hey what's up guys today we're going to
take a stroll down memory lane i'm going
to go back
to the beginning to the roots of my
print on demand business
back to when i made my first print on
demand
sale i'm going to tell you what product
type it was what niche i was in
i'm gonna tell you things like pricing
uh how i arrived at that niche
basically anything i can think of
sharing i'm gonna share with you
and just so you know this was a question
that somebody had posted in my
print on demand facebook group which of
course will be linked in the description
below
but you know what why don't we get
started
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real quick before we get to the video i
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so as i alluded to earlier straight out
of my print on demand facebook group
darcus asked how long did it take for
you guys to make your first sale and how
many designs
did you have back then now i'm going to
answer this question from my own
personal perspective
and i made my first sale
on wednesday april 12 2017
at the time i had 10 uh products for
sale on the
amazon.com the us marketplace via merch
by amazon back then
i was just learning uh fba i mean at
this point i was actually pretty far
into fba
but i was just kind of figuring out what
print on demand was and trust me guys
we've all been there
fortunately you guys have a lot more
resources available to you than i had
back in 2017
uh to me now i'm not trying to hate i
mean i had some good resources but they
were very limited
right so i was kind of learning on the
go at my own pace and i was listening to
like podcasts and whatnot you know now
there's like great youtube content great
courses etc
so i had 10 products available because i
was in tier 10
and merch by amazon was the only place i
was selling any print on demand products
at the time i didn't even think about
looking for other places to sell
including selling through seller central
even though i had a seller central
account at the time i was using it for
amazon fba
you know coincidentally i made my first
merch sale and my first fba sale in the
same month
and that was just sheer coincidence um
and you can go back in time to my income
reports they're on my
blog at ryanhook.com income reports
and they're at my youtube channel so i
can actually put a link if you would
like me to i'll put a link in the
description in case you want to check
out my income reports
um but yeah you can see how long it took
me to scale up my businesses so
it was a wednesday it was april 12th
which is actually the day after my
birthday
back in 2017 i made one sale and i made
2.58 cents
in royalties so what about the price of
my shirt by the way standard t-shirt in
case you're wondering and also back in
2017 uh i think there was only
i don't want to say the wrong thing was
there only two product types like
standard and premium t-shirts i think
there was only two product types back
then i'm pretty sure it was standard and
premium t-shirts and that was it
i think that same year later in the year
they added the long sleeve the hoodie
and um was it the tank top i can't
remember oh man
it feels like i was like man it doesn't
feel like that it was that long ago yet
i can't even remember what products were
available
so anyways you can see here from pretty
merch uh i made one sale
i made 2.58 royalty and
it was priced at 13.99 and anybody
that's watching is like wait a second
if you charge 13.99 for the shirt how
did you make 2.58
royalty well unfortunately
amazon has increased the base cost of
their products multiple times since
2017.
they did it in january 2018
and then they did it again in january
2019 so when they didn't do it in
january of 2020 or 2021
i think everybody breathed a collective
sigh of relief that was expecting one
all right i didn't want to say anything
on my channel and jinx it
but we got away again with another year
of no price increases
however i don't know how that bodes for
2022 we may be
looking at one coming so anyways back in
the day
you know back back in the day you could
sell at 13.99 on merch by amazon and get
a 2.58
royalty and if you sold at 19.99 you
made like seven bucks
and probably like 50 cents or something
i don't remember exactly
all right niches so what niche did i
sell in i
this one is going to um probably make
you laugh
but i didn't know what the heck i was
doing back then
and i remember like having uploaded
shirts that just
sucked and i was like i wouldn't buy
these i don't know who would buy these
so what should i be selling and i
thought what would i buy and
me being i don't know i'm just hey i'm
just me alright
i'm a big fan of the tv show south park
and
no i didn't infringe on south park in
any way shape or form i didn't include
any keywords alluding to the show
i just took a quote from one episode of
the show
it's not even said in any other episodes
just one episode and
i mean who knows how many episodes there
are there's like 23 or 24 seasons at
this point
i took a quote from one episode i
slapped it on a t-shirt and believe it
or not it's sold and this is the thing i
really want to share
this niche or this uh i mean i guess i
kind of made my own niche honestly it
didn't exist on amazon
there were zero shirts on fbm on amazon
merch
at all i don't remember if i looked
online
in general or not i should have that
would have been good to know
but anyways it was just a quote um i
don't want to share it because i still
have a couple shirts in that niche
however i've been
undercut in that niche by a ton of
people like it's like a real niche now
and i don't make any sales there so i
guess i could tell you but you know what
i'm not going to
anybody want to guess in the comments
below though i will let you know if you
guess
put it that way um it's a pretty
well-known quote i say it all the time
not all the time but i it still pops up
into my mind anytime i get a chance to
say it so anyways the niche was from
one episode of a popular tv show and i
didn't allude to the tv show
anywhere in the listing i just put the
quote alright
now design my design was
probably the worst design i've ever done
and i'm not exaggerating
at all it was probably the worst design
i've ever made
and at some point if you guys subscribe
to my channel
you know what when when i hit 100k
subscribers i'm gonna write this down
when i hit 100k subscribers
i'll show you guys the shirt and i'll
show you the niche i'll show you the
full design the full shirt everything
alright
that's my promise i'm not that far away
from 100k so everybody subscribe
and when we get there you'll get to see
the design uh it is
the ugliest design you've ever seen i
basically took
a like png graphic i did a
color overlay of just solid white so it
was
it wasn't a good graphic the color
overlay made it even worse
and then i put like a another floating
piece of text
in the design it was asymmetric
the font was super small the graphic was
super small
they were like out of sorts i mean it
was like literally the worst design i
think i've ever made in my life
coincidentally of course it was also the
first one that made a sale
that led me down this path like you
couldn't you couldn't script this any
better than how it actually played out
in real life
and i promise you i'm not making this up
it is a hundred percent i'll i'll show
you from my merch by amazon dashboard
when i hit 100k subscribers on youtube
so that way you know i'm not making it
up that way i can't fake it i won't do a
screenshot i'll pull it up so you can
see it in real time
i want you guys to believe me so anyways
that's really all i wanted to cover
in this video guys we had some fun with
it let me know if you want to share
um you know youtube's probably not the
best place join my print on demand
facebook group
and let me know if you have a funny
story behind your first sale
post there i mean we have a very active
community everybody has a good time so
get to know each other
share a good story if you have one about
how you made your first sale or if
you've made a sale of
an incredibly ugly design like the one
um
i made so and that ended up being my
very first print on demand sale ever
anyways guys before i leave i just
wanted to remind you i wrote an eight
day print on demand mini course that is
completely free and very thorough if you
want to use the link in the description
all i need is your email address and i
will send you one lesson a day
it'll help you get set up with the
printful and etsy integration so take
advantage of that
also the print on demand facebook group
that i've been referencing you can find
a link to that in the description so
it would be awesome if you would like to
join and before i leave i just wanted to
remind you i wrote a full print on
demand course
basically it's like hitting the fast
forward button on your business
as if you're looking over my shoulders
so you can replicate exactly how i run
my business
to every last detail so you can find a
link to that in the description walking
you through how i make six figure print
on demand sales every single year
thank you so much for watching guys do
me a quick favor hit that like button
subscribe if you haven't already
all that good stuff and i will see you
[Music]
tomorrow
[Music]
you