what's up guys in today's video we're
going to be reacting uh basically having
a watch along to Hannah ebling's video
on print on demand outdated tips for
2023 that you should not be doing I'm
excited to see what her suggestions are
I hope you are too by the way of course
I'm going to link to this video in the
description show her some love if you
like her content I'll be reacting to it
as we watch it uh let's get to it
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all right guys I'm excited to watch this
video by the way I'm gonna put it on 1.5
x speed I'm a little bit of a crazy
person I watch everything on 2x speed so
I'll put on 1.5 for the watch along uh
hopefully you guys don't mind today I'm
going to be sharing some print on demand
tips and strategies that I see a lot of
people doing or recommending other
people do that you should not be doing
and should definitely stop if you want
your business to continue to grow into
the future and especially in 2023. some
of these tips and strategies may have
worked for a time but they just do not
serve you anymore some of this is just
flat out bad advice that you may have
heard that you should definitely not be
doing in your business hopefully it's
nothing that you hear me say on my
channel that would be embarrassing let's
go if you want to succeed and make a lot
of sales I'm Hannah and on my channel I
share all about print on demand and
making passive income so if that is
something you're interested in I would
love it if you would down below and give
this video a like it really helps out my
channel
uh she only has like 8 000 subscribers
right now so definitely show her some
love it's gonna be linked in the
description I know the smaller YouTubers
like would love you know the the
positive feedback and the bump and
subscribers now let's get on to those
outdated tips this first tip is one that
I continue to hear a few gurus telling
other people they should be doing and
that is copying the descriptions and
titles of best selling products not only
is this super frustrating for the person
who went to the trouble of writing that
description in title and then someone
just copy and paste it on their own
listing it actually is not even going to
help you if you want to make sales some
of those items are best sellers and they
are already ranking high in searches
when people are looking for those
specific keywords so if you are trying
to compete in those same niches having
the exact same description as someone
who is already getting a bunch of sales
is not going to serve you because there
is nothing to differentiate your two
listings so when someone searches up
those keywords that you're trying to
compete on they are probably going to
end up buying the one that has already
been validated with sales and her just
the first one that they see so if you
want even a chance to stand out I think
it serves you more to actually write
your own descriptions and titles and try
to improve improve on what has been
working for other people instead of yeah
I think it's good advice generally
speaking I remember a couple years back
when I felt like that that piece of
advice was like a lot more prevalent
um on Amazon merch especially just
because and she said in this video This
is for both Amazon merch and Etsy but on
Amazon merch because the listings are
sold by Amazon it's not even like
there's a breadcrumb trail of like who
copied who if you were to copy like a
title or a description and I think you
know I don't necessarily know that it's
like a really bad thing but it's I'm
with her like I don't copy other
people's titles or descriptions I write
them my own nowadays you can use like
chat GPT get AI suggestions so um I'm
all for like having unique titles unique
descriptions just copying something that
someone else is trying you want to do
something better and new I actually have
an entire video of how I go about
creating my descriptions and title for
all of my print on demand products so
you can take a look at that here and it
just is going to show you how you can
really fill your description if you are
just a beginning piece of print on
demand advice that I think is super
outdated at this point is that you
should be buying packs of pre-made
t-shirt designs I know this is super
appealing if you are just a beginning
designer and you want to fill your shop
with a bunch of things as quick as
possible but there are two reasons that
I think you should stay away from buying
these packs of pre-made t-shirt designs
the first one is that if someone is
selling just a bunch of vectors or SVG
files you are probably not the only one
who has bought this and had the idea to
upload these to your print on demand
shop so if you post One Design likely
there's 10 or 20 other people with the
exact same one so it gives you no chance
to stand out and the next reason I think
that you should never be doing this is
because a lot of times these stores on
Etsy or some other sites are taking
best-selling designs that people have
already created and ripping them off of
their products and packaging them and
selling them as their own when in
reality those are from someone else a
lot of times yeah it's honestly it's sad
but true you know what I mean a lot of
them are probably stolen um actually I
can't say probably a lot of these
bundles though for sure we don't
necessarily know the origins and um
can't help but wonder if it's the
original designer that is the one
uploading and selling them I have a
feeling it's not in a lot of cases so I
agree there and um you know for another
note too I don't want to take it out of
her mouth if she's about to say it but
yeah if you're a beginner and you're
using other people's designs well you're
not getting any better at designing
you'll even see in the Etsy listing for
these bundles that it says you can use
it for print on demand sometimes that is
just completely made up and if the
original seller ever sees that one of
their designs you have posted even if
you didn't know it was not safe for
resale you could risk having your
account terminated and you definitely
will have to delete that listing I've
had that yeah another piece of good
advice there too if there's
repercussions for even though you didn't
know any better it's like well you know
they don't know what you know right they
don't know necessarily how many people
have ripped off their designs and given
people fake rights to to sell them right
