CafePress.com experiences?

[zohar]

Hey all,

I'm looking into making some t-shirts, mugs, stickers, etc. and I like the CafePress.com business model, but I've heard that sometimes they deliver low quality merchandise, screw up orders and/or have bad customer service.

Can you guys give me your impressions of selling/buying from the site?

Thanks!

 

[Choo Choo Andee]

The quality is ok, orders don't get screwed up too much.........the payment is a little shady........not to mention if you want people to buy your stuff, you only take about 2 or 3 dollars profit on each item..........Which kind of sucks, i added up my sales, saw hundreds and hundreds of dollars and then checks for like 50 bucks at a time. It's worth it to save up, get stuff professionally made and get over 70% profit.......I'm just lazy........so if you're lazy or have no money, do cafepress. I should do a commercial for them.

 

[zohar]

Thanks Andee,

Anyone else have experiences to share?

I'm now thinking that this should be in the Off-Topic Forum just incase any moderators are lurking.

 

[Aziz]

I've used Cafepress before. I had no problems, the stuff I got on the shirt looked really good. My only suggestion is opt for the UPS shipping, the free shipping took quite a while.

Also, the amount you make depends on the markup you choose. There is a base price, for T-shirts it's like $9.99, and the profit you make depends on how high you want to do a markup. So, if you sell the shirts for $19.99, you make $10 profit a shirt.

 

[yatesy]

Cafepress, imo, is good for the stuff you want to sell occasionally. I have a shop on there called "Film School: You Want Fries With That? (aka: Top Ten Things Learned in Film School)" (http://www.cafepress.com/filmschool) and haven't made much, but I have had alot of compliments.
Compliments don't pay the bills tho.

 

[Choo Choo Andee]

I've used Cafepress before. I had no problems, the stuff I got on the shirt looked really good. My only suggestion is opt for the UPS shipping, the free shipping took quite a while.

Also, the amount you make depends on the markup you choose. There is a base price, for T-shirts it's like $9.99, and the profit you make depends on how high you want to do a markup. So, if you sell the shirts for $19.99, you make $10 profit a shirt.

the most basic tshirt is $14 . If you mark it up to $20 you make 6........but with even average shipping it's going to cost them about $24......

 

[zohar]

There's the rub. Since I want to sell a variety of different items (mugs, shirts, stickers) and don't want to put up much money just yet, nor deal with shipping/payment issues. I guess cafepress is my only option. I'm a bit surprised that no one else has tried to imitate the business model though to give them some competition.