Amazon has become the go-to place when buying anything online. That’s expected to grow in the coming years as more and more people discover this eCommerce giant. However, with such fierce competition, how can you make sure your new T-shirt design makes it onto the front page of the Amazon search results?
In this article, we will show you how to promote tshirt on Amazon to make sure people see your product when they are looking for the best tshirt to buy!
1. Why promote tshirt on Amazon?
Promoting your products on Amazon can be one of the most profitable and effective ways to sell your t-shirts, hoodies, or other clothing items. If you haven’t considered this before, you may be missing out on an opportunity to reach more potential customers and increase sales.
Amazon is one of the largest eCommerce platforms in the world, with over 240 million active users each month and annual revenue in excess of $107 billion dollars. More than two-thirds of all eCommerce sales in North America flow through Amazon’s site. In addition, hundreds of thousands of marketplace sellers list their products through Amazon’s platform with more than $3 billion being sold annually.
2. Step-by-step instruction to promote tshirt on Amazon
In order to promote tshirt on Amazon, you need to conduct the following steps first.
2.1 Understand how Amazon works
First off, let’s look at how you can get up and running with a basic understanding of how things work. You’ll want to know everything from their policies and procedures to how they operate.
To start, there are several different types of seller accounts on Amazon:
- Individual Selling Accounts
- Professional Selling Accounts
- MFN (Merchant Fulfilled Network) selling accounts
Your choice will depend upon what type of seller you’d like to be. Note that all sellers may list products in any category as long as they meet certain criteria for fulfillment. With an individual account you don’t get access to many of Amazon’s tools. But it’s easier to become verified and only costs $0.99 per item sold with no monthly fees once you’ve paid $40 for an application fee.
BSR (Best Seller Rank): The number associated with every product that appears in search results for a given keyword phrase on Amazon. Copyright/trademark information: Trademarking your brand is important if you plan on selling more than one design or style of T-shirt.
The business of selling items through Amazon is full of acronyms, hidden rules, guidelines, and procedures that can make or break your chances of success. Sellers can find themselves in negative situations through little mistakes they made while unaware of policies and procedures.
2.2 Open an amazon store
The next step to promote tshirt on Amazon is opening an Amazon storefront. Create a new seller account or select an existing one and click add a new tshirt. If you’re already using an eCommerce solution like Shopify, it can be as simple as importing your products into Amazon Seller Central and setting up with all details (variants, sizes, colors).
2.3 Pick a T-shirt fulfillment provider
Following, you should pick a T-Shirt fulfillment provider. There are several options on the market for your business to partner with.
- Merch by Amazon
Merch by Amazon is a simple and streamlined process that makes it easy for you to sell shirts with little effort. It is a print-on-demand t-shirt service offered by Amazon. It’s targeted at entrepreneurs and small businesses who want to sell their designs on printed apparel, and those looking for a way to build their brand using t-shirts as tools. Merch has more than 5 million active sellers and more than 500 million products listed since launching in 2014.
When someone visits Amazon, they’ll see your shirt in several places: Product detail pages, search results, or around sponsored products (it’s hard to miss a giant product image). The goal is simple: when they click through and buy one of your shirts, which they absolutely will, you make money.
Merch by Amazon operates like any other dropshipping business: you find a source for blank apparel from which you purchase wholesale, then you list those products for sale in bulk on Amazon. From there, all of that information gets automatically uploaded onto listings across all of their websites.
- Fulfillment by Amazon
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service offered by Amazon which was introduced in 2007. It allows sellers to send their products into Amazon’s fulfillment centers, and when a customer orders one of these items, Amazon will pick, pack and ship the item. This means that you can make money selling things online without having to worry about shipping and logistics. All you need is an idea for your tshirt products and little start-up capital.
If you choose FBA, your products are eligible for Prime two-day shipping. For more information about how Fulfillment by Amazon works, check out Beginner’s Guide to Selling on Amazon.
For information about other providers, click on this link.
2.4 Design your tshirt
This is a crucial step. If you want to make money, you’ll need something that people actually want to buy. Of course, it doesn’t hurt if your t-shirt design also happens to be amusing, beautiful, or provocative. The key here is that it must appeal to somebody in some way, anything you can do to get their attention will work in your favor.
As for what goes into designing a t-shirt: don’t just settle for something simple and generic because you think it’s what people will like. You need something unique and compelling, but not so out there that no one can relate.
If you can, hire a graphic designer to help you create a professional design. Try searching for graphic designers on sites like Upwork (be sure to look through portfolios first). Otherwise, if you’re handy with tools like Photoshop or Illustrator yourself, that will be sufficient as well. Make sure your design fits well within any legal requirements: some designs can be patented and protected by law.
2.5 Optimize Amazon store & listings
Once you have created a listing for your tshirt, it’s time to make sure that it is optimized for success.
- Price:
To increase your sales, optimize your tshirt price. For example, you could offer a lower base price for customers who buy more than one item. If you can afford it, test different price points and see which ones lead to more sales overall.
Keep in mind that even if a higher or lower price point leads to fewer purchases, it may still be worth selling at those prices. It’s because some people will pay higher amounts just because they like your brand better. Plus, as long as your products are fulfilling customer needs, you can rest easy knowing that they’ll make purchases whether or not they’re discounted.
It’s important to find a balance that works for both your customers and profit margins. In general, tshirt products will go for somewhere between $15 and $35 on Amazon.
