what's up guys in this video we're
talking about amazon merch tier 10
sellers should you or should you not buy
your way out of tier 10. this is a i
don't know is it controversial uh it's
definitely been disputed in the past i
know people have various feelings about
it and i invite you guys to let me know
how you feel about it in the comments
section below but i'm going to offer up
my thoughts on buying your own t-shirts
to get out of tier 10. of course tier 10
we call that merch purgatory because you
only get one upload a day maximum 10
designs available for sale and it can
definitely be hard to make some sales
when you're basically kneecapped is
kneecap the right word yeah
when you can't list more than 10
products for sale and you've got people
like myself in tier 200 000 when we can
list 200 000 unique designs for sale on
amazon's catalog so i'm going to give
you my thoughts on all of this in this
video let's get started
quick i wanted to remind you i run a
weekly print on demand giveaway it's
completely free to enter and you can
just use the link at the top of the
description to do so two winners are
gonna be randomly selected and announced
and they're gonna receive all of these
prizes shout out to the sponsors also in
the description i've got a link to my
seven day merch by amazon mini course
all i need is your email address i'll
send you one lesson a day
and i've got a great merch by amazon
facebook group if you guys like to join
i'd love to have you there
all right so let's talk about buying
your way out of tier 10 let's start with
the pros all right and there is the
obvious pro we're gonna do pros and cons
of course uh the obvious one is that
we're gonna get out of tier 10 now this
brings me to a common question and that
is do we instantly get out of tier 10
once we make that 10th sale
and what actually happens
is something along the lines of you
don't necessarily need
10 sales to get out of tier 10. uh
generally speaking from my experience
you need roughly in the range of 50
to 80
of your tier in sales to get out of that
tier okay so if you're in tier 10
you know i've seen people get out with
for sales so i know that's possible as
well but it's probably not that common
you can probably get out with um
somewhere in the range
generally speaking probably five sales
to eight sales okay so if you're gonna
buy your own shirts the first thing you
should probably know is that you know
how many do you actually need to buy
okay now
when you buy five to eight shirts you're
not instantly gonna get out of tier 10
either they do tear ups globally okay
and it's not it's changed over the years
right so i want to say definitive things
i know people love hearing definitive
things things aren't always black and
white though so in the past it really
felt like everybody got teared up
together
nowadays based on what i see in facebook
groups and stuff it seems like there are
waves so maybe one group gets teared up
tuesday and then the next might get
teared up wednesday and then there might
even be a third wave on like thursday
okay i've certainly felt like i've seen
some of that where it might be delayed
for some people but rest assured uh if
you you know i think a safe bet is if
you buy six or seven of your shirts in
tier 10 and you have all 10 slots filled
because they actually do take into
account how much of your upload slots
have you filled
then you should be
very high likelihood going to get tiered
up in the next tear up of course we've
also seen examples and i feel sorry for
everybody that is included in this
example where you're you know well above
the number of sales you should need like
you might be in tier 10 actually i'll
use my girlfriend as an example she was
in tier 500 i don't remember exactly how
many sales she had but she certainly
should have been eligible for a tear up
and it just felt like it took forever i
think it took like two months longer
than it should have for her to get
teared up but finally that day came and
hopefully that won't happen to any of
you but as far as the pros go of buying
your own shirts you're doing it on your
own schedule so you're not just sitting
here all day looking at your pretty
merch chrome extension where it puts the
little fishing guy you know waiting for
a fish to bite to get that first sale of
the day you're not gonna have to sit
there
and wait and wait and wait all day every
day for that sale to come in you're
gonna get those sales on your own uh
terms right and if you you know put all
the products in your cart let's say you
buy six shirts and then you place that
order well hey you don't need to guess
you already know you're going to hear
that cha-ching noise and you're going to
see six sales on your merch by amazon
dashboard probably within 20 minutes of
placing that order um
as far as you know buying your own
shirts goes as well like
you can give them as gifts you can do
you know birthday presents you can give
them away um whatever whatever makes
sense to you maybe you buy them and you
put like a you know they're i don't know
something if you know friends family or
a local business that maybe will buy
them off you uh you could also do
something like that so you don't
necessarily have to be out the money
but i'm also going to include some tips
for buying your own shirts so bear with
me as far as cons go of buying your own
shirts to me the the glaring one is
you know we're in business to make money
and if you are spending money
you to buy these shirts through merch by
amazon there's no way to do it at a
profit like there's no way to buy your
own shirts through merch by amazon and
not pay more than you're gonna see on
the royalty side like because amazon's
gonna take a percentage like their
percentage their cut of the sale price
um goes up with the price of the shirt
so my well actually i'm going to do a
tip right after this i'll do tip section
but pricing your shirts will be in the
tips section for sure um other cons
it's it's not this is the biggest con
that made me want to do this video is
when you buy your own shirts
and you jump from tier 10 to tier 25
like how much really changed so now you
can list an additional 15 unique designs
but like
is that gonna make or break your
business is that that much of a
significant leap forward um the one
thing that worries me is like and it's
not true about everybody that does this
but if you buy your own designs like
are you missing
some best practices like it may feel
like you accomplished something but
and you did i guess
you get 15 more designs it's 150
increase right but
