by 4 people |
I can no long support Cafepress nor can I suggest to any new t-shirt designer to use this service
CafePress - Raises Base Prices while it Forces 10% Markup for Shopkeepers
Irregulartimes Blog-Cafepress
CafePress Announces Big Price Hikes for Buyers, Big Commission Cuts for Sellers
Jim
CafePress may try to dress up today's announcement with a barrel full of hand waving, a slapdash cloudiness of vocabulary and a few other mixed metaphors' worth of dazzling PR-speak, but what their news release all boils down to is this:
Boycott Cafepress by CafepressCraP
View more Cafepress Hats
1. Come June 1, the print-on-demand corporation CafePress will increase the prices shoppers pay for its shirts and other gear.
2. Come June 1, CafePress will decrease the commissions paid to the sellers who make designs available on CafePress products, especially on non-apparel items.
3. Starting now but especially after June 1, CafePress will work to undercut designers who maintain their own shops and also sell on CafePress' "marketplace" search engine.
The result: less independence for designers who work through CafePress and a greater profit margin for the CafePress corporation.
These are strong claims, so let me back them up.
CafePress will increase prices shoppers pay.
A simple comparison of the few examples CafePress reveals in today's announcement to designers reveals a consistent trend toward price increases. In the system CafePress works by now, CafePress sets a "base price" and a shopkeeper adds a "markup" for every item. For example, our made-in-the-USA I Am Not A Second Class Citizen T-Shirt has a base price of $21.99 (reflecting a hefty markup for CafePress above the wholesale price it pays for the shirt). We've added a markup of $2.51 for each shirt, and that makes the retail price for the buyer $24.50.
Here are some base prices for five items CafePress sells:
Men's Light T-Shirt: $14.99
Women's Zip Hoodie: $34.99
Keepsake Box: $19.99
Small Mug: $10.99
Large Poster: $17.99
In the new system, if a designer chooses to sell on a traditional static html "shop" page she or he maintains and promotes (like www.cafepress.com/irregulargoods), she or he can continue to set prices like before. But if she or he makes merchandise with his or her designs available on CafePress's search engine and own set of dynamic web pages (what CafePress calls its "marketplace"), retail prices will be set by a central committee at CafePress (making the "marketplace" less of a real market). Designers won't be able to set a markup - they will earn a 10% commission off the retail price instead.
Here is the new, higher retail price range CafePress mentions today for five example products:
Men's Light T-Shirt: $20.00 - $25.00
Women's Zip Hoodie: $35.00 - $40.00
Keepsake Box: $22.00 - $28.00
Small Mug: $12.00 - $18.00
Large Poster: $18.00 - $25.00
Rest In Peace Cafepress by CafepressCraP
Make a custom stein on Zazzle
CafePress Announces Big Price Hikes for Buyers, Big Commission Cuts for Sellers
Jim
CafePress may try to dress up today's announcement with a barrel full of hand waving, a slapdash cloudiness of vocabulary and a few other mixed metaphors' worth of dazzling PR-speak, but what their news release all boils down to is this:
Boycott Cafepress by CafepressCraP
View more Cafepress Hats
1. Come June 1, the print-on-demand corporation CafePress will increase the prices shoppers pay for its shirts and other gear.
2. Come June 1, CafePress will decrease the commissions paid to the sellers who make designs available on CafePress products, especially on non-apparel items.
3. Starting now but especially after June 1, CafePress will work to undercut designers who maintain their own shops and also sell on CafePress' "marketplace" search engine.
The result: less independence for designers who work through CafePress and a greater profit margin for the CafePress corporation.
These are strong claims, so let me back them up.
CafePress will increase prices shoppers pay.
A simple comparison of the few examples CafePress reveals in today's announcement to designers reveals a consistent trend toward price increases. In the system CafePress works by now, CafePress sets a "base price" and a shopkeeper adds a "markup" for every item. For example, our made-in-the-USA I Am Not A Second Class Citizen T-Shirt has a base price of $21.99 (reflecting a hefty markup for CafePress above the wholesale price it pays for the shirt). We've added a markup of $2.51 for each shirt, and that makes the retail price for the buyer $24.50.
