I was coming here to post the same thing!
This is absurd!!!!! So many shopkeepers ar PO'd and leaving.
I am leaving also! My work is worth a LOT more than 10%

 

I agree it is absurd. Are you moving to another POD? I am looking at Zazzle, but not sure if I want to pull all my designs from CP. This whole situation is so frustrating!

 

so, for a basic $20 shirt that's a whole $2. What a shame. That totally diminishes our role as SKs at CafePress. Do we get the option of turning off the Marketplace?

 

Yes, I think there's always been an option of opting out of the marketplace.

Not saying this is the perfect decision by cafepress, but I'm curious, as a shopkeeper, is $0 by opting out of the marketplace better than the $2 that you may not have had with the marketplace promotion done by cafepress?

From what I understand, this is only for the sales that Cafepress is generating, not for any promotion the shopkeeper is doing to drive sales to their individual store.

 

Those are some pretty big changes

 

As I am a homeless person and can't work on my store enough to get much direct traffic, just about all my sales come from the marketplace.

I was making enough to live on and people were happy to pay $6 mark-up. Now I will be closing my shops at CP and moving to others. My Printfection and Zazzle stores have been gaining in sales over the past few months so I will be working on those stores instead.

Bye Bye CP

http://www.podreviews.info

 

And I thought dumping the volume bonus program at CP made the shopkeepers angry. They must have steam coming from their ears right about now. 10% is an absolute joke.

Personally I don't make jack over there anyway, so I probably won't opt out or anything, but I will maximize my effort towards zazzle and printfection over CP instead of the other way around from now on.

 

10% is not just a joke it is kinda theft by cafepress. Cause in the "marketplace changes FAQ" the want to set the retail price for a "Mens Light T-Shirt" between $20 and $25. The base price is $14.99. That could mean a markup between $5 and $10 by cafepress for the marketplace. The shopkeepers who make the designs get $2 to $2.50 for a marketplace sale. What again means that cafepress will make $7.50 more on a light shirt. Yeah sure that is fair.

I have no problem with the changes in the marketplace to fight tag spam and make some more quality designs show up in the first few pages. I also have no problem with setting prices per product in the marketplace by cafepress. But if they going to markup $10, than I want $10 and not $2.50

I think this will take a big piece out of cafepress income cake. Why should people stay at cafepress for 10% and pay for a premium shop every month if they can get their markup and a shop for free at other pods?

 

Hi

I have been looking at both Cafe Press and Zazzle. I like their excitement of their sites.

I had no success with what I wanted to do, but I think that was my own fault.

I am looking at the deconetwork system. I used their shops and they are much more detailed, but I thibk the Zazzle and Cafe press sites are huge on volume. I think that huge volume may have lost my offerings there. Their own success foils the opportunity to be seen.

What sort of success are you having at Cafepress and Zazzle. I tried for over a year and only sold to my friends and family anyway. That was not bad -but it was not the business that I want to create.

 

Basically it is bad news for shops that rely on market place sales. I simply opted out of the market place, and removed all tags from my images. I'll keep my own pricing structure and markup thank you...

Since I started on CP, I have always treated my store as a web site all it's own. I promote it, market it and generate traffic and qualified buyers to it. NOT the market place. Sure, I've seen a few sales come from the market place but nothing near what I do from my own marketing efforts. Furthermore, in my particular niche I think my designs are far better than what the market place has in it.

Having said all that, I'll survive on CP until I research other POD options. I'll make a move by the end of the year. With the move they just made, all their good designers are going to bail and the whole site is going to be a joke. I'd rather not take part in that.

 

I'm going to spend most of my energy at Printfection now. They don't have the range of non-apparal products but their printing quality is supurb.

Rowan

 

We used to sell through CP exclusively but several months ago set up our own site apart from CP and now sell most of our tees through our own site. We had left our designs on CP since we were making some money from the marketplace, but now, with this change, we will be removing all of our designs from CP. I am not willing to let them pay out a comission of $1-$2 for my designs, even if I made an extra $100/month through MP, it wouldn't be worth it.

