Get the Best Prices On CafePress Items

In a nutshell, CafePress is an online print on-demand service where people can upload their designs, select what products that they want their products to be on then sell them.

There are a couple advantages for designers (both professional, amateur and the casual dabbler in design ideas) to use CafePress for marketing their designs.

• It does not cost the designer anything to open a basic shop
• The designer does not have to keep any inventory
• The designer can set their own price above the basic price of each item
• CafePress does all the printing and shipping, so the only thing a designer needs to even think about is marketing

Besides t-shirts, coffee cups, mousepads, posters and other printed items, CafePress also allows authors to publish their own books and musicians to publish their own CDs, all with the same on-demand publishing principal.

Click here to discover even more about CafePress

Until June 1st, 2009 the prices you would see when searching CafePress for designs (known as the marketplace) and the prices you would see on a designs main page (also known as a shop) were the same price as they were set by the seller (also known as the shop owner).

As of June 1st, 2009, CafePress started setting the prices of products in the Marketplace, so that all the items are consistently priced regardless of the mark-up that the individual designer set for their products. For example, a coffee cup with the Motorcycle Therapy design is the same price as the coffee cup with "Evil Genius" printed on it.

However, if you go directly to the designs shop page, the pricing does reflect the price that the designer set for that item. For example if you go directly to the Motorcycle Therapy shop page you will see the price for the coffee mug that the designer set.

This is where the new marketplace pricing can be a plus or a minus for you the consumer and it allows you to find the best price for the item you want to get. Sometimes the price the designer's shop price will be more than the marketplace price and vice versa.

1. In your web browser, go to the CafePress.com website


2. Use the search box and enter in keywords for the design you are looking for then click on "Go!"


3. Click on the design you like. This will take you to the page with all the available products with marketplace pricing. Once you are there, take not of the price for the item you want to buy.


4. Click on the "See all designs from" link.


5. Copy the part of the web sites address (url) after "from=" (in this example, it is hugmyshirt)


6. In the address bar type in www.CafePress.com/ followed by the name of the design. (in this example it would be www.CafePress.com/hugmyshirt) This will take you to the shop page with the shop pricing.


You now have found both places the designs are listed on CafePress.com and can compare the prices and buy the one that you want at the best price.


In our example, the shop price is less expensive than the marketplace price for the exact same item. However, this is not always the case, sometimes the marketplace will be your best deal.