hey what's up guys happy monday so today
i was feeling compelled to do a video
where i warn you against selling a
specific niche that i feel like is on
the cusp of emerging
or you know what it's probably not
emerged for a very specific reason and
it may be because
there just could be a lot of rejections
going on behind the scenes and when i
say rejections you guys already know i'm
talking about merch by amazon for the
most part the other print on demand
platforms
they don't have a really strict approval
algorithm where each product we try to
submit for sale
may or may not be allowed
on the platform
whereas merch by amazon you know they've
got their algorithmic approval and
rejections and if you rack up too many
rejections you may lose your account and
we know that's devastating because
there's so much money to be made
especially over the long term i mean as
humans we tend to be short-term thinkers
think over the long term look at how
much money you made on merch by amazon
yesterday multiply that by 365 and
understand that you should be seeing
that number steadily increase over time
so we need to keep our accounts safe and
in this video i want to warn you against
selling a niche that i think may emerge
over the coming days
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research tools all sunsets premium
pre-made graphics to help you with your
designs and my favorite redbubble niche
research tool bubble scout you can find
a link at the top of the description so
if anybody has had time to check out the
free chrome extension bubble scout
you'll notice that when you go to
redbubble
it will inject a table of the top 20
trending searches at the top of
redbubble and for the last week at least
i've noticed that
squid game which meant nothing to me
prior to me checking out the show
i that's it's been trending for like a
week
and i actually started watching the show
like two nights ago and i can't lie i
actually like it i know it's not
everybody's cup of tea if you haven't
checked it out it's been
number one uh trending on netflix for
at least a few days in a row maybe even
a week i don't know by the way if you
guys like the show let me know your
thoughts in the comments below i know a
lot of people have seen it uh but
definitely you know it's one of those
things that's uh it's gone viral and a
lot of people are talking about it a lot
of people i know want to watch it soon
and the reason i'm sharing this is
because
that means that you know we are we're
already seeing the validation here
anyways but
there's going to be a big demand
especially near halloween when we're
talking about a show where i mean i'm
not going to mention any spoilers by the
way so if you haven't clicked off yet
don't worry there will be no spoilers
but people in the show
generally speaking wear uniforms right
and i mean if you're talking about
uniforms and you think of halloween it's
that time of year where people are going
to be buying something to wear on
october 31st or to their halloween
parties right so
you know people like us you and me the
wheels are turning in our brain like
okay i smell opportunity
but of course the purpose of this video
is to keep your account safe no
short-term gain is worth risking the
long-term
value of your
seller accounts on redbubble merch by
amazon etsy wherever else so
if you're going to try to make money off
of this you should be extremely
strategic but my advice is to not even
try it's not worth it and what i want to
show you is that first and foremost uh
on redbubble there's already high
competition
and this is uh evaluated by bubble scout
the chrome extension redbubble doesn't
tell you a competition metric but
uh on redbubble it's already full of
people trying to make money selling
products to fans of the tv show now i
just want to make a quick distinction
and again my my stances stay away
altogether so having said that
i just want to make a distinction that
some of these designs are
simply
t-shirts
with a number okay is there anything
wrong with selling a t-shirt with a
number
well it's a trick question you have to
see if it's trademarked first right oh
it's not trademarked okay it's a t-shirt
with a number
here's the thing though they're
marketing their t-shirt with a number
to fans of the tv show
which is another way of saying
they are trying to train the algorithm
that determines what search results are
shown to the customers
to associate their listing with people
who type in
these keywords let's go back one or two
these keywords right here in the top 20
trending squid game and squid game
netflix and probably other variations of
that okay so you see what i'm saying
nothing wrong with shirt with number but
now all of a sudden you're trying to
carve out a spot on one of the world's
most popular print-on-demand
marketplaces redbubble
where you're selling shirts to fans of
the tv show now all of a sudden a
potential problem arises now i'm not
trying to be a judge in a courtroom
litigating over this right
we don't need to go there if redbubble
decides to
algorithmically sweep and remove all
listings indexed on squid game like
they've done in the past before they've
done it with like game of thrones for
instance very similar like hbo tv show
as opposed to netflix tv show
then all of these people are going to
get removed and they may get their
accounts closed so is it worth it almost
certainly not although i mean
i guess it depends on how much money
you're making if it's like a short-term
crash grab uh some of these people may
just start a new redbubble account so
but it's in my mind it's not worth it
assuming that you've really been
building up your redbubble account over
time
uh definitely not worth it now
they're shirt with numbers and then look
at some of the other designs some of
these other designs are like actually
meant to look like
some of the characters from the tv show
now in that case i think you're really
making a mistake because yeah that's
definitely infringing um in my mind
anyways right you're taking literally tv
show characters and putting them in
designs so here on the third and fourth
row of search results you're seeing
a couple more examples
of
what i would consider to be more
infringing designs and then you've even
got one that took squidward from
spongebob squarepants and then made a
squidward squid game design which is
actually pretty funny um anyways guys
you gotta like just stay away it's not
worth the health of your account and
then the real reason that i wanted to
