How To Make Merch for YouTube—and Sell It to Your Fans (2024) – Shopify Canada

There’s a reason why every popular YouTube creator is in the business of selling merchandise. These creators know they’re running a business—and successful business owners find ways to diversify their revenue.

Relying on advertising and brand deals can be fickle as they come down to the whims of third parties and algorithms. More than ever, YouTube creators realize selling custom merchandise and other products can bring in revenue while also energizing their fan base. And the best part is the creator is in full control, including designing the merch, running the shop, and promoting their goods. No algorithm required.

You don’t need millions of subscribers to start selling—in fact, starting early can help you grow your YouTube channel. Read on to find out why you should start selling merch and how to get started today.

Why you should sell merch as a YouTuber

From the outside looking in, being a content creator on YouTube seems like you’ve achieved career freedom. But the truth is more complicated.

Creators on any platform are too often beholden to other people or companies, whether that’s pleasing YouTube’s requirements or courting brand deals. Making money as a creator often means playing by someone else’s rules.

Here’s why selling merch is a great way to diversify your income and make money online on your own terms.

Own your audience

What’s become clear is that YouTube creators who make it big know how to protect their independence.

Truly owning your business as a creator means taking back control from YouTube, and merch is one way to get there. Creating and selling products is a revenue stream that you have full control over, which means you also reap all the rewards. You can set up an ecommerce store on your own without negotiations or contracts while retaining full autonomy of your brand and values.

By selling merch, you maintain a revenue stream that is protected from these issues and that you can start without needing to be in the partner program. That means you can start making money even with a lower subscriber count.

Give fans a way to support you

For fans, it also offers a way to support you while getting something in return that also has the added bonus of promoting your channel. While fans can support you with likes and subscribes, your most loyal are willing to pay for a piece of you. Merch is an affordable way for fans to support their favorite creators.

Add an easy income stream

One benefit of fan merch is that it’s generally easy to create, especially with on-demand printing options. This also means the merch can be very cost effective—with so many options out there for printing merch, you don’t have to worry about sourcing original products, keeping an inventory, or even dealing with shipping if you use an on-demand service. All of that saves you both time and money.

Fan merch is an established market

There’s an established market for these types of products. Fans already know to look for these items and probably have already bought them in the past from other creators or media that they’re a fan of. 

What to sell as a YouTube creator

Broadly speaking, there are two categories of items you can consider selling as a YouTube creator: fan merchandise and products you create. There are pros and cons to each approach, and a long-term strategy is to consider how to sell both.

Selling fan merchandise

Creating traditional merchandise is the classic way to offer products to fans. Think of the shirts you can buy at a concert or a branded water bottle. These are items that carry slogans or images associated with your channel that fans can wear and use to show support for your work as a creator.

These can include:

Basically anything you can print with your branding is a good candidate for merch.

While simple to create and easy to manage, the downside is that these aren’t the most unique offerings. But you can improve that by focusing on creating exclusive and interesting designs. 

Selling unique products or services

Creating your own products or offering services have the potential to bring in higher revenue, but they take a lot more work.

Brands like Holo Taco, Chamberlain Coffee, and Trixie Cosmetics are great examples of this. These are products that were designed, sourced, manufactured, and sold by the creators who own them.

All of this takes time and money, which, as a small creator, you may be short on, but there are still ways to make it happen. Start with something less complex and think of what your niche is as a creator and how you can share that with your fans. 

Creating products to sell to your YouTube audience could be as simple as:

• PDF instructions for a craft or project
• Handmade items like jewelry or ceramics
• Workshops or consulting
• Art prints
• Audio tracks
• Digital recipe collections

Once you get your footing, you can work with a manufacturer to produce a new product—or collection of products—from scratch. All of these are valuable to your fans because they’re unique offerings only you can provide. Keep in mind that you will need to consider upfront costs like inventory, and ongoing effort to deliver these products and fulfill orders. 

How to make merch for YouTube

If you’re just starting out selling products as a YouTube creator, fan merch is a smart and cost-effective way to launch a store. Here’s how to do it in three easy steps.

1. Design your own merch for YouTube

The first big question you’ll have is what exactly you should put on your merchandise. The good news is you don’t need to be a skilled illustrator or graphic designer yourself to get your hands on unique, high-quality designs.

First, think about how the branding of your channel could translate into a design. You could use your logo, slogans you say during videos, or even illustrations of your face.

