The Ultimate Guide to Selling YouTube Merch

24:26So that turned into like, you know, for some people, five or six weeks before they received their merch. If we're talking gripes, as a buyer, if I buy something on the internet, I want it at my house like within a week. Yeah. Well, there's a gap between when you buy something, when you press buy, the excitement you have at that moment, you don't want it to be five to six weeks later because the excitement will have changed, right? You want it to be like that two week, ideally, sort of. Ideally shorter. Ideally shorter. Yeah. Like a week. Um, so that you get that dopamine of, wow, I just, I was excited to, to put my money up for this thing.

25:04Yeah. Here it is. I get to put it on my head and support this brand. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, but I will say as a first go around, we needed to understand the type of demand from our audience. We needed to understand if our audience was interested in merchandise. So pre-orders allowed us to say, here's what we're doing. Are you into this. And then we saw a ton of orders. I think on the first one, we had like 800 orders total, right? Or maybe more. I think it was 800 orders in the first few days. And we're like, oh, okay. So our audience is interested. So our next go around, we used that data to then buy inventory and to say, okay, let's plan for around a thousand orders in the first week.

25:48So let's buy enough inventory for that because we want the shipping experience to be, I purchase, I receive it. And you think about now with like the concept of even like, you know, when people are doing these limited drops connected to YouTube videos, you know, I watch a YouTube video, I order, you know, with like right there, I want to receive it. You know, like that, that whole moment is, it's a part of a momentum, right? It's like, I'm excited. I want it. I, that's, that's like a cool experience and moment. So I think that inventory is, okay, you have to spend more money and you have to stock inventory and you have to have a partner that has a warehouse and that can do fulfillment.

26:29But the customer experience should be number one. Your audience's experience should be number one. They should be like, I ordered and I received it. So. I feel like I need to tell you that you have Chamberlain coffee matcha on your sweater. Similarly to when something's in your teeth or on your face when you're eating. Someone doesn't tell you. Making matcha at this table was not easy, Colin. No, it's all over the table. It's like you, it's off your sweater for the most part. Okay. All right. Just didn't want it to go until the end of the episode. Upsetting. Yeah. Upsetting. You're good. Don't worry.

27:00All good. Yeah. Okay. Moving on. Next question. One thing about like receiving products too, I wanted to read a stat that the YouTube shopping team sent us, which is in 2022, there were over 700 million views per week on unboxing videos on YouTube, growing more than 15 % year over year. It's a really interesting trend to think about because one of the - I'm not a mathematician. Okay. But would that be over a billion views in two weeks? Mm-hmm. Right. Just wanted to be clear about that. Again, we're not mathematicians. I'm not a mathematician. Not us. Maybe you. Not here. Not us. That's not this show.

27:39What's really fascinating right now is that, you know, you look at MKBHD with the Adams shoes. He's a reviewer. When everyone receives those shoes, they're going to unbox and review those shoes because creator audiences are creators. Yeah. So if you create an experience, I mean, look at what we have in front of us, right? Like trying Feastables is a content category on YouTube. Yeah. Which means the amplification of these creator brands is astronomical. It's similar to when Hot Ones started releasing hot sauce early on. And then you could buy, you know, the actual packs. Yeah. Right? Because I'm sure they knew people didn't just want to try it at home.

28:22They wanted to film themselves trying the hot sauce because the reaction is part of the show. Right? And if you look on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram, there are tons of people who are trying the hot sauces. Yeah. I think it's a good idea to try and encourage that behavior, not like force it, but organically encourage the behavior of unboxing. And that could be through like when someone posts a picture with the hat, which is really cool. We've seen like creators who are on sets, creators who are making videos and they're wearing the hat or wearing the shirt. And, you know, we love to see that.

28:56We authentically think that's super cool. So we share a lot of that through. So that's like a small amount of encouragement of like, when you receive our merchandise, you know, post it. But if we had like, you know, if there's something, I'm sure MKBHD's audience is going to do like really high end reviews of that shoe because that's the culture of that community. In 8K. Yeah. And Mr. Beast's audience, like again, this is Feastables, has a culture of sharing. ARAC with PizzaFi, this is an inherently shareable product. You want to share this on Instagram or on YouTube of like, I tried PizzaFi on blank.

