Whoa, March is more than half over and I just realized I haven’t updated my earnings log. But first things first. So, February. 21 sales for $197.00 in profit on Cafepress. In February 2008 I had 52 sales and $346.00 in profit. So, down about 60% in number of sales and 44% in profit. Zazzle earnings totaled $56.36, over half of that was due to a relative who bought shirts I designed for her business.
I feel like such a slacker. I have done NOTHING on my shops in about the past six weeks. I’ve been working on my vintage clothing shop on Etsy and trying to declutter my apartment and sell crap on ebay. But I figure, hey, as long as it brings in money, it’s worth my time. I need to balance my time between all of my projects, and it’s hard because I have such a one track mind. I get obsessed with one thing (currently vintage clothing) and spend all my time reading, researching and obsessing about it and pretty much lose interest in everything else. But I think I’ve reached my saturation point, so I can claw my way out and rejoin the rest of society.
I did the same thing in my early days of Cafepress. Spent hours and hours combing the internet, searching for any tidbit of information about Cafepress and the burning question that every new shopkeeper seems to have.
Can I make a living on Cafepress? How long till I can quit my job?
Sadly, I haven’t quit my job yet. But it’s in the plan. Someday.
In other news, March is going well. Things are looking up. Currently sales are only down 47% and profit down 29% compared to March 2008. So things are still down, but less down than January and February. And that makes me happy.
AND, last week I was contacted by a semi-local shop, wanting to know if I was interested in doing wholesale business with them. That’s the good part. The bad part is the person said they would talk to the sales manager and get back to me with details. But I haven’t heard back yet. So, we shall see. The idea of wholesale is a bit intimidating, and brings up a lot of new issues, which I will address in a later post. But it is encouraging that they are at least interested. I guess my designs aren’t crap after all!
I found you a week ago and I can relate. What was so exciting to me is when I read how you would check your cafepress account to see that zero still there. I enjoy reading your post and appreciate your insight, which encourages me. I have you bookmarked…..Good Luck with the wholesale stuff. Thanks for all you do.