This is a repost of a previous Tiny Marketing Lab Newsletter. If you haven’t been receiving my email newsletter, you can subscribe here.
Hello,
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about selling print-on-demand products on Amazon.
People want to know why they aren’t making sales, even after uploading thousands of products.
Let’s clear this up.
There are two big myths I hear all the time about selling print-on-demand on Amazon.
Myth #1: “I uploaded 5,000 to 10,000 products in 1-2 months, but I only made 2 or 3 sales.”
Honestly, that’s pretty normal.
Think about it:** There are millions of products on Amazon.**
Your 5,000 to 10,000 listings are just tiny fish in a vast ocean.
And remember, you’re relying on free traffic. It takes time to rank in Amazon’s search results.
The cool part about POD is you can list tons of products without needing to store any inventory.
Use that to your advantage.
If you keep uploading new products, you’ll start seeing sales. Those first sales can lead to repeat purchases over time.
At first, you might see just a few sales, but as you add more products, Amazon will send more traffic your way.
Soon, you’ll notice that the time between sales gets shorter.
When I started in 2018, I hired two people from the Philippines to upload 3,000 products a month for me. I paid them $750 a month.
To cover their pay, I needed to sell about 80 mugs each month.
In the first couple of months, I was lucky to get 2 or 3 sales. I lost a lot of money, but I knew I was building something that would pay off in the long run.
Those products would stay in my account and sell over time.
It took over a year to see profits after paying my team. But I didn’t quit.
Now, this is one of my main income streams.
So, don’t give up. Keep uploading new products every day.
Myth #2: “I have over 50,000 products. I should be making at least one sale every day.”
Sure, 50,000 products sounds like a lot—but if they’re not FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) products, making a daily sale can be tough.
I have 300,000 products and make around 2,500 sales a year from my FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) products.
But yeah, that’s a big number of products. It takes time to get there.
It’s way easier to make consistent sales with FBA products.
When you make a sale, turn that product into an FBA item and send it to Amazon’s warehouse.
Your product will get more visibility and could sell even better.
When I started making profits, I had three coffee mugs in different niches that I turned into FBA products.
Just those three mugs helped me cover my team’s $750 monthly fee.
And they’re still selling well today because they have a solid sales history.
If you want consistent sales on Amazon, find winning FBA products from what you’re already selling.
A few winning FBA products can account for 80-90% of your total sales.
These are the two myths I hear all the time.
Remember, selling POD on Amazon takes time to grow.
The strength of POD products is that you don’t need to keep any inventory. You don’t even need to buy products for pictures—you can find tons of mockup images online.
**And Amazon lets you list a ton of products **— about 200 a day or 6,000 a month — without any listing fees.
So, take full advantage of that.
Maximize these strengths and give your store time to grow on Amazon.
Here’s the good news: Most people quit within a few months.
If you stick with it for at least 1-2 years, you’ll start seeing consistent sales.
Just like I’ve done for the last six years (and I still use PODtomatic to upload new products every day).
That’s all for now.
Back to work for me.
—Bank K.
P.S. Check out some sales PODtomatic made for our members yesterday.
Ornaments and candles are flying off the shelves for Christmas :)
Wishing you all the success this Q4!