29:32We did it in a short that blew up. We did. So yeah, I think it's really interesting because we talk about content product fit, which means you don't have to change your content to introduce a product. So Emma Chamberlain's a great example of that when she was drinking coffee, slot in her coffee instead of the other coffee she was drinking. Nothing changes. Lily Havesh, Domino Toppler, came out with her own domino set. You could replace the dominoes that she's using with her own brand. It does not change the content. Amanda Rach Lee, who's a creator who does bullet journaling, and she was doing these bullet journal videos that were getting millions of views, launched her own line of journals, and nothing changed about the content.

30:17So I think that content product fit is one thing. The interesting thing is like audience product fit where, you know, even with Amanda, if you're watching Amanda for the way she sets up her bullet journal and you buy one of her bullet journals, you will likely make a video about how you set up your bullet journal because she showed you that making those videos, like that's how you found her. by making those videos. So that level of like audience product fit, I think is one of the X factors of why the next billion dollar brands will be made by creators. Because the culture, like what other product is the culture that I receive it and that I make a video about it?

30:54Even with Prime, there's a culture of making memes out of Prime that in some way started from the top. Logan and KSI sharing different memes about their own product, right? And that produces a culture of their audience, their buyers making memes to share. Totally. Okay, we got a tweet from Jaden LP. He says, what are the biggest don'ts when launching a creator business? Okay, what are the biggest mistakes to avoid? I'm gonna bring up a Tyler the Creator bit that we bring up quite a bit. Yeah, I love that. I know where you're going. Yeah, basically he just says, when you put something out into the world, a lot of people promote it that day, that week, and then kind of trail off.

31:36So I think as creators, the biggest don't is don't only think about like the launch campaign. You have to think about the repetition and like how it becomes, how your merchandise becomes a character in your universe. Because like Prime is a character. Logan said this at one point where he said, did you finish the title of the creator? I think so. I think what he was saying was, don't stop marketing your shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like your best stuff. Don't expect that people know about it today. Like always keep marketing something that you did. Even if it was 10 years ago, if you thought it was good, keep marketing.

32:09Yes. Yeah. So that's the don't is like, don't only think about the short term of like the launch. Think about what does it look like in the next 52 weeks? How are you still talking about this? So what I was saying about what Logan said on Impulsive on Time was that Prime, his relationship to Prime, he brings it up every day. And there might be some people who are like, it's too much. He brings it up too much. But because he doesn't stop bringing it up, it's not weird when he integrates it into things, when he's doing WWE and primes there. Or like, you know, what he was suggesting was that some creators, when they talk about their own projects, it sounds like an endorsement, like a brand deal.

32:49Yeah. Because they don't bring it up often enough. So when they bring it up, when they talk about it, it's like any other brand deal they did. And I think that's a really important note as like an error to avoid. Don't make your own brand feel like a sponsorship. It should be your own brand. And that's hard to do. And that's why having content product fit is actually so important. If you authentically have it, and there's a spectrum to it, and not every product you launch is going to be a perfect fit. But if you do really have it, then it naturally is integrated into what you're doing. Another thing along these lines from our conversation with Doug DeMuro around launching a product.

33:27He said that when he launched Cars and Bids, he didn't tease it. He didn't talk about it at all until it was actually live. So his biggest marketing initiative, his first video about it that got the word out, it wasn't like, and it drops in two weeks. It was, no, right now, as you're watching, you can go make a transaction on cars and biz. And, you know, I think some people do launch strategies really well and build a lot of hype. So it's not that you shouldn't build hype because I think some people are really well suited to do that. Yeah. But I do really like what Doug is saying. If you think your first video or your first initiative is going to create the biggest amount of noise, make sure that that's when the product is available.

34:09Make sure that that's when the product is available. Okay. Here's a question from the discord from light serpent. How much should the brand depend on the creator? Thinking about stuff like merch sales and other income streams, is there a thing as being too dependent? Would all sales coming from the actual creator's content be the goal at the beginning or too dangerous? What happens if the merch or brand far exceeds the creator's actual content? Do you take a step back and become a businessman first, like Mr. Beast, or do you outsource that? Okay, a couple different topics. Yeah, I think this goes back similarly to consumables versus collectibles.

