How to Sell More Merch

You launched your merch, now what? Your merch isn’t going to sell itself. But it’s not as complicated as you might think.

Start selling when you target the right audience and market your merch effectively. We’ve seen a lot of shop owners find success using these strategies. They take the time to think about your niche and what potential customers would be interested in wearing. That’s key.

Here are some tips you can use to start selling more merch in under a week!

Create an Experience

The look of your shop can have a big impact on your sales. Potential customers will know immediately whether they connect with your merch or not. Make sure your site highlights your merch and showcases the aesthetic you want for your brand.

Pick the theme that works best for you and your merch needs. We personally love the CLASSIC theme. This allows you to have a banner across your homepage. Put a fun graphic of yourself or a photo that will stand out like Eric Feldman did for his online alter ego, Tami Langalang.

He made his Spreadshop look even more cohesive by continuing his brand colors throughout his site. When you use the classic theme you can also preview a number of products on your home page. This is a great place to feature new designs and products that match with the season, like hoodies for winter and tank tops for summer. You’ll make the purchasing decision easier for your customers.

Get the Word Out

No one’s going to know about your shop unless you talk about it. We’ve seen too many shop owners make this simple mistake. Even just telling your family and friends is so important. These are the people that are most eager to help and support you.

Before you roll out a whole online marketing strategy, make sure to tease your merch drop or at least mention your merch in your content. Talk about it in the intro for your latest YouTube video, or wear one of your designs and tag your shop in a TikTok post. This is a great way to drum up excitement before you officially launch your merch.

Start Promoting

Promotional materials are essential to selling more merch. Within a week of launching your merch, you should have quality photos, short videos, and call-to-action captions in your social posts. 

Drummer and streamer Ludawissy recently launched her own merch. She did a great job rolling out her merch, especially on Twitter and Instagram. She took great photos of her rocking different products, like hoodies, tees, and hats. This is essential. People want to see real people in your merch, NOT stock models.

When you launch your merch, your customers can get 15% off your entire shop for a limited time. This is a great incentive for people – let them know! Make bold graphics that you can share on socials or you even add to your weekly newsletter or website. If you want to sell more merch, consider launching with exclusive designs that you’ll plan to expire in a couple weeks or a month. People want to feel like they’re part of something special, so give it to them.

The Right People

Having a niche is going to make it easier for you to market your brand and connect with the right people. When people launch their merch lines, they often don’t take the time to think about who their target audience is. As a result, they end up merch that appeals to a wide range of people, which can be difficult to sell. It’s important to have a clear understanding of who your target audience is so that you can create merch that speaks directly to them and sell merch.

Someone like Clueless Bushcraft, for instance, knows who his audience is: people who want to survive in the wilderness. His brand of content is a subsection for people interested in wildlife and the outdoors, but it’s niche enough to be its own thing. Like his audience, he’s new to learning a lot of these things. His merch features catchphrases he uses and other fun graphics. This survival 101 design fits perfectly into his brand. Having a niche may sound limiting, but it actually gives you the power to fully be yourself and market your merch effectively using appropriate hashtags and messaging.

Create Quality Designs

It’s important that your designs look official and not like something your kid brother made. You can create quality merch designs yourself in 5 minutes. FREE design tools like Canva have built-in graphics and text you can use to make your designs. You can make transparent designs and size them to your liking.

If you want something that feels more original, it’s worth it to hire a professional graphic designer. Ask your friend group if they know someone with design skills that wants to gain experience. Use a design service like Fiverr to find someone to fulfill your merch design needs. Search the kind of design or style you want and hundreds of designers will pop up. You can pay them a small fee for their services and get print-ready designs that will look great on all kinds of merch.

Start selling merch with these tips – open you own shop for FREE!