I hope more SKs leave over this, this is a bad move on CPs part. It's bad for the SKs and only good for CP.

 

Why should people stay at cafepress for 10% and pay for a premium shop every month if they can get their markup and a shop for free at other pods?

This is probably not a popular opinion by me, but if CafePress is spending 100% of the money, time, effort to generate sales for the marketplace. Sales that the shopkeeper would not have had without the marketplace, it does make some sense that they would need to make sure they continue to have a budget to drive those sales.

My guess is that the marketing/advertising budget for the marketplace isn't covered by the premium shop fee or the base price. Maybe they could previously cover it when the marketplace first started, but I think the marketplace outgrew their expectations and costs more to manage than it did when it originated.

I always considered marketplace sales (for any fulfillment company) to be just gravy on top of the main sales that the t-shirt seller has to do on their own to drive traffic to their individual stores.

Yes, it's a mutually beneficial relationship (cafepress needs designs to even sell in the marketplace and shopkeepers need cafepress to keep spending big money on the marketplace to drive sales to get any money from the marketplace).

But like in a traditional retail outlet (like a brick and mortar store), CafePress is actually taking on most of the risk (overhead, advertising, printing, hosting, etc). In both situations, the party that's taking on the most risk stands to make the most of the profit.

Let me just say that I don't know if this was the best move for CafePress. It probably could have been handled better, explained better, or lead up to better. I don't know their financials, so I can't say if there would have been a better way to keep generating advertising dollars to keep the level of sales from the marketplace that so many shopkeepers benefit from. Could it have been done by raising base prices? Raising premium shop fees? Creating an "advertising costs" fee for marketplace sales? I'm not sure. But I can see both sides in this messed up situation.

One part I don't understand is that they are trying to make the pricing less confusing for the buyers, but having one pricing in the marketplace and one pricing in the store for the same design seems confusing as well.

By contrast, Zazzle has always been more marketplace focused and for the longest time they only paid 10% as well for those marketplace sales. Just recently they've added the ability for their sellers to increase their markup commission. I'm guessing by listening to feedback from the sellers. It does seem weird that cafepress would go in the reverse direction.

 

Brick and Mortars usually pay a wholesale price of 50%, not 10%.

I had essentially been thinking of CP as an affiliate for my main site. Were they doing more than a traditional affiliate, yes, were they making more than a traditional affiliate, yes. That said, I am not willing to give any affiliate 90% commission, thus I'm removing all my designs.

There are a million ways CP could've been smarter about this and even attracted better and more designers. Will this be bad for PR, probably. Will it hurt their profit margins, I guess it remains to be seen.

 

Brick and Mortars usually pay a wholesale price of 50%, not 10%.

Very true, but then again, brick and mortars that pay a 50% wholesale price are taking the risk and they buy the inventory up front to carry in their store. In this case, the store is taking on an even greater risk because they are buying pre-printed inventory that may or may not sell.

Also, when a retail store buys a t-shirt from a designer at wholesale, say $10, the designer still has to pay for the costs of the goods they sold. The retailer then turns around and marks up the product they bought at least 100%, if not more. So the retailer will still make more than the designer on the transaction. Say the designer paid $5 to get the t-shirt printed wholesale, they make $5 on the sale and the retailer makes $10 or more on each sale in that scenario.

In CafePress's scenario, it would actually be more analogous to a consignment scenario (but still doesn't quite fit) where CafePress is showcasing the product in their "store" and *if* the product sells, they pay a commission on the sale. There's a bit more to it because CafePress is also producing the item on demand, but in consignment scenarios, the commission is more around 20%-30%.

That said, I am not willing to give any affiliate 90% commission, thus I'm removing all my designs.

