Merch By Amazon - How To Start A T-Shirt Business On Merch By Amazon 2021 ($200,000 Royalties)

About this video

An interview with Merch by Amazon seller Cameron, who claims — as his own reported figures — $212,000 in royalties in 2020, about $80,000 in ad spend, and roughly $125,000 in profit after other expenses. He describes getting approved with a short application and no portfolio, then getting started when his wife’s school colleagues wanted a staff shirt that was no longer made; selling about 35 shirts at cost tiered him up quickly. His core themes: most designs fail (he estimates 90%+ never sell), so more slots mean more chances to test; don’t get attached to designs, and his best sellers are simple text-based, evergreen, long-tail designs (e.g., city shirts) on standard tees rather than trends. He outsources heavily — hiring mainly from the Philippines via OnlineJobs.ph, Upwork, Fiverr, and Reddit, using paid tests on real tasks, paying and trusting people well, and developing one designer into a business manager — arguing that if you value your time at $25/hour, doing $6–8/hour design work yourself wastes resources. On AMS ads, he waits for organic sales and reviews before advertising, starts with auto campaigns (about $2–3/day, suggested bid plus a few cents, capped around 55 cents), funnels winners into manual testing and then exact-match performance campaigns, sets a target ACOS per goal, and judges results at match-type/keyword level only after enough clicks (at a 5% conversion rate, roughly 20 clicks per sale, ideally 150–200% of that). He also says ad spend defends rankings against copycats, and that he kept ads running through the 2020 Merch shutdown to rank when it reopened.

Key takeaways

• Guest’s claimed 2020 results: $212,000 in royalties, ~$80,000 ad spend, ~$125,000 profit — presented as his reported figures, not verified
• Expect 90%+ of designs to fail; tier up fast by hustling real sales (e.g., local/group shirts) so you have more slots to test with
• Outsource tasks you’re not expert at: hire via OnlineJobs.ph/Upwork/Fiverr, use paid tests on real work, and develop good hires into managers
• Advertise only after organic validation: products with multiple sales and reviews (ideally 5–10 reviews, 4+ stars) get ads first
• Run a 3-stage ad funnel — auto campaign to find terms, manual to test, exact-match performance campaign for winners — and decide on target ACOS with enough click data

Episode details: published February 15, 2021 · 1:26:21 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.

← Previous: Walmart Print On Demand - How To Get Approved To Sell On Walmart Marketplace · Next: How To Sell Shirts On Merch By Amazon - (Amazon Merch For Beginners - B2B) →

All RJ Martinez videos · RJ Martinez profile · RJ Martinez on YouTube