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Merch Makers
123 members • $116/month
Learn and Earn Academy
509 members • $54/month
3 contributions to Merch Makers
19h •
Best Feedback Today
"The customer service was amazing and the owner was a hoot to talk to! The shirt arrived beautiful and amazingly done!" Also, crossing 190 sales today. The first hundred took two months, and we might get the next hundred in 15 days. Now, going to have a weekend and then I have sooooo many Holiday designs to upload. Some are even pretty good.
2d •
AI Insanity for You
I have built a self-documenting AI system for my Etsy shops around external tools such as MyDesigns, Photoshop, ListingView, GPT-Image-2, and Midjourney. The system can be adapted to use different tools. If you are patient and explain what you are replacing, the AI can help rebuild that part of the workflow around your preferred tool. MyDesigns is primarily for uploads of the XLSX outputs at the end of the process. I use Photoshop because I have been working with it since version 0.9 and can automate it to do almost anything. I still handle the background knockouts, upscaling, and positioning manually because that gives me one final opportunity to inspect every piece of artwork. Most images take about 30 seconds, so I can process roughly 120 images per hour. ListingView, along with its Etsy browser extension, is my canonical research source. I use GPT-Image-2 and Midjourney through APIFrame for image generation, choosing between them based on the needs of each design. The AI uses browser control to research and run Etsy searches. The system can start with niches, sub-niches, lists of possible T-shirt designs, or even a conversation with the AI in voice mode. It turns those inputs into evidence-backed T-shirt designs packaged and ready for upload. I like to spend a few hours on Monday coming up with niche ideas, talking through them with the AI while the AI provides research backing to my questions. My part of the process is to provide direction, approve the important decisions, complete the background dropouts in the upload directories, and upload the finished XLSX packages into an Etsy upload tool. That tool applies a few template additions to the Description field only. You could automate the background removal and uploads as well, but I prefer to review every design and upload myself. This is not just a collection of scripts. It is a specific, gate-driven work process in which I approve the research, ideas, and outputs before the system moves to the next stage. I treat the AI like a very talented junior employee. During the design phase, for example, I can tell it to try a different direction, attach reference designs, provide unique phrases, or ask it to revise a concept before continuing.
0 likes • 1d
The length of the PDF is all the AI's work. It was tasked with building a document to re-create itself from scratch so there is good detail in there. The efficiency gate is me in this process. I choose to do the work in Photoshop on the designs before upload as a final approval gate. Opening each one and pushing a button in Photoshop to do background removal gives me the chance to tweak or move a design on the canvas. Usually just finding the optical center, but sometimes fixing a problem or simply marking the design as not good and killing the listing. Interestingly, when I kill a design in the photoshop step, the AI will recognize that I did it and give me options to rebuild and remove before upload if I ask it. I also apply judgement on the design at this point as well if the execution or idea does not land properly. Finally, I also choose to use an upload tool (via XLSX uploads) so I am the final person to press the buttons for publishing. I have over 1500 Christmas designs ready that took about two weeks to generate with this process. They are just waiting on upload which starts next week. It will take a week to chug through that backlog if I focus all week on it, which I probably won't do. The good part of the AI process is that I get to explore ideas in combination with seasonal designs. For example, I put together about 50 "Superlative + Role" Christmas designs like an ER Nurse design that uses "Most Likely to Say It's Quiet, And Then Regret It." and a ER Themed Christmas Design with SEO built for gifting. So that intersects three areas Role, Superlative, and Gifting. Now that formula can be spread across a multitude of roles. For a small niche, I can loop through 100 designs in less than a day from start to finish. I did one small niche a few weeks ago that turned into 9 quick sales just after listing. 50 designs for the idea, then found the winner for that niche quickly. That is the general idea of the system, quantity up, find the winners, let the losers expire and expand on the winners. My goal is to get 5% winners out of every batch, right now it is more like 0.5% so there is room for improvement.
0 likes • 23h
@Tom Callahan Scaling out the research based on input from experts was my focus for sure. Having data backed areas to work on was next. Feeling pretty good about the progress. Still more to improve and I'll share the documentation as the AI updates it.
11d •
Anybody else pushing out Halloween designs like crazy?
Since July I've been trying to upload as much as possible before Aug 15 lol (Coach D's recommended deadline for fall/halloween designs) anyone else?
4 likes • 10d
A small report from the insane end of the spectrum. Halloween is in the bucket and uploaded 400 or so listings for the weens (Summer + Hallo). Started with Summerween which was fun. Thanksgiving and Halloween keep getting more funny idea subniches though. Thanksgiving gets uploaded first Aug 15 then the rest of the holidays. The 20 major religious holidays between Sept 22 - Dec 20 are cooking with about 700 listings across 24 niches in the bucket ready to upload. Goal is 1000. Ideas are getting tougher to come by and may resort to interviewing people in the street. Aug 15- Nov 15 will be uploads and ideas of opportunity. I've already sold 7 Halloween shirts but none have been repeat hits yet. Listening to Lose Yourself by Eminem.
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