What about if the affiliate was also producing the product for you, handling all the payments, handling the customer service, etc?

Usually, in an affiliate arrangement, the merchant (you), would have the product in house, ready to ship, and you would sell through your own store where you processed the transactions. In that case, you'd be taking on most of the work/risk and the affiliate that did the marketing/advertising effort that generated the sale would earn a small percentage.

There are a million ways CP could've been smarter about this and even attracted better and more designers. Will this be bad for PR, probably. Will it hurt their profit margins, I guess it remains to be seen.

True, true and very true.

 

What about if the affiliate was also producing the product for you, handling all the payments, handling the customer service, etc?

I hear ya, and like I said, I was fine with them charging the base prices they had when I set up my shop because they were doing the customer service, credit card transaction, production and fulfillment.

I am just not willing to agree to a 10% commission for licensing my art. The return is too small and I can do better selling my tees myself. I already shut down my shop and deleted my hundreds of designs/products.

The thing I find most troubling is that CP is going to potentially undercut the shopkeepers. If you have your own site/shop and you sell a tee for $30, CP can sell the exact same thing for $25 and take your customers. They claim shoppers won't figure this out, I think they probably will. That alone is enough reason not to be involved with them.

 

The thing I find most troubling is that CP is going to potentially undercut the shopkeepers. If you have your own site/shop and you sell a tee for $30, CP can sell the exact same thing for $25 and take your customers.

That is definitely a troubling aspect of the "we manage pricing" thing they're doing.

I am just not willing to agree to a 10% commission for licensing my art. The return is too small and I can do better selling my tees myself.

This is one aspect I'm trying to better understand.

Why not do both? There's almost zero investment with CP, so it seems like the return on that investment would be pretty big. If they are going to spend money to send sales that wouldn't have existed for you anyway, how does that make it not worth it?

I'm definitely not knocking you for it, but I'm really trying to understand it, because you're definitely not the only person that feels that way.

I think that selling your art yourself is a great option for many people. It just takes a bit more work, money and effort. Heck, we've got a whole forum of people here to help guide you if you wanted to do it all yourself or just outsource some of it

But for others, using a fulfillment company is a perfect option. No worrying about learning the printing process, setting up a web host, getting a merchant account, processing orders...it allows some to focus just on their strengths (designing and/or marketing)

 

Why not do both? There's almost zero investment with CP, so it seems like the return on that investment would be pretty big. If they are going to spend money to send sales that wouldn't have existed for you anyway, how does that make it not worth it?

A couple of reasons, and I can only explain mine, not sure about others.
1. Selling on a POD dilutes our brand, if we are making good money by doing so, it's an easier case to make. When we're making pocket change, it loses its value for us.
2. It's a matter of principal. I don't agree that they have the right to determine the value of my creative intellectual property. I think this might be the heart of where a lot of people are coming from.
3. It is not worth the 20 minutes of my time it would take to upload designs and put them on products to make $2.00/sale. I could spend that time on my own website.

I think that selling your art yourself is a great option for many people. It just takes a bit more work, money and effort. Heck, we've got a whole forum of people here to help guide you if you wanted to do it all yourself or just outsource some of it

It is both rewarding and a major investment (time and money and effort). We've been able to make it work for us so that's why we moved away from POD. We started out with POD and it was a good place for us to start out, but it's just not workable for us in the long term for many reasons and this kind of BS is just one of those reasons. We have other problems with POD but this was the final straw with CP and now I just don't want to do the work of setting up with another POD to take their place.

But for others, using a fulfillment company is a perfect option. No worrying about learning the printing process, setting up a web host, getting a merchant account, processing orders...it allows some to focus just on their strengths (designing and/or marketing)

I am definitely not anti-POD. I am just anti-Cafe Press. I hope the other SKs who want to do POD move on to another POD that allows them to determine the value of their work and there are several of them out there. I think CP needs to be made aware that there is a problem with what they are doing.

