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Personally I think that it is a big mistake! I have been with CP for little over a year now and what bugs me the most is that CP has no respect for their shopkeepers. Somewhere along the line they have forgotten that WE are what makes CP successful.
But as any big business the bottom line is $$$. But punishing the SKs by taking away their bonus for hard work, I feel is going to blow up in their faces because again CP would be nothing without us!
Personally I am opening my shop at other PODs (still keeping CP for now) and see what happens.
Just stinks that I worked so hard to get to the volume bonus levels and now it is taken away just before the biggest money making time of the year.
I've been with CP since Nov 2006,I've 4 shops 1 with Grandfather rights and I've hit 2nd level bonus a few times so I'll be hit in the pocket but nowhere near as bad as some.
All I'll do is add a dollar or 2 to my T-Shirts in all shops.I've none below $5 mark up as it is and I've sold Organics and Golf Shirts $12-$15 mark up,so we'll just have to see how it pans out.
What really annoys me though is the lack of discussion with SK's before CP implement these changes,it's happened before,with with Shop size for example.
I just wish someone like Branson would open up in the UK and Europe beacuse that would frighten the hell out of CP.The trouble is CP know they've got the big stores by the balls,they're not going to close or scoot across to Spreadshirt or Zazzle.If you've been building your stores since 2002 you're hardly going to want to start again.
I thought about Spreadshirt earlier in the year and maybe now's the time to dip my toe in the water so to speak.
Ah well could be worse,I could be manning the phones at CP!
From what I understand, they are restructuring it so that it's actually based on shopkeeper performance instead of on the massive advertising they do to drive sales to the marketplace.
It makes sense to me. They spend a LOT of money to bring all the shopkeepers traffic and sales from their marketplace. To me, that shows a lot of caring about their shopkeepers.
It didn't make sense for them to pay money advertising the marketplace and then also pay money again as a bonus for the sales they drove to the marketplace.
It seems now the sales bonuses are based on the shopkeeper's efforts (which I think it was originally designed to reward). They are also removing the 20% cut the shopkeepers had to pay for affiliate driven sales.
I think it's a little unfair to say that CP has no respect for its shopkeepers. I've met the guys there at CP, and I know for a fact that's not true.
They aren't punishing shopkeepers for their hard work, they are focusing the bonus on the hardwork done by shopkeepers to promote their shops.
I think what cafepress is doing makes sense. I have my own site but still run my CP site too so I am going to lose money on this but like Rodney said, why should they pay a bonus on sales they make and pay for with ads.
Their ad budget is huge and if more money goes to that, it will drive more and more sales for shop keepers.
Now I don't know who Fred at CP is,but he seems to be the chap at the sharp end of the stick and is in charge of the fan and the sh** that's just hit it!
However,Fred at CP seems to be doing a fine job of answering questions, this for example was posted yesterday by good old Fred, not that he's old, just thought I'd get that in.
"Thanks for the emails coming in. Q's about the "transition plan" let me try to explain a little better now.
We're moving to a new calculation - it's going to be Shop Volume Bonus as of Jan 1, 2009. We want to transition from the current plan to the new plan from now until then.
Through the end of the year we'll run VB calculations two ways, the new and the old way. If you make more money the new way - great, congratulations. If not, there's an "income protection" formula we'll apply. If in August the new calculation is more than 10% less than the old way, the check will only be 10% less than the current calculation. In september, your checks won't be more than 15% smaller than the current calculation. October: they won't be less than 20% smaller. Nov and Dec, not less than 25% smaller.
Everyone qualifies for this. You don't need to do anything, and we don't need to call you about it. We'll make sure no checks are impacted more than these numbers during each payout this year."
This should calm the restless natives for a little while at least!
Now I don't know who Fred at CP is,but he seems to be the chap at the sharp end of the stick and is in charge of the fan and the sh** that's just hit it!
Fred is the CEO, co-founder, and a pretty nice, down to earth guy. He likes funny looking cars though
Well it sucks that they are doing this as most my sales and I am assuming a lot of other people's sales come from the marketplace. If anything its like they are trying to push the SKs to do more of their own advertising. I think they could of gone about it another way like reduced marketplace volume bonuses instead of out right doing away with them.
But I mean the marketplace is what makes cafepress the leader in the industry, and essentially they are keeping as much as they can. Afterall, what SK is really going to shut their store down because of this? Maybe a handful, but nothing compared to the amount of money they will save by not paying out the volume bonuses.
Oh well, guess I will need to figure out better advertising for my store.
Any suggestions on a way to do cheap image ads? I am trying google image ads but still trying to get them to show up more than 50 times a day....
If anything its like they are trying to push the SKs to do more of their own advertising
It really is the shopkeepers job to market their own business. CafePress is rewarding shopkeepers for the work they do to create their own sales. That makes sense
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But I mean the marketplace is what makes cafepress the leader in the industry
CafePress is the leader because they were the first (or close to the first) and they have a great community and they've grown and listened to constructive feedback. They were already the leader years before they ever introduced their marketplace.
