..and Zazzle is likely dancing in the streets.
A recap:
Beginning June 1 Cafepress is going to set the prices in the marketplace. Whatever markup you put on your items will only “count” in your shop. Shopkeepers will earn a 10% royalty on marketplace sales. The prices are not set in stone yet, but from their examples it looks like the maximum will be $4.00. Selling a button, sticker or magnet will net you less than $1.00.
They are making changes to the search algorithm and platform in an attempt to improve the shopping experience and reduce redundancy. They will also be securing “premium shelf placement” for quality and innovative designs. (Meaning they will decided what designs show at the top of the search results, rather than letting the market decide)
In an attempt to throw shopkeepers a bone, they will be moving the Cafepress branding from the top to the bottom of premium shops. woohoo.
I knew it was coming. But I didn’t expect it to be so soon, or so drastic. I’ve been pretty mellow about the previous changes.
First were the section limits. A lot of people were upset, threatened to close up shop and move somewhere else. But most didn’t, and they got used to the idea. I didn’t care much, since my shops were nowhere near the limit, and if I filled them up I could just open another shop.
Then the loss of the volume bonus. That one hurt a little. Especially at Christmas, but I got over it. I could understand their reasoning, and I just marked up my prices to compensate.
But now they’ve really done it. And I think people will leave. I may be one of them. In the past there have always been a few drama queens who come in to the forums and announce that they are closing up shop and moving on every time CP makes a little change. But one can’t ignore the fact that Cafepress is an 800 pound gorilla in the POD world, and most other POD sites don’t compare. But cutting the profit margin to 10% may render that argument useless.
I would never opened a shop on Cafepress if all they offered was an 10% cut in addition to the privilige of paying $60.00 a year for a premium shop. Maybe Cafepress is living in opposite world? For those of you that don’t know/don’t remember, Zazzle used to have the same policy until late 2007 (except shops were free). That’s why I never bothered with Zazzle until then. Why put my time and effort into a shop to make $2.00 or less on the sale of a t-shirt?
So what will I do? First I will wait to see if Cafepress backtracks on these changes. (They’ve done it before) If they don’t, I may give it a few months and see how the new marketplace placement works. But I will likely close all my shops but one. Here’s why:
My original shop, which I don’t promote and don’t update too often, earned $1033.00 in 2008. Nearly all of those sales came from the marketplace. Estimating an 80% drop in commission with the new marketplace pricing, my new profit would be only $206.00 a year, and the $60.00 shop fee brings it down to $146.00. Then, if Cafepress decides that my designs aren’t good enough for their “premium shelf placement”, my sales could drop even more. So, I basically would not have much reason to keep that shop open. Rather then let my designs sit there and earn $100-$200 a year, I’d rather close up shop and move them over to Zazzle where they would be exclusive and I could get a higher price.
I will keep my main shop open, but probably opt out of the marketplace and work on driving more traffic to the cpshop version that is hosted on my own domain.
Let this be a lesson to us all. DON’T TRUST ANYBODY BUT YOURSELF.
First the section limits, then the volume bonus, now the marketplace markup. You know what’s next. They will reduce the affiliate commission to 7% or 10%, and then they will come after the markup in your own shop.
But remember, you are not a Cafepress employee. You are a t-shirt designer. You don’t need Cafepress, they need you. And if it comes down to it, I will screen print my own damn shirts in my own damn apartment.
And for all of you Cafepress shopkeepers out there who want to know what POD to switch to:
ZAZZLE
Cafepress has made a huge miscalculation! Their marketplace will see far fewer quality designs once all the outraged shopkeepers have defected to Zazzle, thus decreasing cafepress sales and decreasing buyer satisfaction.
I hope there is enough backlash from this that they change their minds. It is an awful business decision. They must be reading eBay’s playbook.
Thanks for your post. Love that Zazzle made ”Welcome Cafe press shopkeepers” t-shirts already!
–Marianne Dow msdowantiques.com
Been with Cafepress for two years. I donate my shop profits to animal rescue. Last summer, my best month, I made over $500.00. With the horrible economy, and the fact that I haven’t put much effort into my shop lately, I’ve been raking in a meager $150.00 per month. Now, I’m looking at about $30.00 a month. I’m going to be moving to Zazzle. On one hand, I feel like getting mad, stomping my feet, and taking my toys with me, but on the other, it’s the only decision that makes business sense. I hope other shopkeepers see the business sense of leaving CP. Thanks for posting this. I hope would-be Cafepressers realize their work is worth more than 10% commission.