Let’s take a look at YouTube influencer Safiya Nygaard. Her YouTube channel is known for fashion challenges, beauty “science experiments,” travel adventures, and other topics delivered in Safiya’s signature quirky and delightfully dark style.

Her merch store, Fiendish Behavior, matches this vibe with items like stickers and t-shirts that nod to the YouTube content Safiya is famous for. These items borrow a color palette from her youTube channel, featuring dark purples and black. 

Like Safiya, you can stick to a few basic designs and use them across multiple products in different colorways. This melting lipstick illustration is printed on a tote and a sweatshirt:

Taking those as inspiration, you can probably already imagine what merch would look like for your channel.

You can design your own merch if you’re a savvy designer. If you’re not, there are plenty of places where you can find artists who can create designs for you, including:

By browsing through these sites you’re bound to find a designer whose style matches your vision for your own merch.

Tip: You can also try Shopify’s free logo maker if you’re just getting started with branding your channel.

Designing merchandise that resonates with your audience

One thing to consider, whether you’re a designer or not, is whether your designs will be in demand from your audience. You can determine this in a number of ways:

• Look at YouTube insights for your channel to get to know your audience better.
• Test different designs, products, and colors in your store. Use sales data to determine where to invest.
• Pre-launch designs and ask your audience for feedback.
• Poll your audience to see which merch products and types of designs they’d like to see. 

2. Set up your store

There are a variety of services available that court YouTube creators looking to sell custom merch. They streamline the process of selling merch, but the downside is that you have far less control over the look and feel of your own shop, as well as what products you can sell.

The best way for YouTube creators to make merch and sell it is through a dedicated online store. Platforms like Shopify allow you to create your own website and offer the following benefits:

• Ability to personalize it with your branding and information
• Branded domain that’s easy for fans to find
• Opportunity to host content on your site to improve SEO
• Dedicated About and Contact pages offering more room to tell your story than your YouTube About section
• Integrations with countless apps and tools allowing you to sell on multiple channels and sync with your YouTube page

Here’s an example from popular YouTube creators Colin & Samir. They built a merch store to promote their newsletter The Publish Press: 

Once you’ve set up your online store, you’re ready to start creating products.

3. Produce your merch 

Once your store is created, there are a number of ways to populate it with merch and other products.

Print on demand method

When you set up a Shopify store, you’ll have access to print-on-demand apps like Gelato, Printify, and Printful. You can also search through the Shopify App Store for more.

You’ll want to check out different printers and see what types of products they offer and where they ship to. All will offer a range of apparel, such as t-shirts and hoodies, as well as various materials, sizes, and colors. You can also look to see what other products they offer, like mugs, tumblers, mouse pads, or other home goods.

Once you choose a printer and add it as an app in your Shopify store, you can begin uploading your designs and placing them on products. You’ll then set a price and transfer the product to your store, where fans can start buying it.

The advantage of on-demand printing is that the printing service takes care of printing and shipping the orders, so your only job is to run and promote your shop. This takes away the hassle of sourcing items and printing products yourself, which means you don’t have to keep an inventory of items that may or may not sell right away.

Creating merch from scratch

This is a more advanced method and involves product development and working with a manufacturer or making your own products by hand. Finding a white label manufacturer is a great option if your desired product is already on the market. In this case, you can simply work with the white label manufacturer to customize products with your branding and specifications.

Sometimes, however, you might have a product idea that you want to develop from scratch. If you’re a maker, this is a great way to turn your hobby into a business. As a YouTuber, you already have an engaged audience to sell to.

If you don’t have the time or skills for handmade products, find a manufacturer that can produce products based on your designs. YouTuber Amanda Rach Lee sells unique merch on her site that goes beyond basic print-on-demand t-shirts. She sells journals and pencil cases manufactured with her own specifications and art:

How to promote and sell your merch on YouTube

Once you have merch available, your fans need to know about it.

Many creators will post a video announcing the launch of a merch line to get fans excited, as well as announce it on other platforms, such as Instagram, a Substack newsletter, or TikTok. A link in bio can capture all of your fan touchpoints, including your merch store, like this example from YouTubers Two Hot Takes:

Moving forward, you should include a link to your store underneath all your videos, in your YouTube bio, and in your bio on other platforms as well. And don’t forget to make announcements when you add new items to your collection!

Joining the YouTube partner program

The traditional way to make money on YouTube is through the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). Currently, to apply to the program, you need to have 1,000 subscribers and live in a country that supports the program, among other requirements. 

