[poess]

I have a premium shop and I've made one sale. I have original designs and people say they're good...hope they were being honest..
anyway, I have done quite a few things to promote my shop.
I've changed my signature in every forum I frequent, I've told freinds and family, put out a press release yesterday, and went through selfpromotion.com (which was a great suggestion, thanks to t-shirt forum!)
Is there anything I'm missing? Or am I just impatient? Or do I suck?
Thanks!

 

[BurnTees]

the link didn't work

 

[kahseong]

same here! was dying to see some sales come in.
anyway to increase the chance to being searched on cafepress?

 

[Rodney]

It will take a while for any search engine optimization to kick in.

Marketing is not something that you can always just set and forget. You need to be getting the word out there about your designs in every way possible.

Find more sites to link to you, find places to advertise your products (blogs, related websites, newsletters, offline media), make a blog or separate site about your products and keep it updated with funny, interesting related information.

Whatever you do, DON'T rely on the cafepress marketplace to bring customers to you. Otherwise, you'll be waiting a long time to start making some real money.

You have to find the customers yourself

 

[Adam]

Here here. You can do better tapping into your niche than CafePress can. It's interesting looking at the new sale reports and seeing what percentage MP sales are... I think mine were 15%.

The only tips are: tag well

 

[jacenuby]

Hey...I just posted looking for advice on my site and order issues. I agree with Rodney's advice on Cafe Press. I decided not to go with them because I thought I'd have little control and choice over my finished product. Don't know how the premium store works...but I thought Cafe Press seemed better for someone that wanted one or just a few private slogan shirts cheaply. Sort of a print on command thing with an option to see if you can sell a few to others. I guess I question the sites ability to find customers for a premium line and not a great place to brand a premium product.

You'll just have to keep up the marketing efforts on all fronts. I'm sure your stuff has an audience...you just may not have exposed enough of it yet.

I know I have a lot of marketing left to do. It appears this may take more time and maybe money than I hoped. I'm looking today to find out how much time & money it took some of the veterans.

Are there too many of us out there now? Do we need to be selling shirts at lower prices? Wal-Mart is competing with us now too through a label I haven't seen before. There's alot of clutter to hack through out there.

 

[Rodney]

I agree with Rodney's advice on Cafe Press. I decided not to go with them because I thought I'd have little control and choice over my finished product. Don't know how the premium store works...but I thought Cafe Press seemed better for someone that wanted one or just a few private slogan shirts cheaply

Actually, my advice wasn't to "not" use cafepress. Just not to rely on them for your marketing. I don't really think it's the job of *any* fulfillment company to find customers for their merchants.

The fulfillment company (cafepress/zazzle/spreadshirt/etc) are just the printers and shippers. All the responsibility of marketing and advertising should always fall to the person making the designs or starting the business.

I use cafepress and recommend them to people who want to get started

CafePress can work for all types of businesses (big corporations or people starting a t-shirt line or someone just wanting one t-shirt).

Are there too many of us out there now? Do we need to be selling shirts at lower prices? Wal-Mart is competing with us now too through a label I haven't seen before. There's alot of clutter to hack through out there.

There have ALWAYS been lots of t-shirt brands and t-shirts in major retail outlets.

If you have original designs, then walmart will never be your competitor. There are people who shop at walmart for a $5 and there are people who buy t-shirts for $20+ without blinking an eye. You want the latter as your customer and target market

 

[poess]

Thanks everyone!
I have been trying to tag well, I hope I have.
I didn't know cafepress.com would promote for you at all...I started off assuming this was a tool to get my design on a t-shirt more efficiantly and have somewhere to sell it that was good for me too...I came into it knowing I would have to push my site if anyone was going to come to it.
I just don't really know who would like my tees..I mean, people do..but what would my niche be for artistic tees? Not sure how to go about promoting my site to my target customers...because I don't know who they are..and I know that's one of my main problems right now.
I'll keep at what I've been doing then, as I think I have done all above mentioned.
Thanks again so much for the advice and if anyone could help with the whole "who is my niche" thing..that would be cool..if not, I'll figure it out.
Thanks!
wow, I talk alot..
And I hope my link works now...

 

[Rodney]

I just don't really know who would like my tees..I mean, people do..but what would my niche be for artistic tees? Not sure how to go about promoting my site to my target customers...because I don't know who they are..and I know that's one of my main problems right now.

I think then identifying your target customers should be your primary focus right now. Without that, you'll have a hard time marketing your site correctly.

I came into it knowing I would have to push my site if anyone was going to come to it.

That's perfect. Who did you have in mind that you would "push" your site to when you starting designing your t-shirts or when you decided you were going to sell them, who did you think would buy them?

If you would buy them, then what are some characteristics that you would share with others like you?

 

[skulltshirts]

No you link doesnt work!

 

[poess]

Mkay...I think I fixed the link...let me know.

I would buy my stuff..and other artistic people. I also have humorous shirts people like...like one that says "My Credit Motto: If you say you'll bill me it's free"
anyway, I guess I need to find people who like humor and art...but those are such broad catagories...
I knew I had to push this when I started and thought about the people who would like my designs..but at the same time I didn't really think of what "catagory" I could sqeeze them into and find them...
I guess I just kindof thought that I would try to have as many people see my shop as I could and out of those hopefully a few would pan out.
now I see that's not a good idea...

 

[Despotte]

There are also some sites that tend to attract the CafePress type crowd like MySpace, ALot of college sites and anything that attracts the college crowd. Also remember that if you are on CafePress you have a built in AFFILIATE PROGRAM and that can be put to great use. (you can get almost any site to put a link to your site if you can explain to them that they can get 20% commision) I have even had OTHER Tshirt Sites (not CafePress stores but Independants) Just because My stuff complimented theirs and it gave thier customers a Larger Choice and they still got a good paycheck out of it. Talk about your site ALWAYS.

 

[kahseong]

search engine optimization would be a useful techniques to shoot up the ranking of your webpage on google or other search engine. but this is really hard to do. hope that some one could shed some lights...

by the way, is there any website like a "t shirt shopping portal" you know? just like yellow pages where all of us could group up and post our link there? that would increase our chance of being spotted rather than just putting up on cafepress alone...

 

[Rodney]

by the way, is there any website like a "t shirt shopping portal"

There are lots of those type websites which have varying degrees of success in sending traffic to your store. Remember, just because a site lets you post your link there, doesn't mean it will benefit you. If they aren't getting any traffic either, then it's not much help. T-ShirtShopper.com, t-shirt-directory.com, t-shirtlinks.com are just a few. If you look at the "third party tools and services" forum at cafepress, there are probably a lot more listed.

Even with those sites, you'll still need to get out there and promote Search out your target market and get your designs in front of them.