hey what's up guys welcome to automation
week each video this week is going to be
themed after an automation tool that i
use in my print on demand business and
we are going to kick the week off with
one of my favorite tools i think the
first automation tool i ever used for my
print on demand business
and that is an upload tool all right and
it does what it sounds like it uploads
for me okay and it can upload for you
if you choose to use it now it's not for
i wouldn't say it's for everybody like
if you're just getting started you don't
want to throw too much
on your plate right away but as you're
scaling your business up it definitely
at least should be on your mind like at
some point you know it you're probably
going to outgrow the manual uploading
because it's so tedious so time
consuming and it's the
you already know but the one thing we
don't get back the one thing we'd never
have enough of is our time right and
time is money so i'm sure you can better
use that time doing other things either
for your business or just your life in
general so get some get a lot of it back
not even some get a lot of it back and
consider using an upload automation tool
so in this video i'm going to show you
how i use merch titans upload automation
let's get started
[Music]
all right i don't know how i forgot to
share this when i recorded the video
initially but merch titans provided a 45
off code that expires at the end of the
week which you can find in the
description all right back to the video
as usual i'm gonna have the relevant
links for you in the description
including a link to my automation week
page that i put together with all of the
tools that i'm going to be sharing with
you this week again that'll be in the
description also i've got a link to my
print on demand giveaway that's always
in the description two winners are going
to be selected and announced this sunday
also i've got a free print on demand
mini course delivered via email you can
find a link to that down there in the
description and i've got a great print
on demand facebook group and you guessed
it it is down in the description all
right we're talking about merch titans
automation today and uh this is well
actually the screenshot a little bit
misleading i don't know if that's like a
slider at the top of the page i probably
should have looked at it before i
started recording the video um the
screenshot says research service because
they do actually have some research
tools as well but what i really want to
focus on is uh the upload guy you know
the titan guy behind me here with his
merch titans helmet on so we already
know guys uploading is
it could be honestly the most
time-consuming aspect of running a
print-on-demand business it all depends
i guess on what you're good at and where
you like to spend your time uh research
can definitely take forever as well but
i wouldn't recommend spending too long
on any one aspect of running that
print-on-demand business
because you don't get extra bonus points
for overthinking things or spending
extra time on something that you didn't
need to especially uploading by the way
so uploading extremely time consuming
and with the app that they have
developed and perfected over the years i
first found out about them when they
reached out to me in 2019 my youtube
channel was much smaller and uh you know
i would it made me feel really good
because as a small channel when someone
reaches out to you and says hey like i
got this tool do you want to you know
test it out and if you like it do you
want to tell your followers about it and
you know that's exactly what we did he
got on a one-on-one call with me walked
me through exactly how to use it the
rest is history i think i've used it
every single day since then like i used
to go to work at my nine-to-five job
before i left it and i would
i would remote into my computer at home
from my computer at work
which by the way is extremely easy to do
there's like a google chrome extension
called google remote desktop so if you
want to do what i'm literally giving you
the keys here i'm telling you exactly as
i did it you know
you can remote into your computer from a
different computer so i would be at work
using my computer at home and i would be
running my uploader and switching out
the uploads and whatnot so
it's really just you know how hungry are
you cause you've got the tools
so i'm really grateful for this app
right now it currently uploads to
society6
merch by amazon redbubble printful
spreadshirt t public zazzle and
teespring
now the printful one obviously opens a
lot of doors i used to use it to upload
using the printful wish integration i
used the printful and um what is the
word it started with an r they they
removed they removed the wish
integration and they removed the um
start with an r no b it was a b it was
bonanza sorry that's why i couldn't
think of it because it's not an r it's a
b but there's a website called bonanza
um i've used it to push to etsy even
though you know with me typically with
etsy i like to do my own manual
uploads because i like to make sure my
listings are pristine because i really
think it makes a big difference on etsy
you can use it for printful to shopify
i've done that before and stocked a
whole shopify store with various
products and whatnot um and i'll
actually show you i'll explain to you
the nuances i don't want the video to go
on too long
but i will kind of break it down for you
in how you would go about doing that and
i would not recommend using merge titans
to upload to printful uh to the amazon
seller central integration you might be
like but ryan that's the most i was most
excited for that one but unfortunately
if you do that um you're gonna get
throttled most likely because there has
to be like a little bit of a time buffer
built in and the time buffer tends to
vary okay so i don't think that even if
they attempted to build that time buffer
in between uploads
um you would push too many products most
likely at some point and then you get
throttled for um i don't even know the
exact period of time that they throttle
you for but it basically prevents you
from pushing new products to the catalog
for a period of time so you don't want
that all right
uh but anyways you're like ryan okay how
do i do it this sounds pretty amazing
like i hate uploading who wait who likes
uploading if you like uploading let me
know in the comments below um i don't
expect to see many people because i mean
it gets old even if you're new to the
game you're like it gets old quickly so
that thing at the top there what is that
that is your spreadsheet okay this is
where most people get lost in
