hey what's up guys in this video i'm
going to share with you a story of an
amazon merch seller that had their
design that they had just paid somebody
on fiverr to create for them
had it stolen
not 10 times
not 20 times
but 39 times
39 that they could count so who knows by
now it's probably 40. um they emailed me
and i thought it was a joke but then i
started looking up the a-sins that they
had sent me and i was like oh my gosh
this is a real thing uh it actually got
stolen and reposted
to 39 different products on amazon by
the way
when the bots steal our designs and
repost them to different products
they also can post them to different
marketplaces like i'm probably not the
only person that's found their products
on random like shopify stores um just on
google right maybe you find it uh
through google images or something like
that the first design i ever found that
was stolen
was this one design i was really proud
of for
winning uh fantasy football like winning
your fantasy football league i made it
for myself
and the design was like super like in
your face like rah-rah like i'm the best
you're the worst type like i don't know
i made it in a way that i thought was
funny and then i bought one for myself
and ended up you know selling a decent
number of them on amazon but of course
found it stolen and reposted to other
websites so anyways that was my short
story there but in this video i'm gonna
share with you kind of some of the
community sentiment right now around
stolen designs and i'm gonna go a little
bit more in depth on the uh stolen 39
times
design from easter so why don't we get
started
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down there i've got a free seven day
merch by amazon mini course all i need
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day and i've got a great merch by amazon
facebook group that i'll be referencing
to show you uh some of the posts that
have been happening recently about
designs being stolen on merch by amazon
and like sadly this has really been kind
of the
prevailing
theme to a lot of the discussion that's
been taking place lately that i've been
kind of noticing when i try to keep my
finger on the pulse
uh there's been like less you know
tear-up celebrations which i mean amazon
can just do a tear up this week
hopefully they will
and then all of a sudden you know
sentiment turns a little bit more
positive but um it really feels like
lately there's been a lot of just kind
of
negative sentiment about getting design
stolen which is completely
understandable guys so uh here's a post
says my designs were stolen on amazon i
reported them but to no avail because i
made a mistake in reporting
uh so yeah i mean this is another
the reporting number one the process
does take pretty long considering like
time is money and we can be doing
anything else in life and instead we're
reporting t-shirts that were
most likely uh both ripped off and
posted
using you know automation um again this
can all be solved really quickly this
can all be solved very quickly uh very
very simply
by amazon if they just stop making the
full resolution blank png files
available on the front end there's no
reason for them to do that yet they
still do it to this day amazon if you
need help in doing that i can show you
where it's located and show you um
i mean it's pretty straightforward but
yeah just don't don't render that on the
front end and then they won't be able to
remove these designs and then repost
them so easily
um anyways this person
says that uh because they had filed so
many reports of their stolen design
they're now getting automatic replies
they think that maybe they're on some
spam list i don't know if that's a real
thing or not
i try to stay kind of like off the merch
by amazon team's radar so i don't
ever message them too many times all at
once but i'm pretty sure you do
generally speaking get an automatic
reply
pretty much every time you reach out uh
so yeah just i would
expect that uh if you have to contact
them about anything uh next person says
seems amazon will not care about copy
cats anymore
you know i
i only worked like eight years out of
college before i you know didn't have to
work a day job anymore thanks to you
know the online businesses and whatnot
thanks to you guys in the youtube
channel and all that great stuff
but in that eight years like
i've seen
businesses move fast and i've seen them
move slow all right like i think
generally speaking the smaller a company
is the faster you can move
now i don't know what it's like at
amazon um but we know that that's like a
massive massive like one of the most
valuable companies in the world so
uh even though we know what the issue is
like the root cause of all these
copycats being able to very easily steal
and repost designs
with a very minor code change being all
that's required to fix it at least in
the short term like their lives would
get so much harder if they would just
stop rendering the the
the source file that we upload you know
what i mean um but you know
will amazon ever even consider
making a change to their source code
when
it doesn't really benefit them to make
that change it just really kind of
benefits us and you know we stop
complaining to amazon about it i don't
know i don't know i'm thinking out loud
here i'm not trying to condone any of
the copying stuff i'm just thinking
about it from like you know amazon being
like a trillion dollar company
pushing code to you know appease the the
merch by amazon sellers i don't know
should they do it yes they should but
will they i mean it's a big company so
i'm sure they move slow
has any other next post has anyone
successfully reported copycats and
seen their copy designs taken down
wonder how many times they would have to
be reported before amazon terminates
their account
so to touch on that really quickly like
i don't have first-hand knowledge of how
this works i've seen people as you can
imagine like reach out to me give me
theories give me
what some people claim to to be
first-hand knowledge of how this all
works
and even if an account is terminated
like
if some of what i've heard is true
they'll be able to get like new accounts
it won't be an issue you know so and but
the thing that i don't really understand
is like if they're getting their
accounts terminated
like are they getting paid the royalties
that they're owed
um
i don't know i guess it doesn't really
matter though if you can make infinite
accounts and then you can just have go
right you know have a bot
rip designs off and repost them it
wouldn't really matter right like as
long as you have some accounts that make
it to the first payday that's all that
would be all you really cared about so
