How to Get Accepted to Amazon Merch On Demand

Hey everyone, welcome back to another Print on Demand video. In today's video, I'm going to be giving you my best tips to get accepted to Amazon Merch on Demand. When it comes to selling print on demand t-shirts online, Amazon is the biggest print on demand platform out there.

However, you have to apply to be a seller with them. With that being said, in this video, I'm going to take you through the application step by step and give you all of my best pointers to help you get accepted to become a seller. So the very first thing here is if you wanna sell print on demand on Amazon's marketplace, you are looking specifically for Amazon Merch on Demand.

This is what Amazon Merch on Demand's application page looks like. So once you found this page, you know that you are in the right place. Now, this is not to be confused with another way that you can sell on Amazon, which is with an Amazon Seller Central account.

If you reach this page and you can see that you can sign up, but you have to pay monthly to be a seller, just know that this is to do Amazon FBA, which is Fulfilled by Amazon. This is a totally different business model on Amazon, this is not what we are looking for. So I just wanted to make that very clear, that what we are looking for is Amazon Merch on Demand.

It is 100% free to be a seller to do this. All you have to do is sign up and apply, and get accepted to be a seller. So with that being said, when you are a seller with Amazon Merch on Demand and you're selling print on demand t-shirts on their platform, this is what it looks like.

You can see that it has the little label right here that says Amazon Merch on Demand, that's how we know it's done with print on demand. And the seller has just uploaded this design to their Merch on Demand account and created this listing. And then whenever someone comes onto Amazon and finds this shirt and wants to purchase it, they can choose what type of shirt they want it printed on, in what color, and they just select their size here.

And then they can add it right to their cart and purchase it from Amazon. Amazon will go pick out what color shirt the person ordered, what size they ordered it on, and they will print this exact design on it and ship it out to the customer, and handle any customer service if anything comes up. For us as the seller here, we just get a split of the profit afterwards.

So to show you a quick earnings potential here, this shirt is for sale for $17 and 95 cents, and they've sold over 400 in the past month. If you look at this in US dollars, which is this first line right here, we switch this to 17. 95, that is a profit of $3 and 38 cents per sale.

And if we take that $3 and 38 cents times 400 in the past month, that's going to be $1,352 in profit per month. And if you do that on a yearly basis, it's going to be about $16,000 in pure profit. That is your split of the profit per year from a single design.

Now, that's just one design uploaded, and I will say that that is a good selling design, but the whole concept here is you wanna get as many good designs uploaded to the platform, and Amazon's going to do everything else for you. So now that hopefully we're on the same page as to what Amazon Merch on Demand is, now let's get into the actual application. So this is the page that you're looking for, to actually start the application.

The way that you get here is merch. amazon. com, or you can just go to Google and search for Amazon Merch on Demand.

Now, once you get here, you can read about the program if you'd like to, but ultimately, you wanna find the sign up button and just click on it. Now, it's going to have you sign into your Amazon account. Now, this can be just your personal Amazon account.

You don't have to have any designated business account or anything like that. And if you don't have an Amazon account yet, you can just click create your Amazon account. It only takes a couple seconds, and you can create a free account.

Now, once you click sign in here, it's going to bring you to their services agreement. So this is basically just their terms and conditions, just making sure that you are aware of what you are allowed to, or not allowed to do on their platform. It's basically just saying that when you upload designs, you retain the rights to your designs, you're just selling them on their platform for royalties.

And that it is non-exclusive, so that you can also upload your designs to other print on-demand websites and sell them there as well. And then most importantly, that you are not going to be infringing on other people's copyrights. This is something that I'll talk about a little bit later in this video, it comes back into play.

But just know that this is just a technicality, and they need you to accept the terms before you can continue. So once you've read through this, just go ahead and click accept. And now, we're getting right into the application.

So as we go through this application, it's actually very simple. There is the first stage, which we are looking at right now, which is kind of the logistical stage of the application. And then there's the second stage, which is the additional information, where that's where I'm going to have a lot of really good tips for you.