in their ambition of becoming a merch
titan and
basically um
what's the word i'm trying to say like
outsourcing uploading to somebody else
or in this case not somebody but just a
software application uh okay so this is
the this is where we tend to get you
know if there was a place where we got
hung up it's on the spreadsheet aspect
now i wanna just show you really quickly
that they have a whole library of
in-depth video trainings okay and that
can pretty much get you through
everything you need to know to get up
and running
um there's definitely at least i think
personally that me having used this for
over the years and you guys know i love
to
perfect workflows so i think i've even
expanded on on this um their video
training what you'll get in there and
made a process even a little bit better
but essentially if you click the video
trainings in their app or just find
their youtube channel
you'll see that they've got just a ton
of
exactly what it sounds like video
trainings that'll walk you through
everything you need to know with the
various integrations and whatnot now i
don't want to scare you away i want to
show you that this actually isn't that
hard to do at all and there's a couple
ways you can go about doing it alright
so first things first you need some
designs all right i like to kind of put
my designs in folders that make sense to
me
um
depending on how many designs i've got
in a folder like i may put it either in
one folder and just title the folder the
name of the niche so in this case i
would call this folder camping because
all the designs in it are related to
camping
um or you know if it's just one-off
designs i might just put it in like an
alphabetical order folder in case you
guys are wondering i've gotten that
question before like how do you organize
all this stuff um that's you know what i
worked what worked best for me
all right then you're gonna need a excel
file okay and in this excel file we're
gonna need to put some data points we
need to put the image path on our
computer
we need to put the title the description
the tags uh depending on where we're
uploading you may need to put a primary
tag for specific platforms uh you need a
merch by amazon brand if you're pushing
to merch by amazon and then you need
bullet one bullet two if you're doing
merch by amazon as well okay and you can
actually this is where i really like my
approach
is i've got a basically like a
a formula driven template that i use
where you know hidden off to the side
here behind me kind of off the screen
not included in the screenshot i've got
a column where i just put the primary
keyword in and after i put the primary
keyword in well the title updates the
description updates the tags update the
bullet1 bullet2 the brand everything
updates to pull in my primary keywords
so i've got a nice like seo friendly way
of doing this
and all i need to do is put in the
primary keyword for that design
and i very strategically when i save my
designs from the graphic design
applications that i use to create them
i name the files after the primary
keywords
in doing so all i really need to do is
grab the file names
and then pop them into the spreadsheet
and make sure they align with the file
path which is you know basically it's
hard it's harder to not do that than it
is to do it so it's yeah so all i was
saying was that your image path points
to a specific file you need to make sure
that that file's primary keyword ends up
in the same row
now here let me show you a huge hack to
filling out your spreadsheets guys
when you are in your folder with all
your designs remember i had all those
camping designs here you want to select
all of them
and then what you want to do
is hold down the shift key
and right click and this is for windows
users i'm sorry for mac users i've never
used the mac alright i apologize but i'm
sure there's a way of doing this on mac
but for windows select all your designs
hold shift and right click and then when
you do that you will get this option
copy as path
and when you do that
you can then grab the file paths of all
of your designs and pop it into that
first column over there called image
path alright doing this manually would
be miserable okay so instead all you
have to do then is click into the cell
and paste and it will put all of them
and then what i'd recommend doing is
going over into you know some
text formatting application for me you
know because i was a web developer i
like notepad plus plus it's very
lightweight quick easy free open source
and you can just paste the same file
paths in there and you can do like a
bulk
replace and i just select everything
that's um that basically is the file
path other than the file name and i
delete it and it takes me two seconds to
do all right and then all i'm left with
is my primary keywords in the order i
need them so then you guessed it copy
paste put it in the spreadsheet and i've
got all of my formula driven variables
right where i need them and then all of
a sudden the title updates the
description updates tag updates
everything updates okay
now
yeah there's it's a little bit nuanced
it gets more i don't know hopefully this
isn't a terrible tutorial i do go more
in depth is what i'm really trying to
say just not here not now okay because
again in this video there's the video
trainings okay and as you can probably
guess i do have my full print on demand
course where the whole bonus module is
dedicated to walking you through exactly
how i use all of the various automation
tools including i handhold you and give
you my actual templates so rather than
figuring out how to build them you just
click download and then you've got it so
i have to keep you know some incentives
right for the full course um so here we
go guys after you
you know download the application you
have to open an account
download the merge titans application
when you run it the first time you have
to well i think you have to log in every
time actually so you'll have to log in
the first time you run it you have to
put your license in and the license is
what you purchase
at the merch titans website which i've
got a link to in the description and on
my automation week
website page and it's going to look like
this what you see behind me
now the first thing i like to do is i
like to load my settings the settings
vary
for each platform that you're uploading
to now you can actually upload to all
platforms at once you just have to make
sure you have all of your settings
configured for each platform
so you see over there on the left hand
side all of the platforms that are
currently supported
and when it comes to setting up settings
guys it's very easy all you do is over
