[jkruse]

I thought that cafe press was the only one that made profits.

To be honest I can't take anyone serious that has a store on cafe press, it's just a sea of mediocrity. If you're serious about starting a clothing line get them screen printed and start selling them at your own online store.

 

[obeseman]

Re: Cafepress sellers... Your best month???

Hello jkruse
As you state you are serious, i had a look at your site and it is not a site I would buy from.Mainly due to not liking any of the designs you have, to me they are nothing special. I only ever wear T-shirts.
I'm sadly off sick from work, almost a year, and have almost no money. I can open a CP store and it only costs $6 a month. I don't have the £ to get t-shirts printed etc. When I go back to work, I wouldnt have the time to deal with customers etc. So I will be happy to join the Sea of mediocrity.

regards Obeseman

 

[BlackAndOrange]

Re: Cafepress sellers... Your best month???

That's pretty extreme to say "I dont take anyone seriously on CafePress".
I've found that those who shop on CP seem to shop there exclusively and dont seem to mind paying $25+ for a t-shirt.
I posted some designs over there last October [6 designs] and have made $300 so far. I get a consistent check every 60 days or so for $55 and my very first check from them was about $120.
On the plus side of using CP, you get a wider selection of apparel and you dont have to do any work, aside of creating the design and posting it.
On the minus side, they hold your money for 45 days after you make a sale and only pay you out when you reach a certain amount in your account.

I guess what I'm getting at is that you shouldnt use CP if you are dependent on the money. But by all means, you should open a store and throw a bunch of images in there. The first image is free, so pick out your best image and test it out for a month.

 

[deChez]

Re: Cafepress sellers... Your best month???

I have not used Cafe Press, but I think the concept could work for some.

For someone like your wife, who is a designer, but has no interest in entering the production side of the business, this could be a good outlet for her.

For someone who is considering entering the production side of the business, but wants to test market their concept or designs, this could be a good outlet.

It could even be a beneficial marketing tool for someone who does their own design and production. There's no reason why you could not have your own web store, and sell your stuff on Cafe Press.

I suspect a site like this will not be your only outlet for sales, but I think it's certainly worth looking at it to determine if it will generate supplemental revenue for you as a passive source of income.

 

[jkruse]

Re: Cafepress sellers... Your best month???

Hello jkruse
As you state you are serious, i had a look at your site and it is not a site I would buy from.Mainly due to not liking any of the designs you have, to me they are nothing special. I only ever wear T-shirts.
I'm sadly off sick from work, almost a year, and have almost no money. I can open a CP store and it only costs $6 a month. I don't have the £ to get t-shirts printed etc. When I go back to work, I wouldnt have the time to deal with customers etc. So I will be happy to join the Sea of mediocrity.

regards Obeseman

It's an honest opinion that I have and I know a lot of other people share.

You and many others don't want to spend the money and get your shirts professionally printed and I understand not wanting to spend your own money and something you don't know will be successful. Without risk there is no reward and starting a CP store you are very limited in how far you can take your clothing company.

 

[xbftees]

Re: Cafepress sellers... Your best month???

It's an honest opinion that I have and I know a lot of other people share.

You and many others don't want to spend the money and get your shirts professionally printed and I understand not wanting to spend your own money and something you don't know will be successful. Without risk there is no reward and starting a CP store you are very limited in how far you can take your clothing company.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. There are quite a few CP tshirt designers running "real" businesses and making considerable cash. See oneshorseshy.com or obeythepurebreed.com as examples. CP makes a lot of sense for illustrators whose talents lie more in design than production, and a lot of them are quite successful with this model.

I have seen a few CP based t-shirt companies that I know consistently spend well over 10k/month in marketing (just based on where I see them advertise). If they weren't doing well they probably wouldn't be able to continue to do this.

 

[Solmu]

Re: Cafepress sellers... Your best month???

As this may be something my wife might be interested in using as an outlet for her particular talents.

If she's been a textile designer for twenty five years, she's not going to be happy with the quality Cafepress has to offer.

Don't understand the attitude of the guy who would not take anybody at CP seriously, comes across as arrogant.

"Don't understand" is more apt than you know - that doesn't mean it's wrong. Yes, if we criticise a whole selling method some people have made money from we're going to sound arrogant. Like picking on children for being lousy drawers. That's what happens when education gives you an enlightened perspective - you sound like an asshole to everyone else. So, I am guilty as charged. But I agree with Jon.

 

[obeseman]

Re: Cafepress sellers... Your best month???