So in this first stage, they are looking for contact information, your bank information on how to pay you. And then Social Security or tax information, so that they can keep track of who they've paid so that you can pay tax on that profit. Now, it looks intimidating, the way that they have written it all here, but as we go through this and we click continue, it's actually very simple to do.

So the very first question here is, are you an individual or are you a corporation? You can just select that you are an individual. Something that is really good to know is that when you are doing a print on demand business, you do not need to have a business entity set up.

So you do not need to be a corporation. You can simply just be an individual without any extra steps. And then for the full name, just put your first and last name.

And then the next question here is enter your address. So just click enter a new address, click in on the country box up top, and it'll give you a huge list of options here. Type in your address.

And then type in your phone number next. And then lastly, in this section, just type in your email address. Now, keep in mind, here you can use your personal email, you don't need to set up anything separate.

A quick pointer here, something that's made my life a lot easier, is to create a designated email address for all of your print on demand websites. And this can be just a free Gmail email address or something. But what this is going to do is all of your emails for print on demand will come to one specific inbox, and they don't get mixed in with all of your other personal emails.

Now, just keep in mind, you can change this later. So if you just wanna put your personal one in here for now, you can totally do that. So once you've got all this information filled out, just scroll down.

So in this step, they're just asking you where to pay you your profits. So click in on this bank right here, it's going to give you the dropdown of the countries. Just click on your country, and then scroll down here and just fill out the basic bank information.

Again, you don't need to have a business bank account for this, your personal one is fine. And two important things to know about the banking information. First is that Amazon will pay you through direct deposit, so your royalties will just hit your bank account automatically every month.

That is super convenient. And second is that if your location of your bank is not supported in this application, you can go to payoneer. com, and create a free account and use their global payment service.

Specifically, you can select the US payment service. What this will allow you to do is have a US based bank account. So if you do need to do this, that is totally free to do on Payoneer.

But then you can come through here and you can select United States as your bank location, and you can fill out all of the account information for your Payoneer bank. And then once you've added your bank information here, just keep scrolling down, and now we're on the tax information. In this tax information, they just wanna make sure that they are keeping track of who they are paying this money to.

As a print on demand seller, no, we do not need to have a business entity set up, but yes, you do need to pay tax on all the money that you earn. This is just like any other online business, or even an in-person business. Now, something that's really important to clarify here is that paying tax on the money you make from print on demand is actually very easy.

When you are doing your taxes each year, just look back to your bank account to see how much money you were paid from the print on demand websites in that year and just total that up and add it to your taxes as other income. Now, this is how it's done in the United States. If you are outside of the United States, just know that you only have to pay your local taxes.

You don't have to pay tax in the United States, and then additionally pay tax locally. Now, I will say as a disclaimer, I'm not giving any legal advice. This is just how I understand that this process works, and I'm trying to help you out and save you the hassle.

So with that being said, just in this tax information, just click complete tax information here. And very simply, it's just going to say, are you an individual or are you a business? As we talked about before, you can totally just be an individual here.

Are you a United States citizen, yes or no? And then it's just going to have you fill out your full name, your social security number, and then your address. Now, something to note here is that your social security number is going to be if you are a United States citizen and you are applying just as an individual.

If you are applying as a business, you can use an employee identification number, or an EIN. And then if you don't have either of those, you can use an individual taxpayer identification number. Whichever one of these three that you have access to, that's what you wanna put for this application.

And then another helpful thing is if you click on learn which TIN or tax identification number to select and where to find it, it will give you a dropdown here and just explain exactly where you can find these numbers if you don't know off the top of your head where to find them. And then once you've got all of these filled out, just click save and preview. And this is simply just going to have you confirm that that information is accurate, and it's going to input that information on a W-9.

Now, if you don't know what a W-9 is, don't be afraid, a W-9 is a very simple form that just says that you are a freelancer or a contractor. And they're just getting your information formally to keep track of how much they've paid you. You're not committing to anything here, you're just going through these steps and formally giving them the information so that if they are going to approve your application, they have all of the information they already need to pay you your profits.

