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Hi!
I'm fairly new here in the sense that I rarely post even if I've been a member of the forums for about a year now. Anyway, I'd like to ask fellow CP shopkeepers how they're doing in terms of paper product sales (notecards, journals, and postcards to be exact) because I've actually never had any! Not even one. And to think I opened a shop specifically for it. Are my prices too steep? I live in the Philippines so I don't know if the prices I've set are reasonable -> I simply chose the premium pricing option with which I never had trouble with in terms of selling t-shirts.
The reason I haven't closed the shop down though is that I'm getting revenue from the apparel which I was forced to add when I saw that the paper products weren't selling.
Your stuff is REALLY cute and the pricing seems reasonable, so I don't know why it's not selling. The only thing I can think of is maybe people don't think 'paper products' when they think of CafePress.
Thanks for the quick reply (and for the kind words!) Rhonda -- you may be right. If I still don't get sales for any of them in a few months I may have to rethink my strategy.
One problem I see is you have NO descriptions (on the few sections I clicked on). When I clicked on postcards, I didn't see a header with any type of information or descriptions for your products. That is how your products come up in web searches. I am sure if you fix that you will start making sales.
I think your prices are fine so if I were you I would be explaining those beautifully decorated items you have in your store. Your shop and designs are cute and your products should sell without problem. If you are making money on your t-shirts, I definately wouldn't close your store. I say hang in there!
btw- I have never sold a paper product in my store.
Adam: I took your advice. Just to see what happens, I lowered the markups on the paper products (I have nothing to lose anyway). Hopefully that'll make a difference.
Brenda: Thanks for the encouragement and for taking the time to check out the store. I had the images on the front page link directly to the specific catchall products page on Cafepress and unfortunately there's no way to edit the html on those pages unless I make all the sections individually (ex. a specific "greeting card" section), but that'll take a long time. I initially categorized my designs into themes and those sections (that have links on the left side of the front page) have full descriptions. But yes you're right about the main products pages not having descriptions and that may be a factor in the lack of sales. Thanks for the suggestion, I will seriously consider it.
Hi again,
Just a quick update. Thanks to all of you for the encouragement and the tips because I finally made sales for a couple of sets of notecards and 30 journals (!) last month. I made a Squidoo lens for the shop and lowered my mark-ups so those probably made a big difference.
Hi again,
Just a quick update. Thanks to all of you for the encouragement and the tips because I finally made sales for a couple of sets of notecards and 30 journals (!) last month. I made a Squidoo lens for the shop and lowered my mark-ups so those probably made a big difference.
Congrats,
If you don't mind, what is your new markup on the paper products?
I recently added invitation/thank you cards to complement the birthday shirts I sell at my CafePress shop. Don't know why the natural connection didn't occur to me sooner. Haven't seen any real results yet, but I hope that shirt buyers will impulse buy a card or pack of invitation/thank you cards to go along with the shirt. I have already seen this result with adding bibs to my "first birthday" offerings. I only mark the bibs up $2.00 so the price isn't outragous for an "added sale" and I get $2.00 more than I would have otherwise.
Continued success
Ken
__________________ 350tees.com Talk Is Cheap, Especially On Our Shirts
I have a $2 markup for the cards and about $1.50 or so for the journals. Your birthday card-birthday shirt tie-up sounds like a great idea, I wish you luck with it!
Selling paper products on Cafepress 
-- you may be right. If I still don't get sales for any of them in a few months I may have to rethink my strategy. 