They are even paying affiliates more than they are paying the SKs because apparently their labor is more valuable than the artists' labor. I really hope this blatant disrespect for artists comes with some consequences for them.

 

A couple of reasons, and I can only explain mine, not sure about others.
1. Selling on a POD dilutes our brand, if we are making good money by doing so, it's an easier case to make. When we're making pocket change, it loses its value for us.
2. It's a matter of principal. I don't agree that they have the right to determine the value of my creative intellectual property. I think this might be the heart of where a lot of people are coming from.
3. It is not worth the 20 minutes of my time it would take to upload designs and put them on products to make $2.00/sale. I could spend that time on my own website.

Thank you for this! That really helps me grasp "it's not worth it" better. I don't think I've heard it put as clearly as that, and what you say makes sense coming from an artist perspective.

 

@Rodney

Cafepress said they wanna bring more quality designs to the first few pages. What keeps them from making a deal with partners and sell those spots. It would be no surprise.

Then there is the thing with the now and then. Now lots of people have a markup on shirts whats between 6 and 10 dollars. What means they need to sell now 3 to 5 time more than now to get the same money.

And lets not forget the marketplace cookie. Some people have claimed already that sales show up as marketplace sale if they knew it has been a shop sale, cause it was a friend or family member. Cafepress explained that with if the person has been in the Marketplace before a cookie is set and its automatically a marketplace sale. How convinient is that and will be for the future?

CP don't wanna make it less confusing for the buyer. That is just marketing bla bla crap. Cause its obviously not less confusing. What they want is more money and more control.

 

And lets not forget the marketplace cookie. Some people have claimed already that sales show up as marketplace sale if they knew it has been a shop sale, cause it was a friend or family member. Cafepress explained that with if the person has been in the Marketplace before a cookie is set and its automatically a marketplace sale. How convinient is that and will be for the future?

I've heard about this problem at Cafepress forums. This is what I'm worried about right now. I'm mostly OK if Cafepress really keeps the marketplace separate from the store. I've opted out of the marketplace, and deleted all image tags, so in principle every sale should come from the store. But if there's a marketplace cookie involved then CP could still be undercutting my store.

I think I'll see what happens with CP, but maybe try another POD because it does take time to get indexed by search engines. Argh I'm not sure, because I have to focus on getting more shirt designs out too. (It may also be confusing to a shopper to have stuff show up at different PODs...)

 

The analogies to retail don't hold up that well; unlike in that situation Cafepress are doing everything except design the graphic for the shirt. It's far more analogous to designing something for Target, etc. In which case 10% commission is exceptionally generous, in addition to the upfront payment you'd usually receive. The problem is that no-one signed up for Cafepress thinking of it as a designer for hire arrangement, they sign up looking to start a small business. That and Cafepress aren't paying out the design fees, just the royalty.

Technically for most SKs turning off the marketplace would be just cutting your nose off to spite your face (I disagree that customers are smart enough to figure out how to get cheaper prices, although the falsely declared marketplace sales are a big problem), but I definitely sympathise with the fact that it's the principle of the matter.

 

@Solmu ...

...Cafepress are doing everything except design the graphic for the shirt.

I have a different view at that. Its not like shopkeepers just make the design and uploading it and then they are done. They place the design on products, fit them on the products, tagging them, making descriptions, titles and driving traffic to cafepress with marketing their shops (every shop has links or ads to cafepress).

So shopkeepers do much more than just a design.

 

Yeah I completely agree what a rip off. They basically are making it so you cant make a decent income whatsoever.

 

Cafepress said they wanna bring more quality designs to the first few pages. What keeps them from making a deal with partners and sell those spots. It would be no surprise.

My question - who determines "quality designs"?
I've certainly got a different idea from the guy across the room - why does CP feel they know the "right" answer???

Of course, we function as a full service shop, and also do fulfillment for non-profits. We don't use CP - tried it once 5 years ago, we weren't impressed. The quality wasn't bad, but the exposure was.