So just scroll down to the bottom here and click submit form, and then you'll get a green checkmark and you can just click exit interview. Okay, so once you've gotten this far, you can scroll all the way to the bottom of this page, and this is now going to say that you have filled out the logistical information. You've given them your contact information, you've given them your bank where they can pay you, and then you've given them the tax information so they can keep track of how much they've paid you.

Now, we get into the good stuff in this application, you click save and continue, and this is going to bring you into the additional information section of this application. Now, this is the last step in the application, this page right here. So once we fill this out and we click send request, that is our application to Merch on Demand.

So if you've made it past that first section of giving them your information on how to pay you, you are basically level with everyone else at this point. The way that you're going to stand out in the rest of the applications for Amazon Merch on Demand is with this section right here, and I'll tell you exactly what to put in it. Okay, so the first thing here is your industry type.

Just click on this dropdown right here, and it's going to give you a couple options here. What I suggest is called novelty T-shirt business. In the print on demand space, specifically on Amazon, you will find that myself and all of the other big print on demand sellers, they are labeled as novelty T-shirt business.

So I recommend selecting this one, just click on that. And then your next question is going to be your organization name. For here, you can just put your first and last name.

So after this is the famous additional information section. This is where you have the opportunity to prove to the person who is reviewing your application that you are a legit print on demand seller, and someone that they want on their platform. The very first thing to know about this additional information section is that you only have 512 characters.

Now, what that means is each letter, each space, each punctuation, so a period counts as a character. So you really can't write out paragraph after paragraph trying to sell yourself, so you have to be very concise here. Now, to give you a real idea of how long this really is, this is an example of one short length sentence.

That is 48 characters, so you can really only do this 10 times and that's going to fill up your 500 characters. So getting back to this application here, the very first tip that I would give you is that if you are selling on any other platforms for print on demand, I would let them know that. This is going to tell them that you understand how print on demand works, and it's going to give them the idea that you know how to create designs.

Even if you just started selling on them last week, it still gives them the idea that if they are comparing you compared to someone else who has never sold print on demand before, the odds are that they're going to pick you because they think that you have more experience. Now, the second tip is that if you have any kind of following, whether that is online, on social media, or even offline in a community, let them know that you have an existing following that you are going to be promoting your designs to. Amazon is the largest print on demand platform out there, and it is in their best interest to keep it that way.

So if you are bringing them external traffic to their platform to get more sales, that is going to give you a leg up from someone who doesn't have any existing traffic. Now, I will say on this one, you can get accepted without having a following, but if you do have one, definitely put it in this application, it's just really valuable information for them to know. The third tip I have for you is to let them know that you have read their services agreement, and you agree to it.

By putting this simple line in here, it tells them that you actually have read through their terms, you know what to do and what not to do on their platform, and you're not going to be a time consuming headache seller. This is going to give your reviewer some peace of mind, knowing that you are not going to be a problem on their platform. And then the fourth tip continues building off of that, is to let them know that you are well aware of copyright and trademark infringements.

And in your designs, you pay attention to this to make sure that you are not infringing on any protected work. One of the biggest problems that Amazon faces themselves is that when sellers upload designs that have copyright or trademark infringements in them, Amazon has to flag them, review them, and then ultimately take them down. This not only puts Amazon at risk because it's for sale on their platform, but it's a time consuming process.

So by you telling them in your application, you are not going to do this, again, it's just going to give them peace of mind that you are not going to be a problem as a seller. The fifth tip I have for you is to explain to them that you are an artist, you create high quality designs, and you take pride in your work. In the most ideal world, Amazon only wants really high quality designs on their platform, just the ones that are going to sell and make them and make you money.

So if you can give them the idea that you are going to be one of those sellers, that's going to help you in this application. And then the sixth tip for this application is a very quick one, is to make sure, double, triple, quadruple check that you have no grammatical errors in your application. If you have typos in your application, it ruins all of your trust to the person that is reviewing your application.

