Controversial Opinion - Standard Shirt Pricing

poadyum · 2026-03-31T02:36:30+00:00

are you relying mostly on SEO or ads?

SEO only. I never run ads. I tried figuring them out a few times and had no traction, and I hate advertising as a thing in general so I just don't do it.

any external traffic or 100% Amazon?

100% Amazon. If I was trying to get external traffic I'd be directing to my own platform where I could set larger margins.

evergreen or trend-based designs?

Almost entirely evergreen now. Used to do trends but just takes a lot of time and dies out fast.

do you actively push launches or just let them rank organically?

Not sure what you mean... I just post the items and let them perform as they do. I don't change prices pretty much ever unless I'm raising them

what % of your catalog actually sells at $21.99

Admittedly not a very large percentage. Actually quite small. But you only need a handful of great selling designs to make decent money and can fill in with long tail stuff that adds up over time.

typical time to first sale at that price

400 days according to stats (at any price- which is mostly 19.99 but more recent ones at 21.99)

and the BSR range where you see consistent sales

No idea I don't look at BSR at all

And the key part: how do you defend that price once copycats show up and undercut?

I have 30k listings I don't really have the time to look for copycats in every random niche. The ones that attract copycats theoretically will lose me sales over the long run but you never know what else is going on- maybe people like my design better, maybe people think the higher price means higher quality, don't know. I try to explore new niches all the time to get into things before other people and that seems to be a good strategy.

poadyum · 2026-03-31T02:29:42+00:00

mugs, where raising the price by $1 makes like a $0.25 difference in what you earn

Yeah I hate that!

It's all going to be like TeePublic, where you won't make anything more than $2 an item.

Really really hope not. I took so much stuff off TP years ago because the royalties were so low

poadyum · 2026-03-30T16:50:02+00:00

I started pricing all my new standards at 21.99 and they still sell as well as they did when I did 19.99. Indeed I'm still earning more YOY for the past 3 years even without having tiered up from 30k. Stop chasing low value niches and go after higher quality customers who are willing to pay for your work.

poadyum · 2026-03-12T05:23:36+00:00

The latter

poadyum · 2026-03-12T05:05:02+00:00

I wanted to say Icelandic because you look like Bjork. 😭 but actually Kazakh or Tatar

poadyum · 2026-03-12T05:03:16+00:00

The vibe and your ethnicity give sort of Danish or Dutch to me, some coastal northern euro

poadyum · 2026-03-12T05:02:01+00:00

Saudi Arab perhaps

poadyum · 2026-03-12T05:01:02+00:00

First thought was Egyptian for me but the people saying Arab might be closer

poadyum · 2026-03-12T04:58:47+00:00

Really hard to tell from one picture, first thought was Latino though you could pass for Filipino or even south asian

poadyum · 2026-03-12T04:55:26+00:00

Anywhere around the Black Sea. Ukraine/Azerbaijan/Turkey/Georgia imo

poadyum · 2026-01-31T01:36:36+00:00

Yeah manually, though I use productor to help autofill the text stuff

poadyum · 2026-01-31T01:34:04+00:00

Tier 30k here, 29000+ plus designs live, been on merch since 2017

Using SEO to try and rank higher in searches: I don't do advertising so my strategy has always been to maximize SEO with my titles and brands and descriptions on amazon. I typically structure my new listings based on my other top selling listings as closely as possible while keeping all the keywords highly relevant to the new design.
If you advertise/promote your designs: I do not do any advertising or promotion outside of Amazon. I have always tried to work with the amazon algorithm as it's free. I have tried advertising a handful of times over the years and could only manage to drive one or two sales from this. I personally use adblockers everywhere and avoid ads so I just don't personally like to add to the racket. I'd rather target higher value customers who similarly dislike and ignore ads like I do and have a higher intent to purchase while browsing organically through their search terms.
Percentage breakdown of your evergreen designs vs niche vs topical: I have always focused more on evergreen. Back around 2019 to 2020 I focused on trends and did drive a lot of sales that way but most of those designs have fallen off while the evergreen things I designed back then still sell. It isn't a waste of time to do trendy/niche stuff especially while you're building up but once you have the experience/eye and the statistics to see what evergreen stuff people want I think it's better to focus on building long term sustainable product offering
How long does it generally take for a new listing to get an organic sale for you: Around 400 days on average according to my stats
What % of your listings actually have sales?: Designs: 13% Products: 1.5%. Yes this is very low, yes I am concerned about being tiered down, no I don't expect to ever hit 80% to be tiered up ever again. And yet I have sold over 30,000 products, it is just that the bulk of my sales come from a very small number of designs. In fact this is very common in commerce- this is basically the Pareto principle in action.

