Print on Demand Income Report: February 2020

Time for the second edition of my print on demand income report.

In short — sales strong, royalties down. Let’s see what happened.

Merch by Amazon

Overview of my sales on Merch by Amazon in February 2020

Last month came with still higher than expected sales for this time of the year, but heavily reduced royalties.

In February I reached a total of 279 sales on Merch by Amazon. This corresponds to a decrease of -13 % compared to the previous month, which reached 321 sales.

Those sales together generated roughly 216,44 € in royalties. This corresponds to a decrease of -72 % compared to the previous month, which reached 776,77 € in royalties.

I’m currently Tier 1000 with 886 slots filled, divided into 706 products on the German marketplace, 121 on the US marketplace, and 59 on the UK marketplace.

My dominating design set which was fueling my income in January, was still selling greatly in February. Other sellers noticed and entered the niche. They put their prices to the lowest possible price, accepting to not earn any royalties on any sale, in order to capture sales from my very strong positioned designs.

After noticing, I decided to also lower my prices to be able to compete, as at this stage, sales are still more important than royalties to me, in order to secure the next tier ups.

On top of that, having strong sales in a niche related to a seasonal event, comes with a much higher than normal return rate as well. This even further reduced my income last month.

Spreadshirt.de

Chart of my sales on Spreadshirt.de in February 2020

I was happy to see regular sales again on Spreadshirt.de last month.

In February I reached a total of 17 sales on Spreadshirt.de. This corresponds to an increase of +21 % compared to the previous month, which reached 14 sales.

Those sales together generated roughly 121,32 € in royalties. This corresponds to an increase of +21 % compared to the previous month, which reached 100,28 € in royalties.

I currently have 1048 designs published on Spreadshirt.de.

It will be interesting to follow the sales development of Spreadshirt from now on, as they are drastically changing their pricing structure from March onwards on both platforms. Royalties per sale decrease a lot and will be reduced even more by any promotional discount they offer to their customers, which they often do.

Will an increase in sales occur due to lower prices for customers? Will it be able to make up for the decreased royalties? We shall see.

Spreadshirt.com

Chart of my sales on Spreadshirt.com in February 2020

Spreadshirt.com makes it simple again this, but for the sake of completeness and tracking I will keep it in my report.

In February I reached 0 sales on Spreadshirt.com.

I currently have 320 designs published on Spreadshirt.com.

I will still keep uploading designs, also curious to see if the new pricing structure of Spreadshirt might bring more traction to the platform.

Total Sales and Royalties

Adding the figures from all above platforms together amounts to a total of 296 sales. This corresponds to a decrease of -12 % compared to the previous month, which reached 336 sales.

All sales together generated roughly 337,77 € in royalties that I earned. This corresponds to a decrease of -61 % compared to the previous month, which reached 877,05 € in royalties.

Still, I don’t have any expenses that would need to be deducted from that amount. I am creating all designs by myself and do not pay for advertising, neither on social media nor on the Amazon platform.

February was big month for me completely rethinking my approach to niche research and establishing a new routine in that regard. I deleted many designs from Merch by Amazon, which I don’t believe will bring in any sales at all. My knowledge has increased quite a bit since starting this journey and I believe I know much better now what has the potential to generate sales and what doesn’t.

While being happy that I was able to pull in many sales from event related shirts in the past two months, I also see the problems from this approach. Competition is much higher in this category and on MBA many beginners use events to boost themselves out of the lower tiers quickly, accepting to not make any money at all. The result was a big hit on my royalties this month, as I decided to follow suit with them. Also for me, sales still have a higher priority than the royalties earned.

My focus for the coming months will be to build a solid foundation of designs in evergreen niches, in order to start building a stable income stream independent from seasonal fluctuations in demand.

You can check out all my print on demand income reports to track my progress.

How was your February in terms of sales? Let me know in the comments below!