so it could get down a rabbit hole but
at the same time I mean yeah I don't
know I don't know if there's like a good
clear-cut answer of like what's right
what's wrong here um for sure like
things can be wrong but I'm saying I
don't know how we can validate every
single time that we use a service like
creative Fabrica
um if you go to a place like vexels
though where it's like only vexels
designers that are creating those
designs then you know for sure you're
safe where you get to create a fabricas
where it gets like a little bit crazy
because of how many people are able to
sell and um you know you can't validate
every single graphic asset that's
uploaded to that platform so I I
definitely um see where she's going with
this this happened to make it completely
your own so you don't have to complete
greatly make all of your graphics from
scratch you should stop doing especially
if you are a new seller is pricing your
items at zero dollars profit to be able
to make your first sales I completely
understand where this is coming from you
want to incentivize your buyers to make
purchases from you and especially if
you're in something like merch by Amazon
where you are trying to tear up those
first 10 and 25 sales are super
important to get really fast so it
really doesn't matter to you if you make
a profit or not the way that this
backfires is sometimes if you are
pricing your items at the bottom of the
barrel it is going to scare potential
customers away because either the number
seems a little bit off or it's just so
much lower than all the other products
in that Niche and that scares them away
people are used to paying about a
standard price range for shirts and
sweatshirts and if anything deviates too
far away from that you could risk not
getting a sale so I don't think as a
newbie that's a really good point um and
it's something I definitely consider but
like that last the way she framed it at
the end there the really strong point
it's like if you don't if you deviate
too far from the acceptable range like I
think t-shirts probably like 15 to 20
bucks
um you know if you're like 13 or even 25
it's like well those are you know on the
extremes of what people are probably
expecting to pay and uh good point you
should be pricing your items as high as
you possibly can but I would take a look
at a lot of the other shirts that are
selling well and try to stay in that
middle range to make sales this is also
great too because even if you are just
getting started and making a few sales a
month wouldn't you rather make some
profit from those than absolutely none
at all a little over a year ago I
started pricing all of my standard
shirts on merch by Amazon at a flat
19.99 across the board and I haven't
seen any decrease in sales in fact I've
seen my sales continue to climb and
climb every single month so I really
think that you don't need to start by
pricing your items really low and then
change them to a higher price once
you've made sales this yeah I mean it
can go both both ways for what it's
worth too I mean I'm not against a low
price strategy at the same time it's
just a little bit of extra work to have
to reprice
um there is the other side of it too
where if you make that first sale you're
you're going to be indexed in Amazon
Merchants catalog forever uh if you
don't get the first sale you know you
know if you just if you price high right
out of the gate it's like
if that design doesn't sell and it falls
off you have to at least be willing to
like refill the upload slot right if you
just let that upload slot not go filled
when it gets removed
um from the automated removal process
then it's like a wasted upload slot
whereas if you price low you know what I
mean you're it's it's one extra thing
you control to help incentivize
customers from buying from you
um and there's definitely no like right
or wrong way of doing it uh it would and
again like it would really help if we
had like access to Amazon's data for
things like click through rate and
conversion rate as a function of price
but we don't have that so I guess you
know I I it's like I agree I disagree I
see both sides of it I see both sides
strategy is something that a lot of
people try to be able to do the lowest
price so that when people sorted
products by lowest to highest yours
would become the top of the page in
sorting it that way however now so many
people know about the secret trick and
so there's three four five six pages of
items that are all priced with no profit
so you aren't even going to stand out
that way and you might as well make some
profit the next mistake that I see a lot
of print on demand sellers doing and a
lot of recommending is trying to let
organic traffic do all of the work in
your print onto command business gone
are the days I think when you could just
post a bunch of listings and you are
going to get a bunch of sales in traffic
right away it's a lot more complicated
to play this game in some ways and while
you can build a successful business with
no social media following or not a lot
of outside traffic I think in those
early stages of starting your business
being able to give your listings a
little boost with some outside traffic
helps a ton so in both definitely agree
it's just easier said than done right
it's it's tough you know it's tough
these days building a social media
following is tough if you don't want to
pay pay to play
um getting sales on platforms like
Amazon and Etsy you know it's tough if
you don't want to pay to play um I don't
know anybody that has like the single
solution it seems like it's a mixed bag
you know and at the end of the day it's
that equation of your time is money so
is your time better spent making more
designs and posting them for sale or is
it better spent like trying to create
like a social media following that you
can Market to down the line and uh
everybody you know you got to stick to
your strengths stick to what you know
stick to what works
Etsy and Amazon once your product has
made a sale it is going to actually
start to rank on those first Pages
depending on what the niche is but if
you've never had a sale before it
doesn't even have a bestseller rank so
it is not going to show up really early
in search so sometimes if you can help
by bringing traffic either from your own
social media or creating a specific
brand page for your print on demand
items and you can just help Amazon or
Etsy make that first sale that item is
