Melissa Dougherty

Some of you might notice I took down my "store" from my channel. I've been wanting to do this for a while. I disabled it last year, too, but had people ask about it, so I put it back up. But this time it's staying down permanently. There are a few reasons for this:

#1- It's too expensive for the buyer. I used Spring, which a lot of creators do, and it's free to use. It's actually a great way to sell merch on YouTube if you're gonna do it. I sold mugs and tumblers. The way it works is that Spring sets a price for the product, then the creator chooses how much more they want to raise the price to make a profit. (Usually that's a few bucks, but it adds up.) It's not like I sold a ton of these. I maybe made about 100 bucks every year to give you an idea. Sometimes I made more, maybe 200ish at the most. But it wasn't a significant form of revenue. I really did it more for the fun and novelty of it, and sort of just forgot it was there for the most part. But I just simply don't want to have a store on my channel anymore. I mean... It's a MUG. Fun or not, nobody should have to pay $20-$30 for a cylindrical piece of glass or metal with a handle and words on it.

#2- I've had people report that they never even got their purchase. This has happened a few times this year. Because it's a third-party, I can't directly do anything about it outside of personally refunding the purchase. That's frustrating for everyone involved.

#3- The "ick." This is my own **personal** conscience on this, as there are many God-fearing Christians filled with integrity who I deeply admire who have merch on their channels. I am certainly not implying there's anything inherently sinful or unethical about that at all. In fact, more power to them, as I'm sure their merch is not only much better than mine was, but they are probably more organized and gifted in this area. They probably genuinely have a different perspective on this than me. But for me personally? Selling merch on my channel feels "icky." Sometimes I have my mug that I'm drinking from in my videos, and I just don't wanna make it seem like I'm trying to push a product when I just genuinely am enjoying my hug in a mug (coffee) and have it distract from the messgae of the video. It's just not for me anymore.

2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 3,552