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Jeepwidow · February 21st, 2008

ok, this may be a stupid question. I've uploaded my logo, created merchandise and now I want to set up a store. To earn money I thought I would utilize their free shop, earn enough money to upgrade to the Premium shop. Any thoughts? I don't have a website set up yet, so any exposure would be good.

Thao1mage · February 21st, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by wormil


	When I look at your store, I can't find any shirts. That might be having a detrimental effect on sales. Nice logo though.

There's text saying "Click on image below to start searching for a tshirt". Do you think it makes a big difference between having just an image and then have an actual tshirt? I think I might be over reacting... it's only been a month... must have more patience... Maybe I should try putting more tshirts images up since there's only one on the featured items.... hmmm... need to go home and start working on it...

Thao1mage · February 21st, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeepwidow


	ok, this may be a stupid question. I've uploaded my logo, created merchandise and now I want to set up a store. To earn money I thought I would utilize their free shop, earn enough money to upgrade to the Premium shop. Any thoughts? I don't have a website set up yet, so any exposure would be good.

Barbara,

you can do a whole lot more with a premium site... I tried both, i prefer the premium site... check out my store...

BrendaR · February 21st, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thao1mage


	been with cafepress for about a month now... no sales yet... I think my designs flat out just doesn't sell... need to tweak my designs a little more or change it completely.... sad... but still confident.... Ricky

It can take 2-4 months and sometimes longer before you can get a sale. I have heard it can even take up to a year to start making sales regularly.

My suggestion to you is get MORE designs and add more key words in your descriptions. For example in your St Patricks Day designs the words "St. Patricks Day" was used only once and that was in a description to one design.

wormil · February 21st, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thao1mage


	There's text saying "Click on image below to start searching for a tshirt".

Wow, I loaded the site into IE and it looks completely different. Something in Firefox is blocking most of your site. If others are having this problem it could help account for your lack of sales. I don't know much about web design but I'll try to figure out what is blocking your shop. In the meantime, here are screenshots from both Firefox and IE.

BrendaR · February 21st, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeepwidow


	ok, this may be a stupid question. I've uploaded my logo, created merchandise and now I want to set up a store. To earn money I thought I would utilize their free shop, earn enough money to upgrade to the Premium shop. Any thoughts? I don't have a website set up yet, so any exposure would be good.

Barbra, I would personally go with the Premium shop. It's easier to navigate, you can have more designs on more styles. It's cheap enough to atleast try it out. I think you can even get a trial period. When you say you don't have a website set up yet, do you mean an offsite from CafePress? You don't necessarily have to have one. I don't have my own site outside of CP and I know a lot of other peolpe who don't either.
Good Luck!

Thao1mage · February 21st, 2008

Wormil, you think it has to do with the way I am coding my page??? That's weird.... maybe firefox doesn't support HTML??? IE does???

prometheus · February 21st, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thao1mage


	Wormil, you think it has to do with the way I am coding my page??? That's weird.... maybe firefox doesn't support HTML??? IE does???

It could be the Mozilla engine running Firefox. It runs on Safari as well, and I can't see the initial images.

Jeepwidow · February 21st, 2008

Thanks Brenda! Patience is a hard trait to have!! Your correct in saying I don't have an outside web presense. I have NO experience in creating web sites, but a family member suggested I dabble in free test ware so I know what I'm talking about with future web designers.

My husband and I have applied for a trademark and would like to put the logo on shirts, hats etc. My goal is to have a site at Cafe but I think to get our name out there I need to visit off road stores, gift stores etc. I just want to make enough money to create a nice income for my family.

wormil · February 21st, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thao1mage


	Wormil, you think it has to do with the way I am coding my page??? That's weird.... maybe firefox doesn't support HTML??? IE does???

Use the tools on w3c.org to check your page:

[Invalid] Markup Validation of http://www.cafepress.com/thaoimage - W3C Markup Validator

W3C CSS Validator results for http://www.cafepress.com/thaoimage

BrendaR · February 21st, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeepwidow


	Thanks Brenda! Patience is a hard trait to have!! Your correct in saying I don't have an outside web presense. I have NO experience in creating web sites, but a family member suggested I dabble in free test ware so I know what I'm talking about with future web designers. My husband and I have applied for a trademark and would like to put the logo on shirts, hats etc. My goal is to have a site at Cafe but I think to get our name out there I need to visit off road stores, gift stores etc. I just want to make enough money to create a nice income for my family.

Get your name out there now by opening up a Cafe shop

Then you can make business cards and flyers to hand out. This way you atleast have a place to send people to see some of your work.

That's the main reason I started mine. After about 6 months now I am starting to get a steady flow and things are going good. I am now selling outside of CP around town. It's like a win-win situation. If I make money on CP and around town- it's a nice thing.

Whichever you choose to do- I wish you luck

Thao1mage · February 21st, 2008

Everything is fixed now..

Jeepwidow · February 22nd, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrendaR


	Get your name out there now by opening up a Cafe shop Then you can make business cards and flyers to hand out. This way you atleast have a place to send people to see some of your work. That's the main reason I started mine. After about 6 months now I am starting to get a steady flow and things are going good. I am now selling outside of CP around town. It's like a win-win situation. If I make money on CP and around town- it's a nice thing. Whichever you choose to do- I wish you luck

And I've been told that Stay-at-home mothers aren't markable and won't find a job. Here's to you ! Brenda, thanks for the vote of confidence.

Rodney · February 22nd, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thao1mage


	been with cafepress for about a month now... no sales yet... I think my designs flat out just doesn't sell... need to tweak my designs a little more or change it completely.... sad... but still confident.... Ricky

The designs look OK. You need to work on optimizing your store for search engines.

Change the title from thao1image to something more descriptive and research SEO on these forums and on the official cafepress forums. There's a few improvements you can make.

Also make sure you are tagging your products correctly so they show up in the cafepress marketplace.

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