The day CafePress ceased to be appealing @ Aleix Cortadellas

The day CafePress ceased to be appealing

Posted on April 23rd, 2009 Aleix 7 comments

Yesterday was a very sad day. For some, a tragedy. Millions of CafePress shopkeepers were shocked when they read an e-mail from CafePress announcing imminent changes in their policies, mainly concerning the markup scheme of items on sale. I am one of them as well.

Basically, the deal is that shopkeepers – starting June 1st – will no longer have the right to set their own markups on their designs: they must resign themselves to obtain a mere 10% of the sale price in the Marketplace (fixed by CafePress, of course).

As someone wrote in their Community forums, now we (shopkeepers & designers) realise that we do the hard work for hardly any profit, while those who once were manufacturers, now are exploiters. We can no longer do anything but see how few, top quality, difficult to create designs are sold for the same price than some crappy, ugly ones. We no longer have control over the price of something we created. Unfair, isn’t it?

I am thankful enough that I am not dependant on the profit I make from sales in CafePress (but of course, I really appreciate the regular check I’ve been getting until now), but some people are. Some shopkeepers have suddenly found themselves in a terrible situation, because of a decision taken at a corporate level. A decision which will change lives. Read their witness here, and try to imagine how desperating it must be for some of them.

What comes next? I’ve taken a decision: moving to Zazzle. As a seller who makes 95% of the sales through CafePress Marketplace, it is senseless for me to continue producing new designs for receiving so little profit. Ehm… did I say profit? Actually, staying in CafePress might make me (and the average shopkeeper) lose money, as to pay a $60/year Premium Shop won’t be that easy from now on. I can therefore forget about making profit, after that. So I have no other remedy, but to abandon the CP ship.

This time there’s no way back. Apologies are useless. I already made the mistake of staying, when they changed the policies regarding volume bonus. Now I regret it. So I will calmly wait until my Premium Shop expires (August 2009), get a last check and close down.

Once again, thanks CafePress. Way to reward loyal shopkeepers, even when we shopkeepers generated millions of dollars in sales for your company. I’ve been selling through them since 2002, imagine.

What will Cafepress be, without us?

For further details, I suggest reading the following blog, as well as the Community forum at CafePress.

Are you a CP shopkeeper, unhappy with these changes? Join the Facebook group here.

Computers & programming, Enterpreneurship 10%, cafepress, markup, protest, shopkeepers
7 responses to “The day CafePress ceased to be appealing”
1. a April 23rd, 2009 at 20:48
  
  This is a terrible, greedy and immoral business by CafePress. Thousands of people rely on CafePress for income and with this announcement they have basically given these people a pay cut of 50% to 80%. The most successful shopkeepers will leave CafePress for other PODs like Zazzle. CP made this decision to improve the marketplace experience for buyers, but all that will remain in the CafePress marketplace will be low quality designs. Way to go CafePress!
2. Aleix April 23rd, 2009 at 21:01
  
  I’ve been following up comments of other shopkeepers and yes, seems many of them are changing POD.
  
  A pity, I used to be so satisfied with CafePress. I even wrote a post here promoting them: http://www.aleixcortadellas.com/main/2009/01/26/starting-a-business-in-cafepress/
  
  *sigh*
3. E-Shirt.com April 24th, 2009 at 21:57
  
  In light of recent unpopular changes made by CafePress(tm) (1), we would like to extend CafePress Store Owners warm welcome to E-Shirt.com (http://e-shirt.com).
  At E-Shirt.com, we will continue to let you set the markup price for your designs both in our marketplace, and throughout our retail channels. So, not only are most of our product wholesale prices significantly lower than CafePress(tm)(2), but now you can make significantly more on each and every sale of your design, even in our marketplace.
  
  Compare two identical sales:
  One-sided White T-Shirt Design price set by store owner at $22.99 in the CafePress(tm) or E-Shirt Marketplaces (3):
  Your CafePress Profit: $17.99*10% = $1.80
  Your E-Shirt Profit: $22.99 – $13.95 = $9.04
  
  You don’t have to be a Rocket Scientist to see many people have already moved over to E-Shirt.com It all adds up to what we call the E-Shirt.com difference. Come and see for yourself.
  
  (1) Refers to announcements made on April 22, 2009 (http://announcements.cafepress.com/?p=167)
  (2) Tee (cp:$17.99, e-shirt:$13.95), Womens Tee (cp:$17.99, e-shirt:$13.95), Dark Tee (cp:$18.99, e-shirt:$16.95), Womens Tank (CP: $16.99, e-shirt:$13.95), Womens Dark (cp:$19.99, e-shirt:$18.95), Dark Long Sleeve Tee (cp:$23.99, e-shirt:$22.95), Dark Sweatshirt (cp:$29.99, e-shirt:$28.95)
  (3) Calculated using current CafePress and E-Shirt wholesale prices, and statement made by Cafepress (1).
4. J Lamb April 25th, 2009 at 02:15
  
  Please if anyone knows of an independent forum for CP Shopkeepers to discuss a plan of action not under the watchful/censorship eye of CP please post that link here. I have been looking and the yahoo group I was on has crashed. Is there a myspace group or other who are discussing this among themselves? My searches have proven fruitless and why I am posting this request here.
5. Aleix April 25th, 2009 at 08:29
  
  Hello,
  
  Try the “New Marketplace Changes” thread here: http://www.podforyou.com/forums/index.php?board=15.0
  There’s some discussion going on here too: http://www.t-shirtforums.com/cafepress/
  
  There are also threads in other forums like Zazzle’s, but they’re not independent.
  
  If someone knows more places, let us know. Thanks.
  
  Regards
6. Sheryl Karas June 12th, 2009 at 06:21
  
  I recently wrote a blog post you might find useful. It’s about the importance of SEO when it comes to marketing, how Cafepress enticed us all to build their website and do their SEO for them, and about the money grab they’re doing and the impact it has on shopkeepers now. http://healingcommunication.blogspot.com/2009/06/importance-of-good-seo.html
7. Wysel Namhel September 1st, 2009 at 16:14
  
  So happy I moved to PrintFection.com 2 years ago. Free premium stores swayed me.
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