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dancethoughts · March 21st, 2008

I do no real marketing. I have created a suidoo lens, that has sent me exactly 27 visitors LOL. I have listed my products on google with a feed generator. I have run google adwords, but only for a bit, just testing some keywords. I pay for one ad on a niche website, that is $1 a day, and pay $20 bucks at a time every once in a while.

I have two offsite pages, that are subdomains of another site I have for my "real" business LOL, so only cost me $10 a year. I use the CP shop script to pull dancethoughts from cafepress, and the other one is a basic re-direct for the sarcastic baby. I plan to switch that to CP shop in the very near future.

Most of my sales are from the marketplace. If you have a cool design, and can get into a niche that is not oversaturated, you can get found there. They say they get millions of hits a month, and they have millions of tshirts. If you are trying to get found by making one shirt and tagging it "funny t shirt", then good luck LOL. but if you come up with something original, or current, or ripped from a headline, etc, then you can do well there.

And thanks Everett for the compliments on the shop! There is a HUGE learning curve there, and it took a good 2 months of trial and error to get everything right. But now that I get it, it's really great. I just upload a few designs a week, and wait for the checks to come in.

It's definately not get rich quick, but with a little patience it really does work. Good luck to everyone!

Adam · March 21st, 2008

Stuffnthingz (TM), great post. I'm sure that will be very inspiring for many new comers to CafePress.
I'm intrigued.. do I know you?

wormil · March 22nd, 2008

Rodney, Adam, TM... will you post a link to your shop? What is your average monthly net profit? (not sales) It is much easier to make money around Christmas because everyone is actively looking for gifts, it is another animal all together to make money year round.

Rodney · March 24th, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by wormil


	Rodney, Adam, TM... will you post a link to your shop? What is your average monthly net profit? (not sales) It is much easier to make money around Christmas because everyone is actively looking for gifts, it is another animal all together to make money year round.

Yes, people make money year around. I hope that came through in the messages that were posted. Around christmas, the earnings are just *higher*

Since we don't allow self promotion here in the forums, people can't post links to their shops (unless they are in the signature like dancethoughts), but it honestly wouldn't matter what my shop looked like or Adams or the next persons. You get out of CafePress (or any fulfillment service) what you put into it.

You have to work it like a business and figure out the best practices (lots of info on this in the CafePress official forums on their site).

wormil · March 24th, 2008

If I believed it wouldn't matter what the shop looked like I wouldn't have asked. What difference does it make whether the link is in the signature or in the post? Since this is a problem however; you can PM the link correct? I didn't really expect anyone to post the info I asked for in the forum.

I actually have a pretty fair idea of what it takes to earn a living at a business and I know that few ebusinesses provide that kind of income. I'm glad that people are making money, despite my skepticism. Perhaps I'll put some effort into it and see for myself.

LindaArtist · April 7th, 2008

Wow! Your thoughts on your first 4 months on cp are very encouraging to me. I just got mine up and running about two weeks ago and so far, only my family seems to know about it. But I just started to learn about ways to promote my shop. Congratulations on your success.

wan2makemoney · April 25th, 2008

I have just opened my first CP premium store and I will pe patient for sales. I was looking through all of the postings and a lot of the technical marketing stuff is going way over my head.

I am willing to put the time in to drive sales but can someone explain some good techniques in laymen's terms. I understand driving sales in my everyday life but what about on the net? Also, If anyone would take a look at my site and let me know what they think (good or bad) I would really appreciate it.

Thanks for all your advise it has been a God sent for us newbies

stuffnthingz · April 25th, 2008

I checked out your site and it lacks content. You need to be sure to put words in all fields when you build out your sections. Also be sure to use real sentences except where it asks for keywords. If you fill out your content completely it will help the search engines find you and rank you higher on the search pages. You also need designs and lots more of them! I like what you have made they are well done, but your store does not feel "complete" to me. These two tips will keep you busy for awhile

wan2makemoney · April 25th, 2008

Thanks for the advise. I just wanted to clarify by adding more content you mean filling in more info about each individual t-shirt? I know this sounds funny but I guess I'm not even sure what other info to add

. Also as far as make more designs, I would love to but I don't know or have photoshop, family friends helped bring my ideas to print. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make my own designs? In other words, do I need to go back to school and take a photo shop class and then purchase it for $1200? Or is there another way you all know about that I'm missing?

Thanks stuffnthingz for the feedback, you rock

stuffnthingz · April 25th, 2008

You need to make "sentences" of information about your content in the section area(right now you have short 3 or 4 word subtitles). And yes on the product page editor, add a description for all items, you can do a bulk load.

If you want to make your own graphics then you will need to learn a graphics tool, but you do not need to spend a mint at first. GIMP and other free tools can get you started, then you can decide where to go from there. And, I never took a class for any software I have learned I used online tutorials and bought books here and there. I would say I am fairly proficient in Photoshop now, but I might do things the long hard way that an expert would laugh at. I am happy as I can get the job done. Good luck!

wan2makemoney · April 25th, 2008

I took your advise and added more content to my descriptions. I hope this will put me on the map a little more. Any more sugestions keep em comming

One more question, with Gimp can I upload pictures from say istock and manipulate those into some designs for some new t-shirts?

THREADZ · May 1st, 2008

This is a good thread. I have been on cafepress since about Oct. 07. I love it

I'm just now starting to buy advertising.I bought a banner on TAC. I have spoken to Pontiac Enthusiast, Performance Years,Street Fire,Racing Junk,Ls1 Tech and a few others and we are working up advertising plans. My designs sell I just need more traffic. At Chrismas I had really just started the site, it was very basic with only about 10 - 20 designs and I made a over $1000.00 profit during Nov. and Dec.Then of course things slowed way down in Jan. I have averaged a couple hundred dollars a month since then with a steady rise. I have noticed a steady increase in traffc and sales since starting to run ads. I know it will just keep getting better.

Caustic Material · May 15th, 2008

Wanted to thank you for the periodic updates over the first four months. It has really opened my eyes to some of the things that you need to understand before you enter this marketplace. Good luck in the future.

dancethoughts · May 16th, 2008

Just another update from a CP shopkeeper...

It's been about 6 months for me, and things are really picking up! Profits for me have been as follows:

December $500
Jan $185
Feb $150
March $275
April $403
May (so far) $450.

This month I am on track to hit about $700 profit. I have worked here and there on the stores, but not nearly as much as I did at the beginning. I am loving CafePress, and plan to keep adding new stores and designs.

I can see now that patience is really important at CP.

MageGrayWolf · May 26th, 2008

I just started with Cafepress about 2 months ago. I really need to get it to be a success for me. This is kinda my ticket out of a lot of problems.

But even worse case scenario and I don't make money I still end up with a nice hobby that I stand a chance at making a few buck at regardless. I have always enjoyed drawing and doing designs on my computer so starting something like this was kinda of a give in for me.