So the other day i was having a chat with Ed, one of my business partners…
We were talking about how far we have come with the print on demand side of the business.
It got me thinking…
We talk about our physical product business so why not talk about our print on demand business?
So that’s exactly what we’ve decided to do….
Starting with this Merch Informer review, we are going to teach you how we make passive income selling T-shirts and other Merch online.
To keep this content interesting i thought i’d interview Ed about this software, he’s the one that uses it day in day out after all.
This article is going to run you through everything you need to know about Merch Informer…
That way you can decide if it might help you and your online business.
We sell our designs across a number of different platforms including Merch by Amazon (MBA).
Last year we hit tier 2000 on MBA with minimal effort.
This year we’ve got big expectations for the print on demand side of the business.
This is one of many ways we make money selling on amazon.
But you probably know that by now.
Anyway, I’d encourage you to take the time to read this article all the way through…
At the end there will be an exclusive lifelong discount you can use to save money with this software.
I know, we look after you here don’t we.
Anyway, let’s jump into the interview.
What Is Merch Informer?
“So Ed, What Is Merch Informer?”
For me to explain this i think it’s best for me to go through the different features they offer…
This will be much more useful than me describing Merch Informer in a few words.
Merch Informer Features
Ok so it’s worth mentioning that they are adding new features all the time…
I’m going to cover the ones you need to know about.
The Web App
The Merch informer Webapp could be compared to a team of 20 people that trawl and sift through the 100s of 1000s of t-shirts currently being sold on Amazon, based on your particular search criteria…
If you want to find “cute cat” t shirts that rank in the top million on amazon, the software will find this for you.
If you want to find “funny t-rex” t shirts in the top 100 it will also do this, and all in 30 seconds!
It’s the Aladdins Cave of the merch world.
You could do all of the above manually, in fact i know some people that do!
It will take up a lot of your time, i prefer to do things as efficiently as possible but each to their own…
Let’s dive into the specific parts of the Merch informer web application.
Merchant Search
Merchant search will show you all the designs being sold by a certain merchant or brand on Amazon.
It is a very particular tool, that to be honest there isn’t much use for, unless you want to literally mimic another brands offering, which is never a good idea!
You need to look for some sort of originality…
Sure you can copy other peoples ideas but you won’t take their best seller spot unless you do something different.
Use this tool for inspiration and research but don’t get too carried away!
Product Search
Product search is a tool powered by keywords.
The funny T-rex t-shirt screenshot i showed you earlier is taken from the Product search tool…
In my opinion Merch informers Product search is probably one of the most useful tool they offer.
First you’ll want to do extensive research to find niches that you believe are underserved…
I will put together a video on the YouTube channel to show you exactly how to do this.
Once you’ve done the research chuck these keywords into product search and the magic will begin.
Watch as the system pulls all of the designs that are currently selling under this keyword / niche.
It will rank the products in terms of BSR (Best Seller Rank) and estimate the number of items it is selling per month.
Let’s look at one of the T-rex designs as an example.
Using this tool you can work out which designs are popular, then create your own to serve the market in your own way.
It’s a very powerful tool, there’s no doubt about it.
Keyword Finder
Once you have identified the niche you want to target, you need to start thinking about keywords.
You need to find the right keywords in order to get in front of the right people.
That’s the only way you are going to start getting those sales rolling in.
If you do the keyword research properly, you won’t need to worry about running paid ads…
That’s what we’ve experienced anyway.
Let me give you a practical example…
A simple search term such as “coffee” will bring up a 3 page list of all of the keywords that contain the word “coffee”.
It will also show the search volume, CPC (Cost per click for PPC purposes) and competition.
Another very cool tool that i use a lot, i’m sure you can see why.
Favorites
The Favorites section is where you will store all of the designs you like, and will look to “mimic” or “better”.
Remember the key is to be inspired, NOT to copy!
Merch informer recently made some changes that means you need to create the folder first in Favorites and then search for your products.
You cannot save in Favorites without having the folder(s) set up…
As a rule of thumb I separate my Favorites folders into niches.
