what's up guys just the other day I was
having a one-on-one call with somebody
that used to be really successful
selling T-shirts on Amazon before Amazon
merch existed
and our conversation really had me
thinking about kind of projecting the
future of not print on demand in I mean
maybe print on demand as a whole
honestly but really specifically if we
limit the scope to the future of Amazon
merch I started thinking to myself
how realistic is it that we could be
replaced because well you know what I'm
going to elaborate I'm gonna tell this
guy's story in this video and then you
make up your own mind so let's get to it
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make sure to use the links in the
description to get my free print on
demand mini course and to join my Amazon
merch Facebook group I'd love to have
you there
so our Story begins with Vince being a
pet photographer but an ambitious one to
his credit I really tip my hat to him my
backwards hat to him for the success he
was able to achieve he said that he was
selling around 200 shirts a day on
Amazon Seller Central
using a lot of the graphics that he
basically obtained through his work as a
photographer now he wasn't doing custom
shirts at least I don't think he was he
showed me some of the stuff he was
working with it didn't look like he was
doing customizations it looked like he
was doing things more along the lines of
um taking the photographs that he took
and then you know ignore the part here
behind me that says add your text he
would add his own text and just make
funny dog related t-shirts and then
swapping in and out different breeds and
ranking really well selling T-shirts to
you know people that own that dog breed
it's a great business model right and he
was being rewarded with really a ton of
sales now granted he was doing his own
fulfillment which of course you know he
you don't need to hear it from me he
said that that was getting a little
crazy
you know success comes with the
additional work but it's a it's a good
problem to have
here's where I started thinking like
okay
I know what happened to Vince you know
number one it was a lot of work but he's
making a lot of money but then what
happens is Amazon merch
comes around and that wasn't
coincidental guys Amazon is a Cutthroat
company they are known to do this where
they use the data that they have
operating the marketplace
to basically find you know you've seen
like Amazon owned Brands like Amazon
Basics and then they have a bunch of
Brands where they don't put Amazon in
the name even though they do own the
brand
they have so much information on their
back end that they can identify like
this you know
um perfect opportunities to go in and
just dominate a market with an Amazon
owned brand uh and and make huge huge
margins right it was no coincidence that
Amazon merch now called Amazon merch on
demand kind of came out of the blue and
rocked the whole print-on-demand Space
on Amazon because all of a sudden you're
competing with Amazon owned listings
that are prime eligible of course that's
going to make it hard for the fbm
third-party sellers like Vince and over
time he just kind of transitioned out of
doing it at least that's my
understanding uh because it was so hard
to compete with the Amazon merch
listings of course also you know they
took on a bunch of sellers those sellers
could over time you know get more and
more upload slots to create more and
more product listings and Amazon has so
much infrastructure you know much nicer
machines the staff to run them uh he he
basically had a really tough time
competing and you know to this day I
don't know if he still sells in Seller
Central I'm pretty sure he said he
didn't but he is on merch now and that's
really what we were talking about on the
call but will we be replaced right think
about how Amazon makes their money they
love and I want to credit Bezos even
though he's no longer CEO but he's known
for trying to make the highest revenue
per employee possible meaning he doesn't
just want to start hiring employees just
for the the sake of it he wants to hire
the one as many as he needs but also
constantly be looking to the Future for
Solutions like FBA is my favorite when I
uh visited an FBA Warehouse I don't know
if they still do them I did it probably
in like 2018 maybe 2019 I think 2018.