on the left hand side you click each
platform one by one and you do your
settings now i highly recommend if we go
back one you see over here where it says
save
after you set up your settings guys make
sure you save a profile
and that way you don't have to redo the
settings every single time you run the
application okay so all you have to do
is set your settings and then go back
and hit save okay
and you'll get to name the file so put
the file somewhere and then the next
time you come just load that same file
but if you're wondering like oh what are
the settings it's probably complicated
it's it's this complicated you see this
behind me it's like you go to merch by
amazon it says what products do you want
to upload
you check the box for the products you
want to upload what do you want to
charge set your pricing uh things like
what colors do you want to upload you
know what i mean it's very simple guys
they basically recreated the same inputs
that are required when you manually
upload so nobody should be scared off by
any of this
just don't forget to save because if you
forget to save you're going to end up
doing it again the next day
then you're going to go and upload your
excel file that we just filled in a
couple minutes ago okay so you click
upload xlsx file navigate to where you
saved it and load it up i always put my
excel files in the same directory
with the designs that it correlates to
okay that if you do it another way um
more power to you but that would get
super complicated if it wasn't in the
same folder so i always put you know i
literally put the excel file in the same
folder as the designs
and i preface it with a i give it a
prefix of zero and then when i put a
prefix of zero it tends to be the first
file in the folder so it makes it very
easy for me to stay on top of i'm giving
you all the tips here all right after
that guys all you got to do right here
behind me is click start and what it
does is it will check your excel file
for errors if it finds any errors like
maybe you have a broken file path
it'll throw a warning and it won't run
assuming everything's good though it'll
just launch what's called a chromium
browser so it looks like google chrome
but it's light blue and uh basically
just gets to uploading so it opens a
little tab for each of the um
websites that you're telling it to
upload to there's little toggles for
each one so if you tell to upload to
redbubble
uh if it's the first time you run it
you're gonna need to up you're gonna
need to log into your redbubble account
so but once you've logged in once it you
shouldn't have to log in again um
sometimes it makes you log in again it
depends on the platform it's the stuff
changes over time but redbubble i don't
think it makes you log in more than once
and that's pretty much it guys so real
quick note on other stuff merch titans
has going on they have a kdp
uploader as well for kindle direct
publishing titans
and
potentially you know word on the street
is they may consider
from what i heard uh kind of bundling
the two i don't think it's an option yet
but um in the future you may be able to
kind of get access to the print on
demand uploading and the kdp uploading
as a bundle
and what i'm even more excited about
guys
uh the same people who made merch titans
made my designs and i've kind of talked
about my designs i'm super excited about
the potential of that software if you
couldn't tell from when i did the series
on etsy digital downloads
because let's say you upload a file that
you want to be a digital download to my
designs uh well
they're eventually going to support
print on demand as well so
they will essentially like you you you
can sell the design as a digital
download on etsy but then you can also
list it as a t-shirt on etsy okay and
then you can push it to your shopify
store
and eventually hopefully amazon seller
central right um so
this integration is going to be
extremely powerful i think it already
exists i haven't run it yet but um from
what i heard you can basically upload
like your t-shirt designs or whatever
product you want to push to uh to my
designs and let's say it's your merch
but your merch by amazon designs and
then you can basically have my designs
generate a little token you can copy
paste that into your
merge titan's automation application and
it will know
which designs it correlates to in my
designs and it can trigger the upload
automation from there so all of that
crazy stuff that i was talking about
with the spreadsheets that i know most
people didn't want to hear uh but it you
know unfortunately is a necessary step
right now um if you're gonna use my
designs to its full potential you can
actually skip that step and if you
haven't seen my designs guys definitely
go check out my playlist tutorial
because it made basically doing all the
variable driven titles and keywords and
description of course they've got the
built-in keyword generators uh yeah
you're gonna be able to make extremely
optimized listings
not have to deal with spreadsheets um
it's just gonna be uh crazy it's gonna
be a cornerstone in print-on-demand
businesses i really think so anyways
we're gonna do a separate video on my
designs you probably guessed that
already but i just wanted to give you a
heads up there and before i wrap up guys
just another reminder i do have that
full print on demand course walking you
through how to start scale and automate
your business i do believe in doing them
in that order okay start manually scale
then get into the automation because you
got to be on top of what's really going
on here you don't want to jump into the
automation too quickly and of course
when you you know join the course i give
you my exact templates rather than
trying to describe them to you at a high
level um because yeah these tutorials
they do need to get a little bit more
like in-depth and detail-oriented and i
don't want to make these boring like
hour-long youtube videos so i do reserve
some of it from behind the paywall of my
full course you can find out more link
is in the description but guys thank you
for watching oh i forgot i do have a
you know if you just wanted the module
for automation by the way i did do um
that in partnership with merch titans
like two years ago so i can put a link
to that in the description as well and
that would not be the full course that
would just be the module for um
how to use how to get the full value out
of merch titans automation guys thank
you for watching please like please
subscribe please let me know if you have
any questions in the comments section
and i'll see you tomorrow with a new
automation themed video
[Music]
you