Comments on Jason Tweed, the million dollar blogger: Make more money with your CafePress online T-shirt...

As a cafepress shopkeeper, I agree with most of th...

2010-06-27T13:55:21.221-04:00

As a cafepress shopkeeper, I agree with most of the criticism towards them after changing their pricing and lowering the commission they pay to designers. I opened a shop through CP a year ago, just when they lowered Marketplace sales commissions to 10%. I learned very quickly that the best way to use cafepress is as your print source when promoting your OWN store. Ex: When I sell a t-shirt through their marketplace, my average commission is $2.20. However, this same t-shirt sold through my store brings me $7.00. Although I have not reached my income goals, I am seeing steady earnings of $500-750 per month after one year of operation. Half of this comes from their Marketplace. They way I see it, income is income.

http://www.therightwingusa.com

Just a tip for your readers: you can promote your ...

2010-05-28T15:21:36.265-04:00

Just a tip for your readers: you can promote your shops for free on http://www.teeshirtshops.com/

I can say as a CafePress shopkeeper of several yea...

2009-11-12T01:50:12.427-05:00

I can say as a CafePress shopkeeper of several years that my profits are now down to almost a quarter of what they were before CafePress changed their pricing. My shop used to bring in a modest residual income for me (and tens of thousands for CafePress!) and now I don't think it's even worth the effort to keep it running. They're making a killing off of my designs and I get pocket change. I'm thoroughly dosappointed. :/

Respectfully, I disagree. I think CaféPress bring...

2009-06-23T08:05:51.658-04:00

Respectfully, I disagree.

I think CaféPress brings more value because of their extensive marketplace, plus the fact that they spend money on key words to generate traffic for that marketplace.

In your example you earn $3.01 when you sell a T-shirt in your own CaféPress store. CaféPress then sells a second T-shirt, then you earn $2.50. Ultimately, the value of your art has not gone down, because rather than earning $3.01 from a creation, you've earned $5.51 for the art.

Your concept of the competing gas station is faulty because CaféPress is not your competitor. In fact, had the same individuals in your T-shirt on your store as well as the CaféPress marketplace they would you choose in your store because the price of your shirt is lower. Café Press has simply delivered an additional customer.

A better example would be a McDonald's opening across the street from your Burger King. What we know about marketing is that McDonald's will spend a certain amount of money marketing their products, and they won't steal from Burger King's customers. When several fast food places open in the same neighborhood, they all make out better because people recognize they can come to the same place for variety of fast food. In fact, having a competitor across the street is one of your best values.

CaféPress has by far the best reputation from a customer perspective, therefore I believe they deliver more customers.

I do think, however, you bring up one very valid point. While I believe the marketplace has tremendous value, artists should be permitted to opt out of the marketplace. I think that for most individuals selling their creations to a wider audience would be valuable, but some individuals would prefer to charge higher prices than the marketplace. For these people they may choose to opt out and not permit CaféPress to promote their merchandise.

Finally, in fairness to our readers, your website does in fact point to a CaféPress store. While you may be unhappy, you're still using CaféPress currently. Additionally, I think it's also fair to point out that much of the art that you use in your own creations, as well as the graphics that you use to promote them are stock photography and clipart. The original artists earn nothing from your creation because they opted to sell their art to a stock art site.

Thank you for reading my blog. By the way, blog comments are a great way to build incoming links to your domain. You failed to sneak your blog link in, so I'll do it for you.

Readers, if you're interested in a wide variety of patriotic and military themed CaféPress creations, please visit www.LinkinMall.net.

Recently CafePress began competing with the artist...

2009-06-23T05:43:16.053-04:00

Recently CafePress began competing with the artists for whom it acts as printer and shipper.

CafePress rents web shops to its artists. The artist creates a website page and manually loads the desired blank products. The artist imports his image onto each product, arranges the products on the page, describes the products, titles the products and tags the images.

Initially, the artist would set a markup and received the markup for each product sold.

However, recently CafePress began competing with its artists, using the artists' own images. CafePress created a marketplace where a customer can search a keyword. That search brings up artist products. When the customer buys from the marketplace CafePress pays the artist 10% of the price CafePress set. Both the customer and the artist lose money. If the artist's shop sells a t-shirt for $21, the artist makes $3.01. If the marketplace sells the same shirt for $25, the artist gets $2.50. The customer pays $4 more, and the artist gets $0.51 less.

CafePress tells artists to "promote your own shop," but CafePress buys Google adwords using the very image tags the artist provided.

CafePress justifies this bait and switch of service terms by telling artists they can opt out if they don't like the new terms; however, many have spent as much as 7 or 8 years creating as much as 88000 images.

In spite of their sweat-equity, many shopkeepers (content providers) are building shops at other print-on-demand companies and then closing their CafePress shops due to the broken faith and trust, the financial hardship CafePress has delivered into so many lives, and the huge amount of time and dedicated effort all lost in the momentum of their own businesses. Would you keep your AMOCO station franchise if AMOCO built a company store across the street from you?