There's only 512 characters here, and if you can't read through that word by word and make sure that there are no typos, how are they going to trust everything else that you've said in that application? And then that brings us to the final tip that I have for you, which is probably the most important in this entire application, is to make sure that you are not begging to Amazon. You do not wanna come across to the person reviewing your application as, please, please, please, I really need help, I really need to make more money, I need you to accept me.

But rather you wanna come across as, hey, I'm a legitimate print on demand designer, I sell my products elsewhere, and I really would just like them to be available on Amazon as well. So as you are crafting your application, rewatch these tips until you can get it condensed into 500 characters. And then once you come back to this application, you don't need to fill in a website here, just fill in the verification and then click submit request.

Now, there are a couple really important things to know after you've clicked submit request, and that's what I'll get into right now. So the first thing is that they will email you back if you have been accepted or not. And this can happen as soon as 24 hours, that's the fastest that I've seen, or it can take two or three weeks.

A lot of these emails end up in your spam folder, so make sure that you are checking your junk folder or your spam folder on your email. And the best way to just be 100% sure is to leave a tab open for merch. amazon.

com on your computer. And then every day, just go in and refresh that page. If it brings you right into your active account where you're able to upload designs, that means that the email got lost somewhere in your inbox, but you are accepted to be a seller and you can start right then.

The second really important thing to know is that you can reapply as many times as you need to, but you just need to use a different email address. So in the beginning when you are signing in to your Amazon account to start that application, just use a different email address. It will allow you to start the application all over again.

You can fill out all of the same logistical information, that's your contact, your bank, and your tax information, and then you can even use the same additional information. Now, talking to people in this space, I've heard of people getting in on the second or third try. The highest I've heard of was the seventh attempt, and they got accepted, nothing changed in the application.

I think a lot of this just has to do with the timing of the application, or who specifically was reviewing your application. Now, with that being said, kind of a small tip here is once you've crafted your entire additional information section of 500 characters, copy that and just paste it and save it somewhere on your computer. So when you're going back through your application, if you have to reapply the second time, you have it rewritten, you don't have to come up with it all over again.

And then the last really important tip here is that once you do get accepted to Amazon Merch on Demand, first off, congratulations, that's going to be a really good email for you to see. But you are going to be started in their first tier, which means you only have 10 design slots that you can upload. Once you get your first 10 sales, you will then be bumped into the next tier.

And the name of the game here is just to keep getting more sales, and it'll keep allowing you to upload more and more designs. When you are in that first tier, just focus on putting in your absolute best designs. A really helpful tip for you here is if you're trying to get those sales really early on, there's two things you can do.

If you're going into any trends or holidays or big events that are happening, try to put your 10 designs geared towards that holiday or that trend. And just know that you can swap these out, so if it hasn't sold, you can delete it and you can upload a new one in its place. And secondly, as far as I understand from reading all of the terms, you can purchase your own designs.

So if you wanna just expedite this process and get outta that first tier pretty much right away, you can create your listings and set the profit really low and then just purchase those yourself, or send them to family or friends to purchase. And then those are going to count as your sales, but also you're going to get to see kind of samples. You're going to get to keep those shirts yourself, you're going to see what the design looks like.

And just get reassurance that you are selling a great product, but that's going to bump you into the next tier. And then the last big tip I have for you is, once you start to tier up on Amazon Merch on Demand, and you have a lot of slots open where you can upload a bunch of designs, focus on finding the low competition sub-niches. If that kind of sounds like gibberish for you, I'm going to link a video down in the description, which is a full print on demand tutorial that explains how to find these low competition sub-niches, and what kinds of designs to be uploading.

So, guys, hopefully this video has been super helpful. I'll try to put some more helpful links down in the description below to help you even more. But if you have any questions, just let me know down in the comments.

And if you enjoyed this video, please just give it a thumbs up. All right guys, that's it for this one, and I will see you all in the next video.