 

My question - who determines "quality designs"?
I've certainly got a different idea from the guy across the room - why does CP feel they know the "right" answer???

Because Cafepress have the sales data to back it up.

I'd bet the determination of "quality" will have more to do with sales, views, searches, etc. than staff intervention.

 

driving traffic to cafepress with marketing their shops

I don't think this really factors into it. When shopkeepers drive traffic to their shop, they aren't effected by the marketplace changes at all.

The amount of time, effort and money that CafePress spends in driving sales to the marketplace far outweighs the traffic that might trickle in because of a link to cafepress in the basic or premium stores.

Its not like shopkeepers just make the design and uploading it and then they are done. They place the design on products, fit them on the products, tagging them, making descriptions, titles

I don't think those extra things still don't outweigh the amount of work CafePress does in the equation.

If a shopper knows he may buy the same shirt from the Marketplace, then he can browse my (organized) store, pick out a design he likes, and search the Marketplace to get a better deal. When the buyer wears the shirt, and others ask him where he got the shirt, he may say "Cafepress" instead of "MyStoreName." Same problem if someone writes about a shirt online and links to the Marketplace instead of the store.

While I'm not sure what percentage of customers would know about this or take the time to do it, I do agree that it could pose a problem. Especially the "I bought it from cafepress" instead of "I bought it from yourstorename". That type of word of mouth referral is important.

I'm not sure how they plan to deal with the "one pricing in the marketplace and one pricing in the store" thing. That seems like a big issue.

Then there is the thing with the now and then. Now lots of people have a markup on shirts whats between 6 and 10 dollars. What means they need to sell now 3 to 5 time more than now to get the same money.

That is very true. However, they also didn't do any marketing or advertising to get the initial sales from the marketplace. If the shopkeeper then focuses the 3 to 5 times more effort in advertising their individual store, it's possible they could make up the difference that way.

What I think would be interesting is to see what shopkeepers suggest as an "alternative" solution to the issue.

How I personally see the issue: CafePress is spending a lot of money to advertise the marketplace and send sales to shopkeepers. This money has to come from somewhere. It isn't covered by the base price and it isn't covered by the premium shop fee (both of those were calculated before the marketplace ever existed).

Where should the money come from to keep driving those sales?

And lets not forget the marketplace cookie. Some people have claimed already that sales show up as marketplace sale if they knew it has been a shop sale, cause it was a friend or family member. Cafepress explained that with if the person has been in the Marketplace before a cookie is set and its automatically a marketplace sale. How convinient is that and will be for the future?

I hadn't heard about this issue. So if the shopper initially finds cafepress via the marketplace, and then (weeks?) later comes to buy at an individual store, then the marketplace would get credit for the sale?

This is sort of how it works with affiliate cookies I think. Whoever initially introduced the shopper to the merchant gets credit for the sale? Or maybe it's the opposite. Whoever the last person to help get the shopper to make a purchase gets credit for the sale?

I can see how that could make things really tricky with getting the commissions right (marketplace vs individual shop)

 

Where should the money come from to keep driving those sales?

I'm not a Cafepress shopkeeper, but I would have said it should come from an increased commission on marketplace sales. Just not to the point of the designer only getting 10%. Their promotional and maintenance costs for the marketplace couldn't possibly be that high.

Plus their cost of doing business in other areas (e.g. DTG printers) is lowering every year. Blank prices are staying much the same. Server costs, bandwidth costs, etc. are constantly lowering. Theoretically their profit margins should be slowly increasing. Which is why increased services make sense - use the increased profit margin to offer extra services at no cost (like the marketplace) which in turn drive up further sales, which in turn drive up further profit.

I don't find it plausible that their cost of running the marketplace is so high that they need to make these changes.

