How To Grow/Start A Print On Demand Business With Ben Smith - Merch By Amazon - Spreadshirt - KDP

About this video

RJ Martinez interviews Ben Smith about growing a print-on-demand business across Merch by Amazon, Spreadshirt, and KDP. Ben recounts two years of door-to-door sales, then Amazon wholesale work around 2016, getting approved for Merch by Amazon at the end of 2017 (after a two-to-three-month wait), and committing to a 30-day stretch of daily YouTube videos documenting his learning, which held him accountable and grew the business. He says he is at tier 4,000: he made his own basic designs in Canva and Photoshop up to about tier 100, then hired a designer on Upwork, negotiating bulk deals of roughly $2 per design for batches of 500 versus about $5 for one-offs, while doing research in bulk via Google Sheets and handling all uploads himself. He favors Merch by Amazon, citing December 2020 figures of 3.1 billion Amazon visits versus about 35 million for Redbubble. His philosophy is ‘build once, sell twice’ — each listing is digital real estate, and the same design should go on Amazon, Etsy, Redbubble, and other platforms and products, since audiences and prices differ (his shirts are $16.95 on Amazon but sell at $19.95–$21.95 on Etsy). Notably, about half his consistent sellers are his own early simple text-based designs, and a year-old unsold t-shirt design sold within 10 minutes when posted as a phone case. His goals include a consistent $2,000–$3,000 per month and growing from roughly 2,000–3,000 unique designs toward 10,000, reinvesting profits.

Key takeaways

• Ben Smith’s motto: ‘build once, sell twice’ — treat each listing as digital real estate and put every design on multiple platforms and products
• Simple text-based designs sell; about half of Ben’s consistent sellers are his own early basic Canva designs, not the outsourced ones
• Outsource design in bulk to cut costs: about $2 per design in 500-design batches versus about $5 for one-offs via Upwork
• The same design performs differently per platform and product — an unsold t-shirt design sold within 10 minutes as a phone case
• Documenting the journey publicly (daily videos for 30 days) served as accountability and drove business growth

Episode details: published January 19, 2021 · 23:18 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are RJ Martinez’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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