34:43If you have a collectible like this hat, it relies a lot on you and I as a creator. You get to the point where you have Cassie Ho with Pop Flex and Blogilates. Blogilates equipment and apparel that you can buy in Target. Yes, her face is on it, but someone's walking through Target doesn't necessarily rely on her as much anymore. I think it's interesting because it is your unique advantage, right? Definitely. There's no doubt about it. Feastables, on the front, it has the Mr. Beast logo and on the back it has Mr. B's face. Mark Rober's Crunch Labs. It says buy Mark Rober on the bottom. Yeah. I think Crunch Labs is an interesting one because I think Crunch Labs is actually not dependent on Mark.

35:29I think in the short term it is, but in the long term it has a lot of legs. Yeah. The unique aspect of Crunch Labs is it does come with like exclusive videos with Mark. His videos are the thing that's pushing it. It's probably in the beginning, the merchandise should be dependent on the creator in the beginning. It should be connected to the content. That is the competitive event. That is the competitive event. It's the whole thing. We are making YouTube videos and we're selling products. Like that is the whole thing, that we are building a deep connection with an audience that is willing to transact with us.

36:01But over time, the biggest brands will be the ones that can sit on a shelf. and, you know, the inverse could potentially happen too, where someone, someone could buy Crunch Labs. Like I got it for my nephews. Now, you know, their parents can talk about it with other parents and be like, we have this great box called Crunch Labs and it could scale. And, and the actual like experience of the build box could just be the thing. But I think in the short term, if you're not building a product that's connected to the creator, then you're you're fighting the same battle as every other e-commerce company, right?

36:39Or every other product brand. You have distribution. That is the thing. So I think it's about figuring out how to authentically integrate it regularly. I think that's like the biggest takeaway from this. Yeah, and I think if we're to talk about our newsletter, the Publish Press, in the beginning, it was incredibly dependent on you and I, even just from a day-to-day basis of how much work we had to do. right and over time you know we now have writers editors like it's on a day-to-day basis we're not as heavily we're involved but we're not as heavily involved true as we used to we gain new subscribers now more often than we did in the beginning without us talking about it yeah right like it's becoming a little bit more uh independent yeah although it still makes total sense yeah for it to be a part of our narrative, what we're doing.

37:35Yeah. And for us to push it and promote it. You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. I think on merchandise specifically, there's active selling and there's passive selling. And passive selling is, you know, when we first launched our merch, we had the merch shelf on, on YouTube. And people started buying our products immediately because, you know, we do, let's say, at the time when we launched the merch, we were doing like 10 million views a week. So that means our content surfaces are being exposed to that many people and all of those surfaces have the products tagged to them. That allowed us to be passive sellers and just say, the video's out, you could discover it.

38:20But that's not going to drive the type of revenue as an active seller will. And I think Cassie Ho is the ultimate active seller. every single video is about the product, brings you behind the scenes of the development of the product. The active seller is talking about the product in the video and then you're able to purchase immediately. So I think in any project we have, like when you are a passive member of it, where you're like, it's available, you could find it, you could click the link in my description, you can get it from the merch shelf, you can see that there's a tagged product here and get it.

38:51You will capture a small portion of the audience who will engage with it. But the goal is to figure out how to make good enough content that is active, that is actively selling the product without shoving it down people's throats, you know, without making it feel like, oh, that felt icky. That was like not. That's the goal if launching products and merchandise is a huge part of your goals. Yeah, if you want to launch merch, that's how you have to do it. All right, I feel like we should get these products off the table. I have so much macho all over. There's so much macho all over.

39:23Okay, from Aaron Aztec. Regarding creator merch, should all creators try and create a brand outside of their own brand? Example, KSI and Logan with Prime. Or is merch with the creator's logo and name still okay? Should all creators try and branch out? I think merch with the creator's name is absolutely still okay. And it goes back to what I was saying earlier. You do think so. Yeah, I think so. I think it goes back to giving the audience an opportunity to identify from an early stage. I don't think, I think it's a big time collectible. I don't think it will scale beyond you by any means well first of all I think it depends on if you have a cool name yeah would people buy Colin and Samir merch we have a shirt that said Colin and Samir people have asked for that I don't think we're going to do it but I don't think it's like a no go well if people are asking then maybe we'll do it no but people have asked and we've talked about that before of maybe doing like a really limited edition yeah I could see that but I don't I like the press publish mantra because someone can wear it.

