Merch Research Software
Merch Informer (paid) – The gold standard for Merch software. 100% worth the low monthly fee since it is a lot more than just a research tool. But, in terms of research this is a powerhouse that lets you search the top selling shirts on Amazon Merch, see estimated sales, track competition, track your own shirts, discover keywords, and a lot more.
***Use my Merch Informer coupon code (2NDSCREENS) to get 20% off your order***
Merch Research Chrome Extension (free) – I probably use this more than anything else for Merch research. Install it on Chrome then highlight text on any webpage, right click it, and search for all Merch shirts with those keywords. I use this constantly to quickly see what’s on Amazon when I come across a new idea.
DS Amazon Quick View Chrome Extension (free) – This extension will show you the BSR of all Amazon products on a search page which makes it really simple to quickly see what designs are selling and which niches are dead.
Keepa Chrome Extension (free) – Amazon BSR can give you a quick glance if something sells or not, but it might be skewed a bit if a shirt just recently sold a bunch and never had before. Keepa puts a graph on product pages that shows you every time a product sold and also if any price changes were made.
MerchTools Chrome Extension (free) – There are a lot of great features for this free tool, but I find myself regularly using the product info snapshots the most. On a product page for a Merch shirt it’ll list upload date, BSR, ASIN, and keywords. Those are 4 of the most valuable pieces of information for niche research and finding the best keywords to rank shirts of your own.
T-Shirt Design Sites
Place-It (price per design or subscriptions) – I started using Place-It when I first started out with my Etsy merch store, using it to make unique mockups instead of just using the standard ones that everyone using Printful uses. Then they added the t-shirt templates and my merch designs seriously TOOK OFF! They have so many amazing designs in different styles that you can use to make some great shirts with. It’s just kind of hard to navigate, but totally worth the price if you’re consistently making designs. Very easy to scale with them too.
Canva Pro ($12.99/month) – This is the best $13 I spend every month. I use this almost daily at my day job for creating social media posts and blog images. For my side hustle, I use it for the t-shirt design templates which have tons of great images to use and a lot of great typography to use. Much more organized than Place-It and also another easy way to scale a lot of designs. If that price scares you, you can sign up for free and try it out. With the free deal, you just can’t download “premium” images without having a Canva watermark and you also can’t change image sizes or save a png with transparent backgrounds.
Bulk Uploading to POD Sites
Orbitkit – I owe this one site for probably 90% of the money I’ve made from selling merch. I almost gave up adding my designs to sites like Redbubble and other merch alternatives, until I got lucky enough to be one of the first users of Orbitkit. I used to upload a design to each individual site, choose the colors, resize everything, write a description, write tags, get frustrated, and walk away in a bad mood with not much done. With Orbitkit, you set up all of your templates one time, then it automatically uploads the designs and all text to every print-on-demand site you set up on the backend. They also created a Printful alternative recently which I have yet to try out, but I highly recommend starting out with their “OrbitKit Everywhere subscription”
For My Affiliate Blog Trick
These are the sites and basic plugins that I use to make my affiliate merch sites…
Namecheap – I personally use Namecheap for every site I create that isn’t a Shopify store. I’m not sure when this expires, but my affiliate link currently gets you hosting for your blog for a year at $18.44 plus a free domain name registration. They have great prices on .com domains and different hosting packages that you can install WordPress on.
Yoast SEO (free) – There is a premium paid version, but for this kind of site all you need is the free version. The plugin handles all of the technical SEO stuff for you like creating a sitemap, and also gives you grades and tips for how to optimize the SEO on each blog post.
WP Super Cache (free) – Google now prioritizes faster websites when determining who to move up to the top spots in search rankings. This is a free WordPress plugin that can significantly speed up your page. The basic settings are fine enough, but you can really speed up your site by making some specific tweaks.
Best Amazon Merch Podcasts
I first heard about Merch on a podcast so it’s only right that I listen to as many people as possible talk about their Merch stories, new platforms, and ways to do better on Merch and elsewhere.
*I haven’t actually listened to these in a while so they might not be posting any longer, but the archives are still full of great information
Merch Minds Podcast – Glen and Yong are the OG’s of the Amazon Merch podcast scene and consistently post weekly episodes. While they don’t generally provide a lot of tips themselves, they have on the best guests with ways to make more on Merch and other POD platforms.
Real Talk w/ RJ and Matt – I seriously don’t know if anyone is as excited or passionate about the Merch world than these two. They are always trying new things and reporting back with some great info to up your Merch game.
Best Merch Youtube Channels
RJ Martinez – In addition to his podcast, RJ has a super informative Youtube channel where he gives you an inside look at how he’s scaling his Merch business.
Merch University – I’ve learned a lot from this Youtube page. So many nuggets of great info and great reviews and lessons for Merch software, a lot that I learn about from this channel.