How to Start Selling your Products on YouTube

If you spent enough time on YouTube, you’ll know that YouTube creator “merch” is a thing. The word merch is an abbreviation of merchandise; if you have a YouTube channel, you can start selling your merch to your viewers. Since fans usually want to support their favorite video creators, they’ll probably be eager to buy your products, so that you can make a profit. This money can be used to sustain your channel, therefore to make you keep creating content. If the idea is intriguing to you, stay with us to find out how to sell merch on YouTube!

Here are the requirements to start selling your merch on YouTube

The products you offer will appear on the “merch shelf“, which shows up on every video page of yours. Keep in mind that only eligible channels are allowed to showcase their official branded merchandise on YouTube. What does it take to be an eligible channel? Let’s learn about it right away.

In order to be considered for the merch shelf and related merch features, you should meet these minimum requirements:

– your channel is approved for monetization

– you’re in a country where the YouTube Partner Program is available

– in case you have a music channel, it has to be an Official Artist Channel; if it’s not a music channel, it should have more than 10,000 subscribers

– your channel’s audience isn’t set as Made for Kids, and your channel does not have a significant number of videos set as made for kids (you can’t sell stuff to kids)

– your channel hasn’t received any Community Guidelines Strikes

YouTube’s policies you have to comply with to sell your merch

Apart from having to meet all of the requirements above, you’ll also have to comply with YouTube’s Terms of Service, which include:

– monetization policies

– Community Guidelines

– Paid product placements and endorsement policy

– Google Shopping policies (plus prohibited content policy)

Be careful in following the rules, because violations of these terms and policies might result in suspension or termination of your merch shelf and merch features, or even in account termination. You’ll need Google’s express prior written approval of any agreement before you can sell your channel merchandise.

Merch platforms and retailers

Here’s a list of all the merch platforms and retailers supported by the merch shelf and related merch features:

Merch Platforms:

– Spreadshop

– Spring

– Suzuri

Merch Retailers:

Platforms and retailers only support local currencies, so your merch won’t be displayed to viewers in countries/regions for which retailers and platforms do not support local currency. The currencies available for merch features with the supported merch platforms are:

– Spreadshop: Australian Dollar (AUD), Canadian Dollar (CAD), Danish Krone (DKK), Euro (EUR), British Pound (GBP), Norwegian Krone (NOK), Swedish Krona (SEK), US Dollar (USD)

– Suzuri: Japanese Yen (JPY)

– Teespring: Australian Dollar (AUD), Canadian Dollar (CAD), Euro (EUR), British Pound (GBP), US Dollar (USD)

Your official merch retailer (not Google) will take full responsibility for all aspects of merch sales, including merchandising, warehousing, order fulfillment, refunds, customer service, inventory management, and creator or artist payment.