40:25It's a little more subtle. It's more conversation. Even when I'm wearing it sometimes, someone doesn't know about our channel. Someone will just come up to me and be like, what's that hat all about? I mean, same with seek discomfort. Yeah, exactly. I love seek discomfort by Yes Theory. You can stand for that. And it's a conversation starter. Yeah. Even if you don't know who Yes Theory is. Whereas if someone's wearing a shirt or a hat in public that just says Colin and Samir, no one's coming up to them and saying, what is that? I don't think that means that you shouldn't do it. Like, I think if you want to, and your audience wants to identify with your show.

40:58Because sometimes creators have channel names. It's not just their personal name. Like if you have a cool channel name that's like interesting to wear on a hat or a shirt, I think it's okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're moving into a place though where like my perspective is I think creators are getting a lot more creative with a brand that can live on beyond them. Maybe in the collectible category, yes. But I think when you're making a brand, it's like, you know. But if you're a little kid and you're a big fan of Dude Perfect. Okay, that's fair. Like, I'm going to want to sport the shirt. Okay. All right.

41:29What do you guys think? This is a good topic to chat about in the comments or in the Discord. Like, let us know. Can you still release merch with just your name on it? Or does it need to be a brand in it of itself? In it of itself. In it of itself. In it of itself. In it of itself. Okay. Now that we're repeating that phrase, it feels like we're in the deep end, right? Yeah, we've made it. And for the first time in creator support history, we have a special guest joining us in the deep end. Come on in. Hello. Okay, for Dermotica, we have Michelle Correa. Hello, Correa. Welcome to the deep end. I'm so excited to be here.

42:09Pull up a chair, pull up a mic. Hello, everyone. And I have gifts for you guys. Michelle has brought merged gifts. I gotta say, as the first guest here, this set is even more exciting in real life. Wow, thank you. That's great. Yeah. Hi, Michelle. Hello. How are you? I'm excellent, because I'm here with you guys. Well, it's great to have you in the deep end. It's great to have you in the deep end. You did come bearing gifts. I did. Which is exciting. Yes, yes. And very topical for this episode, which was crazy that it just worked out like this. I know, I just happened to be coming by today. I know, it's amazing.

42:45So let's see. What do you got? Let's see what you got. Here's what I got. I wasn't anticipating doing this on camera, but this is for you guys. Oh, my God. With the handwritten notes. Okay, for the listeners out there, Michelle has a big bag. Yes, this is. With what looks like maybe a sticker from your wedding. Yeah. You've got to use them somewhere. Yeah, I was like, you know, it's from me and Garrett. We'll just use it here, too. Okay, handwritten note, which is very sweet. Wow. While Samir reads the note. This is sweet. I'm not going to read it aloud. This feels private. Yeah, you can keep it.

43:20Keep it to yourself. Very cool. But sorry, this, you know, this is all wrinkled. I don't. That's okay. That's the best. You know, that is what. Do you save this? Because it's like the most Indian thing to save all the paper, right? Yeah. My mom has. I'll take it back. From like all of my birthdays since I was a kid. She has like a big bag of that. What's it called? Yes. Okay. So you're bringing us merch. Challenge Accepted Merch, which was a collaboration with Seek Discomfort. It was, yes. Which is Yes Theory's brand. Exactly. That's a perfect pairing. Thank you. Challenge accepted, times seek discomfort.

43:53Michelle Correa times Yes Theory. So good. This coincided with the release of your boxing documentary. It did, yeah. And you broke your nose, boxing. I did, yes. Andrea Botez punched you in the face. But you won. But I won. Yes, it was worth it. That was a great piece. Thank you. Yeah, this is cool. So talk us through some of the products that you released alongside that video. Yeah, absolutely. So I've never done formal apparel or like a merchandise line of any kind because anytime we would meet with a merch company, it was always like, you do three t-shirts and see how they sell. And then if that does well, we can do cooler stuff.

