Experience with Cafepress?

[veryweirdguy]

Hey fellas,

My webcomic has been getting some pretty okay traffic recently, sort of, ish, so I am looking at the only thing any rational human being could do: sell out.

I have a store on there currently, but as I am poor my merchandise options are limited - I can't afford to get the initial stock made for items I would like.

As such I have been looking at 'print-on'demand' services - mostly CafePress - to see if I could get some t-shirts printed up. I have a few designs ready to do, and would really like to get them out there.

I have sold a couple of designs to a t-shirt retailer online, but lose the rights to the design, etc, so thought it would be better to do it all myself. My question is: how do people feel about these types of services (specifically Cafepress)? Do we like the quality of the products? Have these stores worked out for people? Would you buy from a store like this, or would you be put off by it being a print on demand shop? WILL YOU BUY MY THINGS?

Any help is appreciated, AGS community.

[m0ds]

I'd recommend getting t-shirts made by a local printing press, setting up a web store and selling them directly yourself.

If you have people you know are going to find your store, you may be in luck. If you're just hoping people will come across it and buy, I'm pretty sure you won't have much luck. I've had a cafepress store for a decade almost now, and the only things I sold were to myself.

[InCreator]

I'm with mods here. Cafepress is bloated, overpopulated, low-quality and has quite low popularity due this.
As for business side of it, I think taking a marker and few white tees and making custom shirts on a nice saturday at the park would give you considerably more profit than something hanging in cafepress for a year.

[veryweirdguy]

I'd recommend getting t-shirts made by a local printing press, setting up a web store and selling them directly yourself.

I completely agree, in a perfect world this is what I would do. But I cannot afford the basic stock for this. This is my predicament.

I wouldn't expect people to stumble across it by any means, any potential customers would be through my webcomic and other work.

[Peder 🚀]

Look for a kind investor that will only demand % to cover the costs?

As for business side of it, I think taking a marker and few white tees and making custom shirts on a nice saturday at the park would give you considerably more profit than something hanging in cafepress for a year.

I'd definatly buy something like this!

[Baron]

Cafepress is priced ridiculously -who spends that kind of money on t-shirts?  When I was in school we did fundraising by printing t-shirts from a small local shop.  I forget exactly what the minimum number they required, but it wasn't more than 20.  I think we got them for $7 each and sold them for $15, a reasonable price that poor (and slightly intoxicated) students might be expected to fork over.  If you are working with low volume then you need to maximize your margins by getting cost per unit as low as possible, and that's not going to happen at cafepress.  Sure, you don't have to risk money on inventory, but also you will never make any money because the costs make your product unattractive.  I say if you believe in your product then fork over the $140 (20 x $7) and try to sell them.  As entrepreneurial ventures go, it's actually a remarkably small sum to risk.

[Dave Gilbert]

I use zazzle.com myself.  I've never been unhappy with anything they've made.  I made a bunch of shirts about four years ago and I still wear 'em.

-Dave