make this video is because on merch by
amazon when i go to the search merch
tool and i type in squid game i see very
few results okay and it's not because
there aren't sharp people who want to
make money selling you know a t-shirt
with a number on it that they think is
safe
to fans of the show the show that by the
way again number one trending in america
on netflix now netflix doesn't as far as
i know they typically don't tell us
the actual streaming metrics behind that
so it could be 30 million people viewing
it a day it could be 100 million people
viewing it a day i mean everybody has
netflix pretty much right
so your guess is as good as mine but
for sure people are trying to like for
sure
there's probably a ton of listings right
now
sitting in under review and at least
probably in one of your guys's that's
watching this this video at least
probably in one of your guys's accounts
and because there's so few live on merch
by amazon which by the way in this case
shouldn't dictate whether or not you
even attempt to get one approved because
we already know it's wrong you know oh
it's a netflix show just stay away keep
your account safe but the fact that
there's like four i counted four so i
got three in the screenshot and then
there's a fourth that i'll show you
but that should be a sign a big red flag
guys that just stay away there's there's
like four on page one when you type in
squid game that's
that's uh pretty significant because we
know the demand is there because we just
saw it on redbubble
um so you see here like
this i'm just going to really quickly
let's audit the listings that got
through not because we want to
look at what they did to get through and
do it ourselves because again we're
going to stay away but you've got like
player067 shirt but look in the brand it
says squid
and i just think if you're saying squid
and uh then behind my head here on the
video you've got the word game so all
the algo like if they want to do an
algorithmic sweep they just say look for
listings that say squid and game
somewhere in the listing
and then those might all go to manual
review by someone on the team and then
they may
decide to remove the listing and they
may decide to remove your account
because they know what you're you know
what i mean if you're just selling a
shirt that says 067 you're probably fine
but if you're if you're including the
keywords in the listing that say squid
and game but you think you're strategic
because you put it in the brand and then
you put game in the bullet
not a good idea guys not a good idea at
all
the second one this one actually doesn't
say squid anywhere it says puzzle game
number o six seven costume
okay now
this
may be getting purchased by people that
are fans of squid game but guess what it
doesn't say squid anywhere that i can
see
so i think if there's one listing that
we may actually see stick around it may
be this one
because all it is is a shirt that says
067 and we don't know you know what i
mean like who are we or who
no one can determine the intent of the
people buying the shirt right
we'd be guessing to say that they could
be fans of a tv show but they could also
just want a shirt that says 067 now i'm
not saying that you should go and
replicate this i'm just saying
if there's one that may be okay and safe
that won't get removed it's probably
this one because it doesn't say squid
anywhere okay i don't even know if it
says game oh it does say game
um also worth mentioning guys that like
really quickly
it this is ranked this is indexed on me
searching squid game so how did the
algorithm figure out to index this shirt
on a search query squid game when it
doesn't even say squid anywhere
well because guys the algorithm this is
true of merged by amazon kdp fba in
general the amazon algorithm that shows
that figures out what to show customers
that search
it uses sales history
to figure out what to
rank in search results so enough people
have probably typed in squid game
found this listing and purchased it that
this is ranking well on the keyword
squid game
without it even mentioning the word
squid guys because the the real way to
get ranked on amazon is to make sales
and the keywords that people search
before they click and buy
are training the algorithm
of what to associate with that listing
okay you can put keywords in your
listing all day but if it's not making
sales on those keywords
it's not going to rank well on those
keywords but if it's making sales that's
how you rank okay
the third one says squid player numbers
so again this one's probably pushing it
a little too far and a fourth one right
here it's a little bit different than
the previous ones but it's got the
shapes that those of you that have seen
the show probably recognize and if you
haven't seen the show there's no
spoilers here
and they say koreans korean games scary
except the invitation kdrama and down
here in the bullets behind me it says
like
retro halloween squid korean game squid
korean game i mean this shirt's just
asking to be removed and that account
may get closed you know i'm just i don't
work for the merch team so i don't know
but to me this is pushing the envelope
to where this is like and then you'll
see them say oh my account got closed
and someone will say what'd you do and
they'll say i didn't do anything wrong
it's like literally
squid korean game right here behind my
finger you know what i mean they know
what they did wrong so anyways it's if i
had to guess this will be removed
shortly
uh so guys
anybody still with me safety first i
like this picture behind me
uh it's safety first i got the merch by
amazon logo and the redbubble logo for
anybody listening on the the podcast
version of this so keep your account
safe guys you know they're worth a lot
more money in the long run than anything
you'll make in the short term trying to
you know infringe on
someone else's intellectual property
all right guys and before i leave just
wanted to remind you in the description
i've got a free seven-day merch by
amazon mini course you'll find a link
down there i've got a merch by amazon
facebook group got a link down there too
of course we've got the free giveaway
and last but not least i've got a full
merch by amazon course walking you
through how i went from tier 10 to tier
200 000 if you would like to find out
more check that out link in the
description thank you for watching guys
please like and subscribe and have a
great day i'll see you tomorrow
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you