CafePress.com

[minisaremighty]

Just curious. My almost 13 year old is an artist and has inquired about doing a store on Cafepress.com

Is anyone actually making any money on it? Any tips or advice? I'm actually considering putting together a little store myself, but I'd love to hear feedback from anyone with experience! :lol:

 

[Farmhand]

Check with [email protected]

[SIZE=14pt]Eve Dexter[/SIZE]

[SIZE=14pt]She is with the Miniature Horse Club of Ontario. I think she can help you.[/SIZE]

 

[Doobie]

Lori & I made the cafepress store for MHCO...

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It works great in that you just put you stuff together and

dont have to do anything else (you dont have to sell #'s or ship items)

If you want to 'make' money you would need to advertise.

For the club we have set up to offer other people to send us

their pics and what they want it on so they dont have to open a store

for personal items.

It works well for those who are not computer smart

or dont have the time to do the whole process.

The nice thing about making your own store is getting items at cost !

:

If you have any questions just give me a holler !!

Debbie

 

[Shari]

I have a store there..just opened it..you can see in my sig line.

Is easy to start up,,if you get the basic store it does not cost anything up front.

Like me,,I have the time to paint now,but not the time, money or equipment to do the production and customer service by myself. You will not make as much going through them but then,,they deal with production and customers.

 

[minisaremighty]

I have a store there..just opened it..you can see in my sig line.

I had never even heard of them until I clicked on YOUR link for your site Shari! :saludando: You have some really nice art there!!! After checking out your site, we got curious about it. I'm wondering if it would be a good way to do a fundraiser for my kids school. Have the kids come up with some artwork (which they do a TON of at our school, it's heavily based in art) and put it up for sale on different items and have our parents go "shopping" there to support the school. I'd love to wear a t-shirt of some of the art that comes out of that school! Seems to be the most cost effective way to do it since there is no production costs involved.

Thanks for the input. I think we'll keep looking into it a bit more and take it from there.

:

 

[kaykay]

i would advise anyone doing this to order one of your own items to see the quality. I have a couple friends who tried it and got a lot of complaints about the printing quality being very poor.

 

[minisaremighty]

i would advise anyone doing this to order one of your own items to see the quality. I have a couple friends who tried it and got a lot of complaints about the printing quality being very poor.

That was my concern. I thought we might just make a couple of our own creations first and see the quality and then decide if it's up to par.

 

[Farmhand]

We bought one of the calendars that MHCO sold on there and were VERY impressed with the quality

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[Shari]

i would advise anyone doing this to order one of your own items to see the quality. I have a couple friends who tried it and got a lot of complaints about the printing quality being very poor.

My worry as well.

However,,the only print shop near where my husband works.. Kinkos.. I can email them my paintings which then would be turned into 20 cards. My Cost of 20 cards is $30.00!! I do not know of many people that will pay $30.00 for 20 note cards. I concider the quality midline at best. If I just put enough money on the top to just pay for postage to ship and car gas..I would make no money at all.

There are two other print shops..right now I am house bound and the help that was to be...never showed up. Their prices are a little better "IF" I can pre buy 5K of product. I do not have that kind of money up front.

Other opition... buy all the equpiment yourself.

A good,, scanner one that can handle heavy use.. $3,000.--- good top end printer to do high quality prints on very good quality card stock and or Print paper...about the same.

I do have a source of basic card stock..prices are not too bad. Plus all the ink..and boy ink is spendy.

This does not cover the prints I would need to do, matts, Frames to go with.

Postage, time, customers that never are happy..what ever. No matter how careful you are, how nice you are,,someone is always going to cause problems.

Have done a whole lot of rsearch. While Cafe Press is not perfect..it is a jump off/start up point.

I am making sure the DPI is off the scale..so the Quality should be very good.

Many the problems that happen is when people put to low of a dpi in their product and it does not come out as well as it could.

The Min..I like to see is 2200xthe same amount. Best is 4,800x96000dpi.... I have some that are even more. I hope that will insure the quality.

My limited health,, this makes it a good start off point. I do plan to offer some things Cafe Press does not and 1 or 2 customs a month at most. They will come to me in person for that.

This might not be right for all folks...but it will,, I hope..give me a foot up on my dream and maybe others too. :bgrin