This way it is much easier to organize and navigate, but you can drop all designs into one folder if you wish.
There is also a cool download products list function too.
This is helpful for me because i can collate designs, download them into a CSV file and forward onto my designers.
As you start to scale your Merch By Amazon business you’ll see the value in doing this.
Competition Checker
To be honest this isn’t a tool we use very much, but i’ll run you through the basics just in case you want to use it.
This tool does what it says on the tin, it allows you to analyze the levels of competition within a particular niche.
As you can see below i’ve used the keyword “Coffee”…
The competition checker provides this word with a total score of “A” this is actually very good.
It basically means that not many products are optimized well for this particular keyword…
This could indicate a potential opportunity for you and your design.
It can be a useful tool but in my opinion it depends on the context and how you are using it.
Single words are usually always going to be competitive on amazon, try using more that one word when using this tool.
It’s a good way to look at a niche from a bird eye view but it should only be a small part of your analysis.
I’m sure some people would find this very useful, we just focus our time else where and prefer to analyze competition levels in other ways.
Ok, we’ve looked at a lot of good tools within the Web app, let’s take a look at the chrome extension.
The Merch Designer
If you are artistic and fancy giving it a go why don’t you visit the merch designer platform.
This is a free added extra to even the most basic plan that merch informer offer at $9.99…
You can literally sit and design graphics for t-shirts that you think might sell.
I have played around with this tool, but to be honest I leave the designing to our crack team of designers!
They are much better than me, and produce much better work than I ever could.
Plus i prefer to spend time working on the business, not within it.
Here is something i knocked together in a few minutes, i know people that solely use this tool for their designs!
Each to their own, if you have the time and the skill it could be a game changer.
We will talk about how to hire suitable designers for Merch by Amazon soon.
The Merch Informer Browser Extensions
This wouldn’t be a very good merch informer review if i didn’t cover this.
You can’t really go wrong with their chrome extensions…
I use one of them more than the rest but hey.
For me the only downside is that they aren’t all in one extension, they are separated into the three you can see below.
All three of these are worth discussing…
If you’ve sold shirts on Merch by Amazon before you’ll quickly see why i like using the following features…
Lister
The main plus point here is the amount of time you can save by using it.
Once you’ve got your designs ready you are going too need to create your listings.
Now, if like me you are uploading A LOT of different designs this could take you a while, it’s a manual task that i don’t like doing.
By using lister you can upload multiple design variations with a few clicks…
In basic form it’s a bulk upload tool…
If you need to upload a few different designs and you are fed up of editing and making each minor change this tool will help.
All of your colour choices and brand name, title, bullets etc are saved to a hotkey…
This means that you only need to do things once…
I’m a big fan of anything that makes my life easier.
Merch By Amazon is a numbers game, the more quality designs you upload the more you are going to make.
Trademark Protection
So, when it comes to Merch by Amazon, the one thing you want to avoid is trademark infringement.
This tool has been created to help keep your account in good standing, Amazon take trademark infringement very seriously.
Usually offenders will have their accounts suspended if they are seen to infringe on the rights of others.
Before you go ahead and create a T-shirt design i’d recommend using this tool to check for trademarks.
This could literally determine your success on the Merch by Amazon platform, get it wrong and you are out of there.
Before you build out your listing make sure the title, bullet points and description have no dangerous words in.
This tool is great for that, it speeds up the trademark checking process, that’s for sure.
The Merch informer trademark tool plugs into the USPTO database, this way you know the information is coming straight from the source.
By using the Merch informer chrome extension the check can be done on any Amazon product page…
However the real magic happens within your Merch informer account.
Using your account you can log in and do all of your trademark checks on your Merch By Amazon dashboard…
This really speeds up the process.
Before you go ahead and upload your design you can quickly check to see if your title, bullets and description are safe from infringement.
Book Hunter
This is a relatively new feature that i haven’t used too much to be honest.
It does look like something me and my team will be using quite a lot over the next few months.
The tool has been created to help you with the research process.
Rather than just searching Amazon for ideas you can use this tool to search social media for popular design ideas.
