Sellers who use Amazon’s print-on-demand service Merch by Amazon will receive significantly less when their designs sell beginning in January. Merch by Amazon is reducing the royalties it provides sellers effective January 15, 2018.
Merch, as users call it (or MBA), allows anyone who is accepted into the program apply designs to T-shirts and advertise them for sale in its marketplace. Amazon does the printing, shipping, and fulfillment and deals with customer service, returns, and exchanges.
On Friday Amazon notified participants of the reduction in royalties, explaining it had seen the costs of supporting the MBA program rise, “including storage, fulfillment, transportation, raw materials, customer service, and the resources required to detect and prevent fraud.”
It also stated, “If your product is priced below the new minimum price, it will be automatically updated to the minimum price,” but it didn’t publish new minimum prices.
Sellers (“content creators”) of standard T-shirts will see royalties drop 25% to $5.38 for a $19.99 Tshirt and 38% to $2.36 for a $15.99 Tshirt.
Merch expanded its offerings to include long sleeve tees, and there are rumors it will soon introduce hoodies as an option.