going to start ranking organically now
that it has made the first sale and
you're going to start getting a lot more
of that organic traffic and sales
and you know for what it's worth like
there was an Amazon agency that I use
for Amazon FBA
and they actually I did a video on this
or a couple videos in the past maybe
like 2020 but basically like that's one
of the main things I sat down with the
CEO and he said look like this is one of
the main ways we're having some success
that a lot of people aren't talking
about and I was like all right fill me
in and he's like it's driving external
traffic to your listings Amazon is
loving it we're seeing it respond very
positively uh I did it to one of my
listings and literally saw me I think I
jumped from like the 14th organic rank
on the primary most valuable keywords
now it wasn't print on demand it was an
FBA product I sell but I jumped up to
number five if I remember correctly and
it was like over the duration of a
couple weeks so yeah this is good advice
but again it's like you have to execute
it which is the tough part this has
worked super well oh and that agency
sorry they did ads we ran um Facebook
and Google ads but they did it for me
that was the nice part so all for me
where I will push an item on one of my
social media pages that I created for
some of my Brands and once I get that
first sale from someone that I knew came
from Instagram that item all of a sudden
starts selling super well on Etsy and
I'm getting all these organic views in
traffic because I made that first sale
once again this isn't a complete must
but a lot of people get super
discouraged in the early stages of their
business because they expect that all of
this traffic is just going to come to
them without them doing anything but if
you really want to start seeing momentum
I definitely suggest trying to get some
additional eyes and traffic on your
listings and help Etsy and Amazon make
those first sales the next piece of
outdated print on demand advice that I
still continue to hear people say is
that you should let Etsy and Amazon just
automatically control all of your
advertising campaigns if in your
business you've started to dabble into
the world of advertising it's super
tempting when you don't know what you're
doing to just put your listings on
automatic and have Amazon do all of the
work but you'll see pretty soon that
Amazon and Etsy really quickly spend all
of your money that you have for that
campaign it's really easy yes they do
find a way to spend your money this is a
nuanced thing for sure with advertising
yeah because it's like you set a budget
you set bids or you go to Etsy where you
can't set bids but you can set a budget
and uh yeah it's definitely a rabbit
hole that requires a little bit of time
to go down
um you definitely don't want to put it
on full autopilot because the least the
the less you do and I'm sure she's about
to say this but it's like the less you
do the more of your money they're going
to spend and most likely the less
efficiently they're going to spend it
you get to find yourself using up all of
your money and spending it on these
keywords that aren't really going to
convert into sales because they don't
have anything to do with your listing so
I think it is super important to
manually run and monitor all of your
campaigns this doesn't mean that you
can't have any automatic campaigns but I
think you need to be very conscientious
of how much you are going to be bidding
per click on those advertising campaigns
I do have quite a few automatic
campaigns on Amazon but all of those I
intentionally set my click bidding price
no more than 25 cents and I usually
don't make my daily budget more than a
dollar or two when I'm first getting
started with that campaign that way I
can really manage and see how this is
performing and I don't have to worry
about Amazon spending ten dollars and
not even getting one sale because they
are just spending as much money as I
will let them on a random thing I always
like to shout out the um the story that
I got to tell of somebody that I did a
one-on-one call with who had spent like
over 30 grand on his FBA product to make
like I think like 15 grand in Revenue
not even profit and it's just one of
those things where it's like yeah um
what she's saying is true like if you
let them spend your money they will
spend your money there's no shortage of
uh ad inventory to fill on those
platforms if the price is right and uh
he basically you know set really high
bids really high budgets
and the rest is history some ways Amazon
and Etsy they really do want you to
succeed with your ads but they also
aren't going to hesitate from spending
as much ad money as you elect them
because this is becoming more revenue
for them so you want to be really
conscious in either monitoring what
specific keywords you're going to bid on
or just making your bids very very low
and slightly increasing those as you see
that they're working because if you give
Amazon and Etsy 10 or 20 a day to work
with they probably are going to spend
all of your money and that doesn't
guarantee that you are going to get
results so yes guys uh it's true and I
mean you can set like negative keywords
on your Amazon ad campaigns on Etsy and
this is talking about Auto campaigns on
Etsy uh it's kind of you're just forced
into doing their equivalent of an auto
campaign they don't have manual
campaigns as an option and you can't
control your bids either but you can go
in there and you can click Search terms
and it will show you what keywords and
what phrases they're spending your money
on and sometimes they'll just like
append the wrong product type so you say
shirt and they'll be advertising it for
like I don't know hats or something like
make something up towels uh and you're
like okay that's never going to convert
and then you got to kill that you can
turn it off so yeah there's definitely
things you can do anyways guys thanks
for watching this video if you have
another video suggestion for me to do a
reaction to you can either drop it in
the comments or email me check out
Hannah's Channel I will of course link
to this video in the description I know
she would appreciate some new
subscribers you can tell her you came
from my channel I'm sure she'd
appreciate that uh that's it guys thanks
for watching like subscribe and I will
see you at the next one
thank you
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