i guess it just is what it is man it's
kind of brutal
um
by the way if you guys follow me on
instagram you can see my daily i try to
post daily my sales updates
like yeah it sucks that we're getting
our you know
designs i mean it's one thing now it's
like blatant pixel for pixel rip-offs
but before it was this it was people
basically cloning your designs and then
just undercutting you or people just
being in your niche not cloning your
designs but if you're selling at like
1999 they come in 1995. then someone
else comes in and goes 1965
and then it's just like the race to the
bottom you know and this is all part of
just doing business like this this is
the game like the fact that it's so easy
for us to start and merge for amazon
business
to succeed you know
like we know the recipe to succeed what
we don't know is you know the variable
that we don't control is really how long
it takes
right like we know if we're just
consistent over time it will continue to
scale
but we don't know how long it's going to
take to get there and it would be much
quicker if we didn't have to deal with
all this stuff on the side like getting
ripped off getting undercut et cetera
but you know i'm still grateful for the
chance to be a merch seller and if you
follow me on instagram where i was going
with this was you know you can still see
that like i'm doing pretty well with my
sales and it's not because i'm like
spending five hours a day running ads
and like tweaking ad campaigns and
getting crazy like that like i do it
very passively you know what i mean
that's what allows me to do
my youtube videos and you know all
everything else that i'm doing
uh another post new thief you may find
your shirts here and then had a couple
links to amazon and the big picture of a
robber stealing a sack of cash
uh one more post recently i've been
struggling with copycats more than ever
i bet all of us do however when i report
one
i receive an email that my infringement
reports are not accurate
um even though they 100 are accurate and
then what i'm gonna show you if you guys
will hang on for just a minute is that
uh
there were a couple people that came in
the comments and had tips about how to
make your reports go through and succeed
okay so bear with me and i'll show you
that but first let me share the story of
why we're here
stolen design stolen 39 times this is
actually a member of my um merch by
amazon course the full course the paid
one and like i said i thought they were
kidding i thought it was like april
fools when they emailed me this they
might have even been on april 1st when
they initially reached out um
yeah i don't know actually when was the
first email
no it wasn't it was not april 1st but
anyways this is crazy so they actually
sent me a bunch of the acins where it
was stolen and
this is the original design so they had
somebody on fiverr and i'll actually
show you the fiverr person that designed
this in case you want to hire them
come with this come up with this design
kind of like the hip hop bunny
and they had a couple different ways
they could use this design to enter
easter niches so this is a hip hop
hibito hip hop poppy you don't stop
something like that and the other one
just says hip hop with a carrot very
nice i also like that they kind of did
the the dark color shirt and they did
the the light colored shirts so they
optimized it for various different ones
and uh here we go so
as we saw this design was ripped off and
basically pixel for pixel cloned many
many times posted on 39 different asins
on amazon and who knows beyond amazon
they actually emailed me and they said
they found it on stickers they found it
on other products i had done a video
maybe a year or two back
where somebody that um i was kind of
doing a lot of like one-on-one coaching
with
and they because they were like a great
artist doing a lot of original artwork
and they were posting their stuff on
merch by amazon and within 24 hours of
them making a sale like the first sale
on one of their original designs
somebody had this was the most
interesting thing
not pixel for pixel stolen their design
but done their own rendition of it this
was original artwork by the way like not
something that you would recognize and
say oh well it was an easy to understand
niche no this was like straight from the
head of this person
they basically like cloned that person's
design but recreated it and then posted
it within 24 hours to like 14 or 15
different
products on amazon seller central
i don't even know what to say other than
that i don't think a bot would do that
because a human would have had to make
their own version of the design
and then they posted it to so many
different products and it happened
within 24 hours it was just absurd
so anyways
people go to crazy lengths to uh try to
capture a little bit of income through
amazon and guys if you're not familiar
with how to report somebody who steals
your design especially if it's pixel for
pixel
i will leave the link at the top of the
description of this video or make sure
you'll check you check that out and then
also here's a quick tip when you fill
out this form
from two people that were in the
comments on one of these facebook
threads it says i have fast results
taking down the uh the thiefs
when i let them know
the date my design was uploaded and when
they copied my design so you could
actually see the date that you uploaded
your design if you scroll down to the
section that says product details
on an amazon listing so when you go to
your listing scroll down it'll say date
first available
and then when you find the the copycat
scroll down to their date first
available and make sure you include both
of those data points and we had um
someone who moderates um my merch by
amazon facebook group also say same so
we got some confirmation there that
works
all right quick shout out i mentioned i
would show you who uh created these
designs on fiber fiverr you can actually
see that they're featuring the hip hop
bunny
in their listing so i will drop a link
to their profile in the description as
well in case you want to uh you know
hire them so the person who who told me
that their design got stolen um told me
to shout them out on fiverr so i will do
that um but yeah so guys that's it for
this video thank you for watching as i
sign off just a quick reminder i do have
a full merch by amazon course
showing you how i went from tier ten to
tier two hundred thousand you can find
out more using the link in the
description but guys please like please
subscribe help me get to 100 000
subscribers and i will see you tomorrow
with a new video
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