[Jorelson]

I am looking into starting a new store and have been researching all the different fulfillment services. CafePress and SpreadShirt seem to be the top two.

Anyone have any opinions on which is better overall?

I like the base prices on CafePress and the fact that there seem to be no additional costs, but dislike the variety of colors offered for shirts.

I like the color variety of SpreadShirt, but dislike the additional costs.

Speaking of which, if I create a full color image, do I incur these additional fees?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[Rodney]

It's hard to say which is "Better". They both provide different services.

CafePress has been established longer, however spreadshirt has many different shirt color options.

You just have to decide which one you want to use. Since there are no fees (at least for a cafepress basic shop), you can use both services and test them out for yourself to see which one you prefer.

You don't get charged any extra with cafepress or spreadshirt when using a full color image because they use a professional heat press to print the shirts. With a heat press, the number of colors in the design doesn't matter.

With spreadshirt, if you want to print on a dark colored shirt, the design has to be in vector format so it can be flock printed or flex printed. With these 2 print types, the printing cost does increase as the number of colors increases.

The good thing is that you don't have to pay any printing fees up front, you just mark up the design on top of their "base prices". The downside to this is that sometimes the base prices can be very close to the normal retail cost for a t-shirt, so in order to make a profit, you sometimes have to price your shirts at a premium (which isn't always a bad thing).

 

[aerosmack]

I've been running my shop "aerosmack" on cafepress for a long time now and have had really good luck with them. I opend a few free shops just to get a feel for it and ended up combining all of my designs into one premium shop. I think you pay them a few bucks a month for the premium shop, but you can do much more in the way of maintaining your shop and changing product and pricing options.

I did run into a site called printmojo that does to actual screen printing of your designs on any color of shirt you want. The down side here is that you have to buy the products and they warehouse them, take the orders and ship them etc. You have to pay a chunk of money up front and hope your designs are attractive enough to sell. It is an alternitave to cafepress, but very different in the experimentation part.

 

[LazyEights]

I've had a premium shop at Cafe Press for some time now, and I'm pretty happy with it. So that I am not totally dependent on CP I've been looking for a second fullfillment house.

SpreadShirt seems about the best for me except that there is no way to bundle products by catagory. I realize there are workarounds, but I just don't want my Hillary Clinton tees intermingled with Newt Gingrich items!

Lazy

 

[disgusting]

Hello, don't know if this is any help, but I suggest doing both. It feels a bit like cheating if you've been loyal to one or the other for any length of time. Have you checked out zazzle? They are a little clunky compared to cafepress, but if you're looking for more products they have giant prints too. You don't have the freedom that you get with a premium shop on cafepress either, but it's another place to get your stuff out there.