNZ&th=1&psc=1

When I choose women/purple/small, I get this URL:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078BNNQV9?customId=B075384WL1&th=1&psc=1

Note how the only thing that changes is the customId but not the main ASIN. I see the exact same behavior on all products I've uploaded in the last week or so, whether by finding them in search or going through the manage tab in Merch and opening in a new tab. Tried different browsers, incognito mode, even mobile. Same behavior in all of them.

I do a computer book series

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HPGY1X9?ref_=series_rw_dp_labf

I also have a mountain biking book

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1790554039/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p2_i0

I should be at about 10,000 copies sold by the end of this month. I make about $5-6000 a month on them and spend about $1200 a month on advertising.

Hey all! It kicked in today. Still more work to be done but here's an example listing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X6BJBHP/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486616880&sr=8-1&keywords=Nevertheless+she+persisted+teespring

They all wear this shirt at work.

They just take it directly since it's not protected.

For example this random shirt:

LINK

has the high res product img (can zoom in):

LINK

After that just remove the dark pixels etc...

You could basically write a script that automatically pulls the highest BSR Merch shirts with the Amazon Product Advertising API, with the API you can also get the title and bullet points. Have the script spin the sentences and add/remove words, remove dark pixel from .png and reupload on your account. Luckily they have made it lately a bit harder to get API access but it's still a problem. Though they can also just do it manually.

I bought a poster once of a Star Wars AT-AT patent, which was the real patent for the toy. Whoever produced the poster probably didn’t have permission though. I think it’s a fair question.

Edit: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YQH4PHC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_D4ZxDbJAGK3CH

Their scanners aren't all that good: they miss all the big ones - Amazon's algo forgot the I in AI!

Yes exactly. Surely Bezos could spring for comping some portable piss bags? I know the robots won't need them, but the robots can't handle t-shirts just yet.

(As an aside, there must have been a time where an exhausted A-Z warehouse picker, with a bladder spilling over the top, was forced to get one of those aforementioned convenient urine receptacles for a package, and learning that such a thing exists, was quite possibly the most envious a human has ever been about anything.)