Merch Informer Mobile App
So this is again something we don’t use but i want to talk to you about it anyway.
The app is free and includes access to a few of the good tools.
With the app you can use Product search, Merch Hunter and Favorites…
It’s worth using if you do a lot of your work from your mobile.
Ok that’s it for the features lets quickly cover their customer service, this is an important part of any tool in my opinion.
Also don’t worry i haven’t forgotten i’ll give you your discount coupon shortly.
Merch Informer Customer Support
I’ve always found Merch informers customer support to be fantastic.
If you face a problem you can simply log a ticket and you’ll receive a reply within 24-48 hours…
USUALLY they will have found a solution to your problem!
That’s the experience we’ve had anyway.
How To Use Merch Informer
If i answer this in detail we would be here all day and night…
Instead i’ll record some useful tutorial videos and add them to the youtube channel.
For the time being let me give you my best tips on how to get the most out of Merch Informer:
- Like with most tools, sometimes people can over complicate things when the answers are already right in front of them.
- We search for niches that we believe may be underserved. (you don’t always hit a home run! This task can take time!)
- We take the keywords that we believe are related to this underserved niche and put them through the keyword checker.
- If results are successful and return a high search volume but low competition, we then search using these keywords in the products search tab.
- We will then save any designs that fit our criteria as being a “successful design”
- Finally, we download the list and send this off to one of our designers.
- Once we are happy with the designs, we will upload them to MBA and the other various platforms we sell on, ensuring the listings are rich in keyword specific terms and phrases.
Merch Informer Pricing
There are two choices here, you can choose to pay monthly or make a saving a pay for the whole year in one go.
We have a pro plan but if you are just starting out the newbie plan is a good one to use.
Remember by using eboss20 you can save 20% on either of these prices, same goes for the annual pricing amount…
If you opt for the annual payment, you are looking at the following.
Merch Informer Coupon Code
Now this might be the only reason you are here and that’s ok!
I did the same thing when purchasing Merch informer, i’m a big fan of saving money.
If you want to save 20% use: eboss20 at the checkout…
Click here if you want to get started and lock in your discount.
Anyway, let’s finish off this article.
Is Merch Informer Worth It?
This is an important part of any merch informer review.
Is the tool actually worth using?
In my opinion the answer to this is simple: Yes!
It is a very cost-effective tool, even if you are just starting out.
For $9.99 per month you have access to a whole host of tools that could easily be charged at $100+ per month.
We stopped using the tool for a couple of months this year, and soon realized it was a vital cog to the success of our POD business / journey.
The only issue I have had with the tool is if it glitches…
You can occasionally find the tool not returning what you’ve actually searched for, but this happens once in a blue moon, so nothing to worry about in my opinion.
Will the tool mean you make millions, no… this is up to you.
But will the tool serve as a loyal assistant that answers your questions within 60 seconds, with quality results… YES!
Well i really enjoyed interviewing Ed, it was a fun way to get you the information you need!
Usually we talk about our full time physical product business but i think print on demand is a huge opportunity for anyone.
I hope you’ve found this article useful, if you have any question just let me know below!
If you are a beginner and you want to start merch by amazon, you might also find this article useful.
More soon!
Nick
eBusiness Boss
Tags: Amazon Software Review
4 thoughts on “Merch Informer Review – Tried & Tested (Coupon Code Inside)”
vary good post. I’ve been thinking about using Merch Informer for some time! Will use the coupon.
Sabu
I found this very useful, as I am a beginner and planning to use Merch Informer.
Hi, I read the first article by Neil regarding the business itself and then this follow up about March Informer and all seems great. I’m on board and am getting g ready to present the first 15 designs of mine.
My only problem is they are old school drawn on paper. I take pics of course, but format do I have to convert them to in order to submit them for POD? Thanks, I need help but am ready to go.
Thanks,
Steve Ross
Hello Steve, thanks for the comment. If I were you I’d find a designer that can recreate the images ready to upload to Merch by Amazon. For Merch by Amazon the design files will have to be 4500 px 5400 px, in PNG format. Hope that helps!