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jesha · June 17th, 2008

I've been on Cafepress for over two years now and I can't recommend it enough.

First few months were a bit frustrating but once you get the hang of it and the sales start rolling in you know it was all worth it.

stuffnthingz · June 17th, 2008

The problem I see with most folks that have a t-shirt website and either make the shirts themselves, or they have them made in bulk is that the options of what you can buy are very limited and usually the details of what shirt you are going to get are minimal or non-existent. The appeal of CafePress is the great detail on the products and how many blanks you get to choose from. I sell apparel via CP, Web and at events and CP is by far the least amount of work for the money you earn. I now have 3 presses in my living room and boxes of blanks piled high. I really love making my own shirts, it is very satisfying in ways being a CP shopkeeper can never be, but I love the kick back and watch the money roll in feeling you get with CP. My husband would rather I have reinvested the money in other ways than to set up my own t-shirt making factory in our living room

Overall this whole experience has been very fun and though I may never quit my day job, this does allow me to have a fantastic wardrobe. I will digress here just a bit. Years ago when I worked in marketing I was a public speaker at trade shows. Trade shows like Networld Interop and the like. I would come home with 5 to 10 t-shirts per show and soon I had 50 of my favorite trade show t-shirts hanging up in my closet all lined up by color (mostly whites) it was pretty funny. I switched jobs and my great T-shirt collection slowly dwindled as shirts would get worn and I was very sad. This endeavor has rekindled the T-shirt line up in my closet, but now the designs mean so much more! My collection is a mix of CP and of course now my own home made items. I will not likely be buying much from CP anymore as making the basics myself is by far the most cost effective route. I will however be purchasing the new infinistitch jackets as they are very well made and have a great cut to them! Sorry for the ramble

fletcher767 · July 16th, 2008

This is a great thread, and very inspiring. I have been with Cafepress not quite a year, and I have learned so much. Mostly I've learned that there aren't enough hours in a day, and that there's always more to learn

I really enjoy the being creative part, but know little about marketing/seo/html, and all that other stuff that's needed to be successful. The internet is a wonderful resource, as are the people on the Cafepress forums. I'm amazed at how helpful people are. And Cafepress is great in that I can work on my store when the kids are sleeping. And somedays I can work on it for hours and somedays I just don't get much time, but as someone said, I'm sure you get out what you put in.
I think Cafepress is a great opportunity, though. I'm glad I found it.

SewDarnHot · July 16th, 2008

Cafe Press sounds really cool for designers.
I am a clothing designer but have a hard as H*ll time coming up with slogans and such.
Trying to do some right now

So I do mainly custom items that they tell me what they want and I make it.
I wish.... but hopefully I will still have fun with my new press

aoshi1 · July 21st, 2008

Congrats on your business, sounds like it's working out for you. I must be honest, I was a little weary of CP at first, but this post has given things a new light for me. Thanks for the post.

Stillgotit1970 · July 22nd, 2008

HI, I'm new here but have had 2 cafepress shops for 18 months and just opened another one. I love it. It is well worth it. Within 3 or 4 months I was selling things daily, betwen 3-12 things daily usually. I have no talent but work hard on learning and do spend lots of time on designs.

What I love about CP is that when I search for many many things on google etc, CP comes up 1st in Google and such all the time. Free advertising in my eyes. This is well worth it. I look at the marketplace as more advertising.

I add to my store often and get rid of things that don't sell within 6 months. I think one of the most important things you can do is choose your image tag words carefully, never skip that step.

Despotte · 4 Weeks Ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by wormil


	Sorry I'm really skeptical about this claim of many people making thousands of dollars and I will never believe there is anyone making a living from cafepress unless you show me the books. The price/quality ratio is just not there for sufficient repeat business. Not to mention that browsing the site I find the majority of designs are copycats. I bet there aren't half dozen people here making more than a hundred dollars a month.

Ok here is my experience I have been with CP for 2 plus years my first month I made $35.30 my two largest checks have been for over $190 each (both were from christmass 0rders that I recieved in February of '07 and '08) I average $75 a month. I have done very little in SEO (except the basics that I have learned here) I have passed out about 400 business cards (that I got free from Vista*****) I leave my sigline on various niche forums because I have a very niche design

I have used adwords a very little (when I get $30 free coupons about once every 4 months)

I used to use Yahoo answers alot (back when you could use sig lines) and still get hits from that

I have been picked up by a few myspace pages although I do not have one

I have also been mentioned in Wikipedia and other pedias

I get about 2000 hits a month on my site JUST from this.

Now here is the most interesting part I actually took a YEAR long sabatical from the internet and DID nothing for my Cafepress store and KEPT getting the checks my income grew by 50 percent (from 2nd qtr '07 through 1st qtr '08 from $ 50 a month to $75 a month) with me doing NOTHING!

So all in all I am very pleased with CP

fUNKYDOODLER · 3 Weeks Ago

hey congrates on your CP Store and future success!!
Ive been on CP for some time now and I'm doing pretty well. I've order from my store the shirts that are selling the most and i have to tell you the print is very good. the only gripe is that who ever prints over there at CP kind of gets lazy cos the shirts I've gotten at times comes out of centered or very low on the shirt. also a design will be too small for the shirt as if they don't adjust for shirt size.
But all in all a good place to go if you just want to get your name and designs out there.