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Any suggestions on a way to do cheap image ads?
To get better responses, you may want to start a new topic for your question so people that may not be reading this thread about cafepress volume bonus changes, but may have good suggestions about advertising will read it. Not everyone will read through every thread and it will keep this topic focused on the discussion of the changes.
We do have a LOT of great tips, experiences, suggestions posted in our Marketing section of the forum. So that would be a good place to start researching:
It just takes research, time, and testing to really see what methods are out there and try them out. You may see an idea that you can adjust to better fit your own business.
I don't really have a problem at all with it. Heck, I am happy to get any kind of bonus- it's FREE money to me. I also have a photography business and I sure wish there was someone there to give me a bonus if I sold a certain amount- BUT that doesn't happen.
This is like with any kind of business- YOU have to get the business. YOU have to draw your customers in. You can't expect someone else to do it for you.
If I get sales from my shop, then I am doing something right (I am bringing in the customers). If the sales come from the marketplace, that's good too but I then need to put more focus and advertising on MY shop.
I am thankful for any type of bonus CP wants to give me.
I feel it is fair enough. I have had my shop up for five weeks now and made 18 sales-- all but two of which were Marketplace purchases. I am trying to get a ground swell of marketing, myself, but at this point I have to rely on CP and the marketplace if I am going to see any customers.
I'm still getting the commission through the markup and the bonus thresholds are lower so as my own shop grows I can see a big payout.
I just calculated that my profits will go down by 22.5% if next year's sales are identical to this year's. If my shop continues to grow (which it will) the profits will be down even more than 22.5%. I currently get less than 5% of my sales from my shop (used to be more) - over 95% are from the Marketplace (thanks to CafePress promoting their Marketplace so heavily). Thanks for stealing almost a quarter of my profits, CafePress. I will now be diversifying my items to Zazzle and Printfection so I don't rely so heavily on profits from one POD source. Screw you, CafePress - you've definitely screwed me.
I just calculated that my profits will go down by 22.5% if next year's sales are identical to this year's. If my shop continues to grow (which it will) the profits will be down even more than 22.5%. I currently get less than 5% of my sales from my shop (used to be more) - over 95% are from the Marketplace (thanks to CafePress promoting their Marketplace so heavily). Thanks for stealing almost a quarter of my profits, CafePress. I will now be diversifying my items to Zazzle and Printfection so I don't rely so heavily on profits from one POD source. Screw you, CafePress - you've definitely screwed me.
Just to play devil's advocate here...
You still make money through the CP marketplace. It is the biggest marketplace out there, and you say yourself you make 95% of your sales from there already.
So if you focus on selling things at another POD that does not have a strong marketplace, and let your CP store stagnate, then you are just shooting yourself in the foot.
I understand being upset about what you feel CP has done to you by cutting a percentage of your profit, but by focusing on another POD you will be cutting your profits way more than the percentage that CP just took from you.
And yes, I am a CP shopkeeper too, so I feel your pain.
I currently get less than 5% of my sales from my shop (used to be more) - over 95% are from the Marketplace (thanks to CafePress promoting their Marketplace so heavily).
That should signal to you that you need to do more marketing of your shop so you can qualify for a performance bonus.
It really doesn't make sense that they would pay you a bonus for sales that they generate for you. It was always intended to be a bonus to reward your marketing efforts, not theirs. In effect, they are paying you twice for all the advertising they are doing.
I think it is hard to condemn cafepress for keeping Marketplace sales out of the bonus pay. After all, these are sales generated by their own marketing efforts. Sure– we are the people that develop the designs and we could find our other sources for the merchandise and print, but even if we did, we still wouldn't have any customers.
Unless you are making individual efforts to promote your shop, and these efforts are very successful, the only way you are going to see any traffic (and therefore sales) is through the marketplace.
I think many shopkeepers are too arrogant, thinking that their own designs deserve more of a demand then others and they want to prove that by building a huge following. In my opinion, especially with the new bonus schedule, shopkeepers should work together to cross-promote each others shops.
When you really look at it, there are tons customers out there– enough for everyone. If we team up and increase our exposure, there is a much better chance for the customer to find you.
I don't actually know the rules on T-shirt forums. Can I post other urls?
If you agree with me, there are many other forums with other people that feel the same way. Some of them are making progress on the team marketing concept. Check out the Alliance of Shopkeepers at Cafepress (ASKCP) on Squidoo and look on the cafepress member forums under how to promote your shop for a group that is starting a blog exchange.
We can also put together a link exchange on this forum if there is interest.
Bottom line: it is going to take a little work to get the kind of exposure to beat the new volume bonus, but with a little teamwork, it will make it a little easier.
Changes in Cafepress volume bonus 
Re: Changes in Cafepress volume bonus 