44:35But what the guys at Yes Theory and Seek Discomfort offered was an opportunity to do cool stuff right out the gate. And obviously they have their own infrastructure, their own company that does a lot of specialty stuff. They've even done active wear before. And I really admire what they've built with their company and also what they stand for. You know, I think I totally agree with you and their company, it's a company called fan of a fan, which we'll link in the description. Cause we talked about them earlier in the episode, they do our merchandise as well, the press publish stuff. But I think in creators doing merch, experience matters so much, like finding experienced people who have done it.

45:13It is such a big endeavor to make good products and to make good merchandise and to make unique stuff. Like these are hand wraps. And you said this is the top selling item. This is our top selling item are the boxing hand wraps. And I think that it's worked well because obviously, you know, we have the t-shirts, we have the hoodies, challenge accepted hats, whatever. But the specialty items we've done, which I, I don't, I haven't seen another creator do hand wraps. No. Yeah. No. Also it wouldn't be relevant to that many creators. Right. I guess some of the boxing. I think this is also about saying that you were there for that moment.

45:46I watched Creator Clash. I watched your journey in the documentary and the hand wraps say that. Are you wrapping your hand right now? I'm thinking about it. Do you know how to do the wraps? Yeah. Do you want me to wrap your hands for you? Yeah, please. Did I get the first part right at least? Yes, you did. I was telling you this episode is sponsored by YouTube Shopping and it's kind of interesting because when you launched the video you had the merch shelf right underneath the video. We did, yeah. And that wasn't, you know, YouTube shopping was so helpful to make all of that happen because they were helping us behind the scenes, make sure everything was ready to go for the launch.

46:22But yeah, it's been really exciting. It's cool because you can have a big moment in a video that's paired with a big moment in merchandise. Absolutely. You know what I mean? Like I think, and like the collectible nature of I was there to watch this video is really cool. So did Yes Theory come to you or did you go to Yes Theory? Well, we actually, sorry, I'm bad at multitasking. I'm going to finish this. So am I. I'm really bad at multitasking, too. Yeah. I'll just wrap my own hand. I think I know. Yeah. Yeah. I could also just wrap mine and see where I end up. Yeah. Let's just see where we end up.

46:50Compare Samir's wrap to my wrap. Yeah. Well, we had spoken to Ryan at Fan of a Fan about doing our own thing, kind of like you guys have done with Press Publish. But Pedro at Yes Theory offered this opportunity to us, and we just thought, this is such a cool idea. and I, you know, a couple of creators I know have done collab mini drops before, but again, they have such an amazing infrastructure and I'm really excited that we got to do this first. Cause if we had gone with like a normal YouTuber merch company, it would have been just the t-shirts, but because we were able to do these specialty items, like the hand wraps or even like, we did a journal that I'm really proud of.

47:31That's awesome. Um, and it's like a daily goal setting journal. Like these things are super specialty and they're our bestseller items. Yeah. That's cool. Um, is it going to be like up for a while or is it a limited release for right now? It's limited. So it's just a couple of weeks. We're going to see how it does and then go from there. Um, but yeah, I think part of it for me was like, you know, I've been doing YouTube for a couple years now and challenge accepted is five years old at this point. And I always had this gut instinct of we shouldn't just do a normal merch store. Like it just didn't feel right to throw my name on something and sell it on a t-shirt.

48:09I always had this gut instinct to, we've got to do something additive that solves a problem. And that's what I think the hand wraps and the journal specifically do is that when you're watching this video, when you ask the question, how could I do something like Michelle? The first barrier to entry is to have the right equipment. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. That's awesome. So this is creator support. And a lot of the questions that we answered today were about launching merch brands. What advice do you have for creators who are looking to launch their own products?

49:08Well, I guess I would say, first of all, is trust that gut instinct that I've had. I mean, I, again, was so resistant to just print on demand or anything for so long. And I think it's paid off. If you feel like your best product is something a bit more specialized, then go for that. I'm fully lost here. you're doing fine it's a disaster oh you forgot to go in between your fingers yeah i understood yeah there's a this looks like i'm only just like looking out of my eyes yeah it's best paired with watching a youtube video on how to do it properly okay you should release a how-to i could yeah maybe a short or something this is really tough okay sorry your advice yeah so like if you want to do something a bit more specialized than try to find the right people to pull it off.