More likely the economic downturn means they're seeing decreased sales across the board. They are a large company with large overheads. So while their profit margins would theoretically have been doing just fine, the lowered sales mean their overheads are biting into their profit. So they're looking for ways to squeeze out some more money.

In other words, this is Cafepress' response to the recession. As such, maybe it really is necessary. It's just hard not to look at it from a pre-recession economics point of view where it wouldn't be justified.

 

As a new tshirt company I started small by using a third party - Cafepress - since it was a full service production apparel company which allowed me to stay on the creative side while they fulfilled my orders and drove traffic via their marketplace. As a n00b shop owner / shopkeeper of any sized business it is of course your duty to build your brand and advertise in order to attract more business / buyers. However, Cafepress and competitors like Zazzle, Spreadshirt, and Printfection have allowed aspiring designers to create designs and drive online traffic using their marketplace community that they have built. The upshot of these companies is that they have a hands-off approach for the owner to the rest of the logistics - i.e. order taking, online payments, customer service, printing, warehousing, shipping, tracking, etc. I started my company by using CP and immediately had some fairly decent success via sales from the marketplace. Cafe Press allowed me to set my own price points / commissions which were fairly modest, and CP would receive the base price for the item sold, plus I paid them about $50 a year to be a premium shop, where I could customize the look of my shop and the functionality. NOW however Cafepress.com has become TOO greedy, they sent their CP owners a letter today explaining they are making 2 significant changes, effective (almost) immediately:

1) They made new changes to their algorithm in order to deliver the shirt and merch that shoppers are looking for without redundancy.

2) They are now taking over the setting of prices in the marketplace for the shopowner and therefore they are dictating what the shopkeepers will receive as a commission - which is 10% of the final retail price. Although this may seem like a decent amount, in the grand scheme of things it is not... and it is a slap in the face to shop owners who are barely making that much money as is... Therefore I sent them a letter which read:

I recently read the email sent out about the new marketplace changes and the marketplace commissioning structure and I am now an extremely upset and worried shopkeeper. I read the email, the FAQ at length, read the seller services / shop services info and read the shop pricing policy / pricing policy, and from what I understand you are cutting my commission from my normal markup (where I decide my commission) to only 10% of the price if it is sold through the marketplace? I understand that if someone buys directly through my shop I will receive the full markup, but as is, many people do not know my shop name and don't realize that buying through the marketplace gives the shopowner a much smaller commission. As a newbie shopkeeper, most of my sales are through the marketplace, and I've received decent returns on my designs thus far. However, by cutting my commission via the marketplace to a regulated 10% plus charging me a monthly fee for being a shopkeeper, it doesn't seem worth it when you have competitors like Zazzle who charge no fee whatsoever, let the shopkeeper make and control their own pricepoints, and gives the shopkeeper 7-12% extra commission based on monthly tiered structure. Yes, cafepress gives the shopowner additional extras if they sell over $100 in their own shop, but Zazzle doesn't delineate between marketplace sales and shop sales as Cafepress does.

So to get it straight, what these new terms are saying are for example:

If a shopkeeper sets the pricing on a shirt at say $5 and the value shirt is $8.99 for the base price, the price in the marketplace and on the premium shop would go up to $8.99+$5= $13.99 but instead of making $5, the shop owner only receive $1.39 because that's 10%? So not only would Cafepress make the $8.99 but they'd also make an additional $3.61 that used to be the owners commission?

PLEASE ADVISE, because from what it sounds like, this doesn't seem to be a fair way to treat clients (i.e. shopkeepers) who are making the designs, being the creative team, putting their sites together, and driving the traffic that Cafepress thrives off of. Please let me know if my understanding is wrong on this, because as is, it doesn't seem fair to spring this plan on the shopkeepers and tell them that they have less than 2 weeks to prepare to have their marketplace sales slashed by about 60%+.

I received a response from Cafepress support which confirms my suspicions... Yes, they will be basically screwing us over royal. Here's the response...