Once you’ve been accepted to the program, you’ll not only be able to earn ad revenue from your videos, you’ll also get more exposure, and access to additional YPP and Shopping features. This makes it easier to promote and sell your merch on YouTube.

In this example from Jeffree Star, relevant products sit on a “merch shelf” below the creator’s video. These link directly to Jeffree’s shop where he sells customer products from his cosmetics line:

In this example from creator Marques Brownlee, a collapsible list of tagged products appears to the right of the video:

Connecting your merch store

Using the Google and YouTube app, you can connect your merch store directly to YouTube. You can sync your product catalog with YouTube to feature shoppable products right inside your videos.

Managing inventory and fulfillment for merch

When YouTuber Trixie Mattel first launched merch, she says she was responsible for packing and shipping orders herself. That meant managing inventory, packing orders, and dealing with customer service inquiries. When you’re just starting out, this is an economical way to start selling merch on YouTube. 

As you grow, consider working with a third-party logistics company (3PL), hiring staff, or using print-on-demand to manage the entire process for you.

YouTube creator merch examples

Printed merch: Miniac

Scott Walter is the creator behind Miniac, a channel with more than 354,000 subscribers that focuses on the miniature figurine hobby. On his channel, he posts about table-top gaming and the intricate art of painting miniatures. He’s successfully carved out a niche on YouTube and has a store to go along with it that sells both merch for fans and products for fellow miniature enthusiasts.

His offerings include shirts and hats inspired by both miniatures and his love of metal music.

Scott initially sold his merch on RedBubble, an on-demand printer, but ended up switching to Shopify so that he could sell apparel alongside products he created himself. 

“We’re able to sell merch for the channel but also products for the channel on one website, which is nice for the buying experience. You don’t have to go to different places to get different things,” he says.

Scott also says Shopify offers the advantage of being able to create a more complex website for his channel, with a blog and other information.

Product development: Blogilates

When Cassey Ho started to amass followers on her fitness YouTube channel, fans started demanding merch. 

“I was like, ‘Why in the world would you want to wear my screen name?’” she says. 

Early on, Cassey produced Blogilates merch but pivoted to developing her own products under the brand Popflex. 

Today, she still sells Blogilates products through her partnership with Target as well as Popflex athletic wear on her own ecommerce site. 

Through Cassey’s video content, she often highlights new products. This is a great way to remind old and new subscribers that you sell products. And, pushing your audience to your website is another opportunity to capture more information about them.

How much do YouTubers make from merch sales?

Exactly how much money YouTube creators make is usually a closely guarded secret. Some creators are a little more open than others. Jeffree Star, for example, has often showed off his lavish lifestyle and alluded that his cosmetics line and merch business brings in millions.

On her SimplyNailogical podcast, Cristine Rotenberg said her nail polish business has a high volume of sales and is profitable, even with the cost of employees, warehousing, and designing custom bottles.

Cassey Ho’s own journey into products has been incredibly profitable.

“We had over 1.5 million visitors just last month to popflexactive.com,” she told Shopify Masters in 2022, “and we are over 800% up since 2019 in sales.” 

These are celebrity-tier creators with millions of subscribers.

For Scott Walter, who has a more modest subscriber number, revenue can vary. But he estimates that up to 50% of his overall revenue is coming from online store sales. To break that down, he says the majority of his revenue comes from products he created himself, including exclusive miniatures. This makes up anywhere from 30% to 40% of his revenue. The other 10% to 20% comes from more straight-forward merchandise, like t-shirts and posters.

The rest of his revenue as a creator is from a combination of paid ads on YouTube, Amazon affiliate links, Patreon, and sponsorships.

Scott says the key is being able to offer something unique. He said that, for example, someone who posts one video a week could make much more from product sales generated by a video than whatever it makes from ad placements. 

“If you can create something that gives value to your audience, it’s a huge revenue stream,” he says.

It stands to reason that the more you grow your subscribers and views, the more you can potentially make from merchandise sales. However, even a small creator has potential to have a significant portion of their revenue come from those sales.

Grow your YouTube channel with merch

Getting started with selling custom merch as a YouTube creator doesn’t require having a ton of subscribers. You already have all the tools you need to start making income independent of YouTube and its algorithm, restrictions, and partner program.

Making it as a YouTube creator means creating a sustainable business that can thrive through whatever the platform throws your way, and starting your own merch shop can help get you there.

Feature image by Gabrielle Merite