Words of Wisdom

While the Merch by Amazon platform is moderately new, it's been possible to design your own t-shirts and sell them using other print-on-demand services (like CafePress or Teespring) for quite some time. While these platforms are great, the downside to using them is that you are generally responsible for driving all potential buyers to your products. This can be challenging if you don't have an existing audience.

This really sets the Merch by Amazon program apart from the rest of the pack, and many people like Elaine have experienced a lot of success using this service.

Fun Fact

When Elaine got started around this time last year, she created 25 simple designs on her computer and uploaded them for free to the website. Her profit for the first week at the end month of February was only $49.84, but Elaine was thrilled because it was $49.84 she was able to earn with zero startup costs and practically no risk.

That experience proved to her that if she could make $50 with 25 quick designs and no advertising, then it was just a question of scale and publishing more designs.

Her total t-shirt sales over the next 10 months leading up to the end of December 2016 was $128,295, and her total profit for those 10 months was over $53,000. December was by far her most profitable month, and she sold $39,508 worth of t-shirts with a net profit has been $17,629.

Interestingly, for most of this month, she was traveling and not working a lot. Instead of having to focus on her side hustle, she was in Spain, then in Ireland, then in New York for a film festival and to Austin, Texas for a business conference. After all of that, she had a week off over Christmas and still had her biggest revenue month ever.