Who knew CafePress was a republican?
Seriously… I am about a year and half into being a shopkeeper plus a zillion hours. A few months ago I tried Zazzle… At first it was very frustrating but eventually it’s gotten better.
Whew…
Hopefully I will see the silver lining in this too. For now my mind is boggled.
Best wishes to all! Marie
I also find it offensive that your own design will be used against you to compete. It’s unfair business practice.
Well put! I agree with you 100 %… Bye Bye Cafepress…
The line that stands out to me is,In an attempt to throw shopkeepers a bone, they will be moving the Cafepress branding from the top to the bottom of premium shops.
Let’s examine what that saying really means. It is in reference to throwing a dog a bone which is the original saying. In this situation, we are the dog and Cafepress is our master. Looking to get a decent meal, we sit patiently at Cafepress’ large dinner table spread out with a feast and look longingly up to our master hoping for any morsel to come our way. After devouring a large drumstick from a very large, juicy turkey, stripping away any last remaining piece of meat and fat and sucking the bone clean, only then does Cafepress, toss the bone onto the floor for us to gnaw on, content that at least our master doesn’t kick us. Not in the literal sense for that matter.
I’m using this experience as an opportunity to move on to better things. In all the years I’ve been building Cafepress’s SEO and profits with my designs I could have been boosting my own by posting to my own websites, too, other PODs and who knows what else. I’m all over that now! Sorry it took me this long to wake up!
Here’s my blog on the subject:
http://healingcommunication.bl.....-more.html
Thanks for writing yours!
Wow! I’ve only had my premium shop for two months…I’m glad I did zazzle too. I love you POD Entreprenuer!
The new 10% commission is an insult to the artists/shopkeepers who have helped you grow to your current size. For most shopkeepers, this is equivalent to a 50-80% paycut. Affiliates make 15%. Will Cafepress be able to survive the defection of its most talented shopkeepers? Undoubtedly, the answer is “yes”–and that’s unfortunate.
ZAZZLE’s “response”: http://sellerblog.zazzle.com/2.....o-sellers/
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).
Took my products out of the marketplace. Interesting that they still display the design, but if you click on it, it says the design is no longer available - um, so don’t display it. The new MP policy is an insult to artists and designers. I think that my work and other artist’s work deserves more than a 10% kick in the rear.
You might be interested in my most recent blog post about Cafepress. It shares possibly useful info about SEO for building an internet business, how Cafepress got us all to do that for them, and what’s happening now.
http://healingcommunication.bl.....d-seo.html
We are so mad. We made Cafepress roughly 10K in sales last year and we earned $2900.
Now instead of getting our $6 commission from the market place we get their generous 10%. I want to scream at those…
We are now looking to move all our designs elsewhere. I will look through the posts above mine and see if there are any clues. My wife and I are SO MAD that Cafepress did that. I hope they falter. We bring the ideas they get most of the money, which is OK, but now that is obnoxious.
In this economic times we all need to watch our expenses, but Cafepress went to far, we are their income.
MAD MAD MAD :-(((((
Xeno
Great site! I have a shop on both zazzle and cafepress and I used to see a lot of sales at CP and almost none at Zazzle but lately I’ve been getting quite a bit more sales from Zazzle and the CP sales have dropped off to nearly none. I’m strongly considering closing up shop if I cant even make enough to pay the costs of keeping it open. They are really losing business.
I feel out of it and somewhat betrayed. I’ve had a shop since 2000. I don’t sell a lot, but enough to warrant a W2 and enough to buy my friends and family gifts throughout the year. I just now noticed this 10% marketplace sales commission and I am outraged they could do this! It means basically they are taking half my mark-up which seems somewhat illegal. If I take myself out of the marketplace then does that mean my items won’t show up in the search engine? Something needs to be done about this. There are many blogs about this, but how can we expose CafePress to the media. I am definitely going to look into other sources. I never liked the affiliate program either, but couldn’t figure out how to get out of it.
This totally sucks! Customers pay more, artists lose half their commisssion, and CafePress rakes it in. How can they get away with this? I’m looking at Zazzle or any other POD site that will give me my fair share. If it weren’t for us artists/designers where would CafePress be? Goodbye CafePress.
http://thurstongraphics.blogspot.com/
Her’s what I posted on my own blog. Hoping something will be done.