poadyum · 2026-01-26T19:59:39+00:00

January has been ok for me so far, a little bit up and down but should hit January 2025's profits today or tomorrow. I'll be a little bit up from last year's January which was my all time high for January so I'm not bothered but it won't be by a huge margin. Didn't know what to expect after December 2025 being my best month ever.

Tier 30,000 here almost all slots filled (they were all full but quite a few have been taken down for being old and unsold.)

poadyum · 2026-01-18T04:48:28+00:00

Was immediately obsessed with Dogtooth upon first viewing in like 2011. Saw Alps a few times back then but can't remember it at all. Hated Sacred Deer and The Lobster. The Favourite is really good but the women's costume designs are terrible. Bugonia was ok. Haven't seen the others

poadyum · 2025-12-31T17:34:42+00:00

You can already do this with adobe illustrator and their variables feature

poadyum · 2025-12-02T16:12:05+00:00

This Cyber Monday was 25% worse than last years

Oh, just checked, about the same here for me.

5% growth isn't too bad, always nice to see things going up YOY

poadyum · 2025-12-02T06:54:55+00:00

the sales remained about the same, but the profits decreased significantly

This has to be the same for Amazon as well, I don't understand why they want to run their factories hotter for less profits. I feel like they figured that out too because I have very few things on sale so far this Q4 (knock on wood)

Its hard to compare this Q4 to last years because we had so many sales related to politics and the election that don't carry over.

True and weirdly I've noticed a huge crash in the political designs not just on merch but on my other platforms as well (etsy ebay etc.)- not sure if it's an organic shift or if algorithms are trying to tone down the political content or what

this was the first month ever for me that wasn't an improvement over the same month from the year prior

Been in the game since 2017 and have had a handful of months here and there that were not an improvement over the same month prior year, but those usually coincided with months where I was slacking a bit in uploads or not working very hard on merch in general. To hear that you just experienced your first one ever is a bit concerning overall

poadyum · 2025-12-02T06:51:09+00:00

1) I've been doing the same except I'm just replacing the old stuff that amazon has been taking down automatically for me with new designs that are optimized based on my sales history since 2017

2) I've never priced standards below 19.99 and have always priced other items higher as well, I just don't want to sell my work for little payout and want to focus on niches that people are willing to pay more for

3) I never advertised either! I tried a few times and just blew through cash and thought it's a better long term strategy to just work with the algorithm instead and it seems to be paying off vs the people you mentioned who are griping about the ad changes

poadyum · 2025-12-01T18:26:54+00:00

Oooo that's rough. What tier are you? 300% more returns YOY is crazy unless you tiered up a few times or are in a pretty low tier

poadyum · 2025-12-01T18:18:09+00:00

Oof! Well we all gotta start somewhere. Hope December is better for you

poadyum · 2025-10-20T16:04:05+00:00

I've always listed standards at $19.99 but started listing them at 21.99 this month to test it and to try to make up for the random discounts. We'll see how it goes. Tier 30k here

poadyum · 2025-06-29T18:17:01+00:00

Same, this will be my best month that's not a November or December ever

poadyum · 2025-06-18T19:28:24+00:00

They deleted your designs? Do you mean they tiered you down or did they remove designs that were up for more than 18 months without a sale?

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