Hello,

Thank you for your email. From what I can see, you have a clear understanding of how the Marketplace will operate going forward. The Marketplace pricing change goes live on June 1, 2009, at that point the example you gave will be correct. The first check that will show this change will be in August (for June Sales).

The root of the decision to change the merchandise commission structure in the Marketplace has to do with the unique economics of running the Marketplace; they're very different from those of supplying a shop. With the marketplace we have marketing programs that drives new traffic and focus on new customer acquisition, and with shops we leave the marketing up to the shop owners and they drive their own traffic.

I know this information doesn't change things, but I hope it helps to clarify some of our reasons.

-------

In the end the Customer Service rep basically knows they are in the wrong, and is saying sorry that SK's are getting screwed left and right. Ultimately, I understand that marketing your individual site is key, but the Marketplace is another venue with a ton of exposure, in fact it's magnitude was one of the main reasons I went with CP in the first place. Without the marketplace, CP would be a lesser entity than other POD places since they charge SK's a membership fee and have exorbitant base prices. I think since I recently paid for my renewal on CP, I'll keep my designs on till my yearly fee is up, but in the mean time I'll be spending more time setting my designs up on other POD marketplaces that are more forgiving and act less like dictators.

 

In the end the Customer Service rep basically knows they are in the wrong, and is saying sorry that SK's are getting screwed left and right.

I didn't get that impression from the email you quoted from the CafePress representative.

Without the marketplace, CP would be a lesser entity than other POD places since they charge SK's a membership fee and have exorbitant base prices.

I'm not sure that's really true. Most of the pricing is pretty similar across the various POD places.

Again, I'd ask:

How I personally see the issue: CafePress is spending a lot of money to advertise the marketplace and send sales to shopkeepers. This money has to come from somewhere. It isn't covered by the base price and it isn't covered by the premium shop fee (both of those were calculated before the marketplace ever existed).

The question then is: Where should the money come from to keep driving those sales?

 

The question then is: Where should the money come from to keep driving those sales?

Why not allow SKs to pay extra for preferential placement in the MP? Why not offer SKs a CPC system for clicks from the MP similar to how Adwords works and even have a system like Adwords where products that perform well get preferential pricing? There are ways they could've done this that would've made SKs happy and still generated revenue to pay for the advertising. All they've done is piss people off and had people leave their site because of this.

 

Why not allow SKs to pay extra for preferential placement in the MP? Why not offer SKs a CPC system for clicks from the MP similar to how Adwords works and even have a system like Adwords where products that perform well get preferential pricing?

If they'd gone down that path the people complaining about 10% commissions would be way worse off.

At least this way there is a cap - just as you won't get more, you won't get less either.

In a PPC bidding war I have no doubt the top slots of Cafepress would quickly be overrun by people willing to sacrifice their margins to the point of making pennies per design.

 

I went out and bought my own domain, I've used google feeds (When they actually go through that is) I do adwords. I have made squidoo sites, I have mentioned my store on facebook (not that my cheap friends care but still...) and still it says I get all my sales from the marketplace.

I even bought a book on seo and occasionally go to boring seo sites where they want you to buy an e-book. To me its gobbly **** and didn't help so I concentrated on adding more quality designs (along with some quick ones here and there). That was working. I've gotten more and more sales, and had a few hits. Now I am being told that as a shopkeeper who puts efforts into her designs and has earned them a bit of money, I mean nothing to cafepress. I guess they only care about spammer types who flood the marketplace with designs in every color for every name in the world they designed with ms wordart. If cafepress goes through with this that's what will be left and it will kill the company altogether.

I am going to opt out of the marketplace if they go through with this sucicidal plan. I should close my store altogether but I have put tons of effort into it.

I would love to be a real world type who prints the shirts myself, but I rent and have no room, so pods are the way I and many others go. After years of having a successful sales model because of the designers I can't belive this is the way cafepress repays the shopkeepers who are it's backbone.