- Brand:
You have developed a brand and developed some experience with designing t-shirts, it’s time to create a brand image. A professional logo is one of best ways to enhance your brand and indirectly, promote tshirt on Amazon.
However, don’t make your logo too big, especially when using dark colors such as black or navy blue. These colors will make your logo stand out more and take away from the design of your shirt. Instead, stick with neutral colors like gray and white for a classy look that won’t detract from any design you choose.
- Title:
The product title is one of the most important on-page SEO elements for ranking in Google. Optimizing titles makes it more likely that you’ll capture qualified traffic through search engines because Google places strong weight on keywords found in page titles.
When customers search for products, they type keywords into Amazon’s search bar, and listings with titles that include these keywords show up first. If your title doesn’t contain any relevant keywords, your listing will almost certainly never show up. These titles should be enticing enough that shoppers will click and read more about what you’re selling, but they shouldn’t be so spammy.
Remember: when it comes to SEO, more is not always better. You want a good mix of keywords used naturally throughout these titles. Overdoing it could actually hurt you here.
- Description:
To create a great listing, you need to write a catchy product description. This is what customers will read in order to decide whether or not they should buy your tshirt. If you have good content that appeals to them, they’ll be more likely to purchase it.
Make sure that you use bold keywords, phrases and bullet points throughout your description so that it ranks high in Amazon search results. It should also be informative, clear and concise while highlighting all of its benefits. Include important information like sizing and shipping costs or when items will be available for pickup if applicable.
- Image:
Images are one of the most important factors in influencing purchase decisions. According to a Shopify study, 89% of customers saying they’ve purchased a product because it had an image and 80% reporting that they would be likely to spend more money if more images were available. That’s why you should create eye-catching images for each product.
After you’ve taken a great picture of your t-shirt, make sure that it’s eye-catching by following some basic design rules:
- Design some fonts into eye-catching images that say look at me! and work well with text (this is easier than it sounds)
- Focus on contrast: use black text over a white background or vice versa for best results
- Choose a backdrop that won’t distract from your product. This may mean using nothing but a plain wall or even being creative with colored sheets hung up behind you in an unused room.
2.6 Start growing
It’s time to start growing and remember to use analytics to check and optimize everything that hasn’t worked well.
3. 6 strategic tips to promote tshirt on Amazon
When it comes to building a business online, there are no shortcuts. If you want to grow a successful business from scratch, you need to be willing to put in some hard work. Below are some best strategic ways to promote tshirt on Amazon.
3.1 Use Affiliate marketing
The first tip to promote tshirt on Amazon is use affiliate marketing. An affiliate marketing strategy that will help you sell more products with less effort. It involves using special promotional codes and tools from affiliate networks such as Amazon Associates, Commission Junction, etc.
These networks have services specifically designed for businesses like yours. What these services do is allow other websites (affiliates) promote your products and then track sales through cookies or a custom code that they place on their sites.
3.2 Sponsored Product Ads
An amazon sponsored product ad is one of many ways that amazon sellers can promote tshirt on Amazon. This requires a little more money and effort, but can be very worthwhile if you get sales from it.
Sponsored ads are part of a larger suite of self-service promotion products called sponsored products, which include a number of other promotional services like product display ads and product links. Depending on what’s available for free, you may have access to all these options or only some.
There’s no way to access any paid features without first setting up a seller account and creating a plan. Once you have set up an account, learn more about each option by clicking Sponsored Products in either Your Ads & Promotions under Advertising or in Account Settings at Plan Management.
3.3 Amazon lightning deals
Lightning deals are a great way to promote tshirt on Amazon. They run for a limited time and include extra terms (such as minimum quantities). For example, if you want to sell 500 t-shirts, you could use lightning deal promotions. These types of promotions usually have a lower discount, 35%, for example, than regular products but they have a higher chance of selling out.
This can be good or bad, depending on what type of sales volume you’re looking for. Generally speaking, it’s better to set up lightning deals that require large quantities since these will likely earn more money overall. If you don’t need 500 t-shirts right away, consider offering smaller amounts with regular product listings instead.
3.4 Share listings on social media
Another tactic to promote tshirt on Amazon is sharing your listings on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram. Social media is a great way to make your listing go viral and attract hundreds of new customers. To really drive traffic and generate interest, you should be posting at least daily and cross-promoting all of your social accounts.
You can also share listings with relevant subreddits for additional promotion. A list of subreddits related to clothing would be perfect for someone promoting a t-shirt design. The more proactive you are in sharing information about your tshirt, the better chance you have of making sales online through social media channels.
3.5 Partner with influencers
If you have a limited marketing budget and don’t have money for paid promotion, one great way to spread awareness about your tshirts is by partnering with influencers. Influencers are another form of free advertising: they help introduce and share your product with their followers, thus broadening your reach.
However, in order to get influencers interested in promoting your tshirt, you’ll need a strong offer that will benefit them as well (and vice versa).
4. Wrapping Up
Promoting your products on Amazon is easy and can be very lucrative. Amazon allows you to create your own listing, and as an entrepreneur, you have the opportunity to promote your product from concept to completion.
There are several ways you can promote tshirt on Amazon, from creating eye-catching images to using strategic keywords in your listing. We hope that you can apply all of our tactics and suggestions to be a successful Amazon seller!
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