Hello
I thinked you missed the fact that I have NO £ at all. My wife has a part time job, we cannot get a loan etc. How can I start a T-shirt business unless with starting with POD ?.

cheers Obeseman

 

[skeeeeeetz]

A little harsh, don't you think?

I have made a profit in the three months I have been a member of cafepress. My fee to open a premium shop was accounted for in two weeks.

Is that your real question or do you just want to rip into your competition? Do you think the "sea of mediocrity" is taking away from the integrity of shopkeepers who sell t-shirts at their own stores that you can take seriously?

With all due respect, I looked at your site and there is some decent stuff but I don't think it is good enough to seek out cafepress shopkeepers and put them down on a forum as this.

I do not want to start my own clothing line and I am not a salesperson, customer service agent or web programer. I am an artist-- a designer. I want to create stuff that people would like-- that makes them happy or think a little bit. If I make a buck or two or pick up a side job from the site-- bonus!

If there is not a single person out there that can take my work seriously, I won't be disappointed. If I can find one person, however, to say, "I like that", smile or learn something from one of my designs, I am going to consider my job complete for the day and try to do it again tomorrow.

I don't need you to take me seriously.

Thanks for your input,
Skeetz

 

[Adam]

There are more savvy entrepreneurs on CafePress than you may think. Not everyone wants to print and dispatch their own product. Not everyone wants to deal with customer service. But those savvy people see more money, more profit potential, in using a POD company like CafePress.

To put everyone in the same "i want a clothing line" bracket is just ignorant. CafePress operates a company that, yes provides an outfit for them, but hundreds of other business models also. It's these people who think out of the box that are making the money. People who see a niche and act on it fast without needing to invest TIME and money. Time being the most important factor.

So CafePress may not be for you, that's fine, but saying it's a sea of mediocrity is unfair when there are people making healthy, successful, repeat business there.

 

[my_T]

jkruse, I was checking out the PYKNIC article on your howtostartaclothingcompany.com site. I don't have any of my tee designs for sale yet, but I'm considering starting with Cafepress because I don't want my home to look like this. Once your home begins to look like a messy warehouse, your quality of life goes down.

​

 

[FieldDress]

CP has a great business model and for anyone looking at starting a "business" it should be considered as a means of establishing solid market research to your designs.

 

[t_shirtfort]

Right now I rent and don't have room or the money or the owner's permission to do the printing myself, plus I used to have my own non t-shirt internet biz where I had to deal with all the annoying hassles myself. Needless to say I got burned by someone who at one time I had considered a friend, so I am so glad to have checkout, returns etc go through cafepress.

For me the only disadvantage is their base price is too high to make it worth my while to buy them myself and sell them on ebay or at festivals and fairs etc, but I don't know if that would even be worth my while, since my stuff is pretty eclectic.

 

[BrendaR]

You may not take the shopkeepers serious but those who are paying $30 for a t-shirt are taking them serious.
There's a LOT of talented people on CP making tons of money. Why would you minimize that?
Not everyone wants their own "clothing line". They just enjoy making cool looking t-shirts and CP gives them the opportunity to do so.

 

[susansavad]

I really like the print on demand concept. I can concentrate on my designs and let CafePress handle printing, shipping, returns etc. I have no overhead exept for the monthly fee and each of my designs is on over 100 products.

It seemed to me to be the easiest way to have a small business.

Flower Designs by Susan

 

[monkeylantern]

Like the OP and Solmu, I would regard Cafepress to the clothing industy as a lemonade stand is to Coca Cola.

 

[jboitcet]

I would regard Cafepress to the clothing industy as a lemonade stand is to Coca Cola.

That's freaking hilarious!

 

[Tshirtguy]

Oh man, you are way off on cafepress. Yes there are tons of sites on there that do nothing but clutter up the place but I know people that make over 5k a month in profit with cafepress doing the work.
I've sold thousands of shirts on cafepress.

 

[skeeeeeetz]

Not that any Coke executives are hanging out on this forum, either. There is plenty of trash on the site, but it is a fine outlet for creatives to display their work and make a few bucks with minimal effort.

 

[Tshirtguy]

I started on cafepress and then switched to my own site and making my own shirts. My sales have always grown since I started 3 years ago but I find being on or off cafepress didn't make a difference.
With cafepress I can offer a lot of products that I wouldn't otherwise.
I actually just switched back to cafepress because it was taking more and more time to create and send out all the orders. Now I can finally relax again.