49:59And like, I think also be really brutal with the quality. Like I'm, I was very, very happy with the quality of, of we, what we were able to do. And I mean, y 'all's apparel is the same, it's the same company. Yeah. Um, but a lot of companies we worked with or were thinking of working with it, it was not good quality. Yeah. And is this like, is this merch drop for you when you think about it. Is it about revenue? Is it about community? What's, what's it about? Like from the business of being Michelle? I think from the business of me, it is about, it is about community more than anything. Obviously the revenue is really exciting.

50:36It's been a really fun week to see, um, what people are responding to and see everyone's like tweets and messages about what they're getting. But it was an experiment. Um, I think everybody's first product that they release is an experiment to see what do people want from me and how do they want to connect with the content and with our community. So this is creator support, which also means we're in the deep end, which also means we need a gripe from you. You got a gripe? Do you have a gripe? You don't have to have a gripe. You don't want to force a gripe. What are y 'all's gripes? I need to know the tone of the gripes for today.

51:10The tone of gripes. Okay. Of today's gripe. A gripe that I have that I put in the Discord is I got some avocado toast and half the plate was full of like mixed greens that looked like they were store-bought that they knew I wasn't going to eat, but it was just there to fill the plate. And justify the price. And justify the price. Yeah, yeah. That's a gripe. That's kind of the tone. That makes me a little upset. Yeah. I don't like it. Yeah, it's just like a little upset. It's just like, you know, you go to a nice place and they just like throw the greens on there. Or like when you order an omelet and it comes with a salad, that feels weird to me because a salad's a lunch item.

51:44Yeah, well. Maybe that's my— If you're as well-traveled as me, you'll notice that salads are common in breakfast. All right. Another gripe that I have. See, I got a gripe with that. If you're as well-traveled as me, you would know. Another gripe that I have is when you order a cappuccino and someone says, what size? A cappuccino is one size. You don't say what size to a cappuccino. That's a crazy thing. I don't drink coffee, so I have no idea. That's crazy. Okay, so no gripes for Michelle today. Which is fun. The salad would be on the omelet. Oh, the salad would be on the omelet. I think my gripe of the day is, give me one second.

52:21How I wrapped my hand. My gripe of the day. My gripe of the day is in America, how sales tax is not factored into the price. That is such a good and topical gripe. Good gripe. As you are setting up your e-commerce store, you need to also have that be a part of what you're doing. You have to collect sales tax. Creators should know that. Our first merch drop, we forgot to do that. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, on Shopify, we forgot to collect sales tax. And that then meant we had to go back and retroactively pay that. So, yes, that is a gripe. That's a great gripe. It drives me crazy. Why not? Why is sales tax, like when you buy something, I should be able to do the mental math of what I'm buying in the grocery store as I'm getting it.

53:08I agree. It feels like I'm guessing. What a gripe, Michelle. Michelle Correa, everybody. Yeah, come on. Okay, cool. So how long is this available? A couple weeks. Okay, a couple weeks, and then it's gone, and then you'll reevaluate. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Michelle, thanks so much for coming by. This was such a delightful surprise. Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you for all the generous, kind words on this episode and the last one. I really appreciate it. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you. I'm out. See ya. I'm going back to the surface of the ocean, out of the deep end.

53:42Do I just roll out of here? Just roll out. Slowly roll out. That's how it works. How am I still on here?

53:55Well, that was cool. That was great. History. Yeah. I want a box. I want a box. Not me. I shouldn't say that publicly. No, you shouldn't say that publicly. Because someone in the comments will challenge you. Someone's going to challenge me. And then you got to do it. All right. Well, challenge accepted. Nope. Not on this channel. Well, that was really cool to have Michelle here. and honestly, your guys' questions were really fun to answer. Building brands is a huge part of the next chapter of the creator economy. And thanks so much to YouTube Shopping for sponsoring this episode and giving us this topic.

54:22This was awesome. Again, if you're a creator in the partner program, you can connect your store in the backend in your YouTube studio and you can tag products on your videos. That is, it's a huge moment in time for YouTube. I think this feature is really gonna change the game for a lot of creators. If you have more questions about shopping, you can pop them here in the comments. You can also put them in our Discord. The link for that is in the description. All right, we'll see you next week.