and I think their wait list was like
seven months and there's only so many of
them that you can even visit at the time
I think there was like six in the United
States that you could go see and there
was one in like Richmond Virginia so I
drove down with my mom she accompanied
me that day took the day off work and uh
we went and saw the FBA Warehouse
before we got the tour of the warehouse
they sat us down they showed us a video
and it was showing us kind of like the
projection of the future of how these
fulfillment facilities would work by the
way I was the only person that was
visiting that actually sold
um FBA products which is a little bit
weird I'm like what is everybody else
doing here uh anyways
the futuristic ones were gonna have
robots go and grab the shelf that
contains the product and kind of do like
a reverse hydraulic press like and lift
the Shelf up and then drive the Shelf
over to the human who remains stationary
who picks the product off the shelf
packs it ships it out right on a
conveyor belt by the way which those
already exist but the whole point is
like it's very forward-looking and it's
no surprise that they're going to do
this even if it costs a ton of money in
r d because over time it's going to be
beneficial and more profitable plus
they're publicly traded which I think
more or less incentivizes this
forward-looking aspect because you know
you can you can see your stock price go
on a tear just from telling a good story
sometimes like look at Tesla in the last
couple years anyway sorry to offend any
Tesla people but I mean come on now
um Amazon advertising right not a lot of
humans involved in running that uh even
Amazon merch on demand it's like I'm
sure they're constantly improving their
workflows I don't know this firsthand
but
um Kindle Direct publishing kind of
similar to Amazon merch on demand Amazon
Associates is just letting you and I
increase sales on the Amazon platform by
giving us a little percentage of each
sale for the referrals we make it used
to be a lot higher by the way and of
course they tapered it down over time as
you would expect because they're greedy
uh Amazon ignite was kind of their
attempt at doing Teachers Pay Teachers
selling like digital education products
but they close that down because it
never really caught caught hold
anyways the point is man they're they're
very forward-looking it's evident in
everything that they do and I mean this
isn't even everything they do you know
look at AWS by the way Amazon web
services again like scalable
um they have the physical infrastructure
but like the software allows you to kind
of scale with the demand
um on your website so you're not
constantly paying for something that
you're only using every now and then you
kind of pay for what you use as you go
so is AI this is what I'm thinking is AI
going to replace us the Amazon merch
Sellers and sorry if that was a
long-winded way of getting here but like
for real think about this AI today like
what do we really do on Amazon merch we
we create designs and then we add
keywords but Amazon doesn't need us to
pay for these research tools that data
mine Amazon and try to create like
parallel databases that we can then go
query to find the best Trends Amazon
knows the best trends
so they need us to go create designs
that they can then essentially sell for
us because the Amazon merch listings are
Amazon listings and then they do the
Fulfillment
but why not cut us out
like they can use tools like I know that
they're not going to go and use like
creative fabric as spark but the whole
point is that like these tools are
becoming more and more abundant
and like creative creative fabric of
spark right so I went back a couple
slides and I grabbed the picture of a
pug here that somebody had turned into a
t-shirt design
let's say that this pug never existed
you can still go to the AI tools and you
can say I want to see a pug
dog with trees in the background right
and then look create a fabric of spark
generates a bunch of different styles
for us to use and I'm sure you could
tweak the AI to generate these Graphics
against a transparent background I'm
sure it wouldn't be that hard for like
Amazon Engineers to figure out
you could use canvas AI you know what I
mean I like these two because they're
more Geared for print-on-demand sellers
obviously there's a ton of these AI
tools that can create these custom
images
just rows and Columns of pixels right
they're just rows and Columns of pixels
and they do it for us on demand we
provide the text they provide the images
it's literally called text to image on
canva and you can tell it different
styles on canvas so on the left one here
you see the painting style and on the
right it's like the more photorealistic
Style
uh but this is just to illustrate guys
that like how far away are we removed
from Amazon realizing that they don't
need us paying us out our you know 20 to
30 royalty per sale
and just using an AI tool to generate
these graphics for them that goes
straight into because it wouldn't just
be you know the way they would
streamline this workflow is the they
their algorithm that monitors search
volume can essentially look for queries
that include the word shirt you know
that include the product type that
Amazon merch can fulfill in their
infrastructure then they can say okay
we're getting a lot of overlap here or
it could even be on demand for the for
each customer as they search if they can
do this fast enough you know uh but they
could say okay we're seeing a lot of
search searches for pugs so let's have
our AI create like you know however many
shirts show up on page one we'll do 40
pug shirts uh with transparent
backgrounds we'll have them mocked up
over the Amazon merch standard t-shirt
and if it sells we create we capture 100
of the profit we don't have to pay out
the human uh the middleman for a royalty
so I don't know guys sorry is this a
weird is this a doom and gloom video is
it a b week video because I guess it is
for me you know the guy who's you know
the talking head on YouTube uh making a
living talking about it but I mean it
doesn't seem that far-fetched to me it
seems like it for sure
could happen and will it I mean I don't
know you know we're talking about Amazon
here unfortunately it is the the company
that I would say oh well you know Amazon
might do that but probably nobody else
it's well unfortunately it is Amazon
that we're talking about here and I
could totally see them doing it but let
me know your thoughts in the comments
section below
um obviously like I can't say Obviously
will AI be able to do it better than
humans I was gonna say humans can do it
better but I don't know I don't know the
problem is Amazon has so much data
because everything on the web can be
Quantified and tracked and databased and
it's there forever so I really don't
know guys I don't know um anyways this
is a fun video to kind of as a little
thought experiment let me know your
thoughts by the way in the description
uh while we can still sell on Amazon
merch and make money you can learn from
me I'm in tier 200 000 so if you would
like to learn my approach to Amazon
Merch this is full spectrum from tier 10
all the way to tier 200 000 you can
learn that in the description guys uh
and I got a link to my private Community
where I go live once a week and do
office hours once a week if you want to
work with me or help me help your
business that's the best way to do it
Link in the description thanks for
watching guys please like And subscribe
and I'll see you tomorrow with a new
video
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