you still gotta adhere to the best
practices of merch by amazon you still
need to know how to research how to do
good you know search engine optimization
for amazon's algorithm specifically
right but also keep in mind that they're
going to get indexed by google as well
so it doesn't hurt to have some
knowledge of google's algorithm as well
um you need to have like a good grip on
the design best practices because we're
building a long-term business and you
know anytime you're spending your own
money on designs and you're you're
having a net loss
it could be a means to an end i get it
but it's not it's not building your
business you know what i mean it's kind
of like putting a band-aid on something
and and i'm not judging i'm not saying
this in a judgmental way because i know
for some people it makes sense and you
do it and uh it's all good but just keep
in mind that like you're not
you're not going to be able to avoid
doing the things that maybe would have
gotten you out of tier 10 in the first
place of course you can also on the flip
side of that do everything right and
still not get out of tier 10. so that's
why i'm not trying to be like judgmental
or too harsh when i say these things
all right tips if you're going to buy
your way out of tier 10
some of you guys may have not even
thought about this by the way so if
that's you um let me know in the
comments below if you have questions or
anything like that but yeah you can buy
your own shirts out of tier 10 guys um
this is not the same as doing it through
seller central remember when you publish
through merch by amazon guys it's sold
by amazon so when you buy your own
product
there's not necessarily i mean there
might be but
i don't think there is if i had to guess
a link between oh yeah
this product is actually sold by amazon
but behind the sold by amazon is
actually uploaded by this person like i
highly doubt that they are drawing that
connection that's just my thoughts on
the issue
as far as tips go though
first thing i'd recommend guys price
your shirts at 13.07 price them at the
lowest price possible because everything
above that remember amazon's cut scales
up with your list price
and so you're just giving amazon more of
your money
i don't think there's any benefit of
pricing high when you buy your own
products so you can temporarily reprice
your listings if you had if you had them
higher than 1307 even though for tier 10
i do recommend 1307 price point but you
can increase sorry you can um decrease
the price of 1307 buy them and then
increase the price afterwards that works
just fine
another thing that i would highly
recommend if you guys are still with me
hit that like button because this is a
good tip that i'm about to drop so make
sure you hit that like button that would
really be appreciated helps the youtube
algorithm get this video out there
when you buy your own products do a
search find buy the way that a customer
would okay so don't just like copy paste
your asin
into the toolbar or don't just go to
merch by amazon click manage and click
the live link to your product
go to amazon
go to the search bar type in valuable
keywords relevant to your listings
click your own listing
add to cart now this may take a really
long time if you're in really saturated
niches
but here's the thing every sale that
comes through amazon it's learning okay
so it's gonna learn what keywords you
searched before you clicked added to
cart and checked out that is going to
benefit you over the long term so you
really do want to do that okay um that's
something that i don't think most people
do you certainly should in my opinion
very strongly think you should do that
even if you think maybe you don't want
to just add to cart and add six shirts
to cart maybe you just do one at a time
so you do the search find buy check out
process the order search find buy for
the next one check out process the order
um that's the even safer way of doing it
to piggyback off of that previous tip i
would also recommend
listing shirts if you're going to buy
your own you're not going to want to
delete them in the future because once
they make a sale they're forever
cemented in amazon's catalog if they
don't make a sale then after 365 days
they will be automatically removed so
you're gonna have products now that are
forever on sale on amazon's catalog that
can hopefully make you money
repeatedly into the future year after
year
as a result of this you should be
posting products in niches that make
sense that have some staying power that
aren't like a 2019 themed shirt because
after 2019's over is anybody gonna be
buying that shirt probably not right i
just made that number up because in the
past but you get what i'm saying right
maybe make it like a generic christmas
shirt right then it sits on amazon's
catalog maybe every christmas you make a
sale um
alternatively
see if you can get paid to buy your own
shirts maybe if it's like friends family
do you think they need shirts i mean you
know a lot of people are business owners
these days especially after covid a lot
of people people launched businesses
make a facebook post see if anybody
needs merch for their business see if
they'll pay you to buy your own shirts
you just list the stuff it doesn't have
to be public you can also launch it
privately through merch by amazon that's
another way of doing it so that's also
an option the last thing i wanted to
leave you with is that
you can also list your products for sale
on like etsy for instance and if you
make an etsy sale you can you know
there's you can actually do this uh you
can go to amazon i mean i wouldn't do
this too often because i think it may
get you in trouble with your amazon
buyer account but you can go to amazon
purchase your own product have it
shipped to your etsy customer so that's
another way of buying your way out of
tier 10 except you're not really buying
your way you're letting the etsy
customer buy your way out of tier 10 for
you so those are my thoughts guys let me
know what you thought in the comments
section below hopefully this video was
helpful by the way i do have a full
merch by amazon course walking you
through how i went from tier 10 to tier
200 000 it didn't happen overnight so
you know full disclosure but you're
going to learn all my best practices
step by step my exact processes to start
skill and even automate your merch by
amazon business so there's a link in the
description if you want to learn more
thank you for watching guys please like
please subscribe all that good stuff and
i'll see you tomorrow with a new video
you