Here are some base prices for five items CafePress sells:
Men's Light T-Shirt: $14.99
Women's Zip Hoodie: $34.99
Keepsake Box: $19.99
Small Mug: $10.99
Large Poster: $17.99
In the new system, if a designer chooses to sell on a traditional static html "shop" page she or he maintains and promotes (like www.cafepress.com/irregulargoods), she or he can continue to set prices like before. But if she or he makes merchandise with his or her designs available on CafePress's search engine and own set of dynamic web pages (what CafePress calls its "marketplace"), retail prices will be set by a central committee at CafePress (making the "marketplace" less of a real market). Designers won't be able to set a markup - they will earn a 10% commission off the retail price instead.
Here is the new, higher retail price range CafePress mentions today for five example products:
Men's Light T-Shirt: $20.00 - $25.00
Women's Zip Hoodie: $35.00 - $40.00
Keepsake Box: $22.00 - $28.00
Small Mug: $12.00 - $18.00
Large Poster: $18.00 - $25.00
Rest In Peace Cafepress by CafepressCraP
Make a custom stein on Zazzle
Cont:
If shirt retail prices rise $5-$10 (as indicated by the example of the light t-shirt), then for shopkeepers like us who markup by $2.51, or even for shopkeepers like Green Gecko who markup by $4.00, the result will be a retail price increase for shoppers.
CafePress will decrease the marketplace commission paid out to designers, especially for non-apparel items.
When it comes to shirt sales, people who add a low markup won't see much change in commission: if the retail price for a dark made-in-the-usa shirt goes up to $25, we would still see a $2.50 commission, a mere decrease of a penny. But designers like Green Gecko, who currently add a markup of $4.00 or more (look it up for yourself, you'll see these folks are more common), will see a decrease in their commission.
The effect is much more pronounced for items with a low base price. Buttons sold through CafePress currently have a base price of $2.99, and shopkeepers usually add $1-2 in markup for their profit. (We add $0.96, but psssst%u2026 we also produce our own buttons of exactly the same size for $2.95 including shipping and handling.) If CafePress sets its no-negotiation retail price for buttons in its "marketplace" at $3.95 (you think this includes shipping and handling, by the way? Think again: delivery at the speed of first-class mail will cost you another $7.00), that gives designers a much-lower profit of 40 cents, while CafePress rakes in more profit.
CafePress will undercut designers who sell on the marketplace and on their own shop.
In its announcement, CafePress has declared its intention to stop linking to designers' shops from the marketplace pages displaying an item. This makes no sense from the buyer's point of view, who may want to buy similar items from the same designer. It also doesn't help the individual designer, obviously, since as discussed above she or he stands to make more profit from his or her own shop. But it does make sense for CafePress%u2026 if it is interested in taking shoppers' traffic away from designers' shops and onto the price-controlled marketplace.
Designers of items that sell on both their own shops and the new marketplace will find themselves in a fix. On the one hand, bumper stickers will have to retail for $10 on the marketplace in order for designers to make as much profit per sale as before. On the other hand, if CafePress doesn't raise the retail price of its bumper sticker exorbitantly - say, to $3.49, designers could find the marketplace version of their item out-competing the shop version of their item%u2026 and producing more profit for CafePress and less profit for the designer. The shops are undercut by the marketplace, inducing designer/shopkeepers to lower their prices on their shops, again with the result of lower profit for designers.
I'm not making a moral case here that CafePress is a bad corporation that must be spanked for its naughty behavior. Corporations are built to squeeze people - it's not good or bad of them, because corporations have no souls. This is just what they do, and the CafePress corporation is doing what it's doing for a reason - most likely (despite CafePress' oblique protests to the sort-of-contrary) because its sales are way, way down and it's looking for a way out of its own hard times. Screaming at the unfairness, the injustice of it all won't accomplish much, because despite its VW-bus ad copy the CafePress corporation is not organized around principles of fairness or justice.
I'm making a practical case directed primarily at designers for CafePress, and here is the case's conclusion:
If you are a designer for CafePress who is dependent on the marketplace model, then well, chum, you're out of luck, at least until you find a way to become independent of the CafePress marketplace.
The best way to become independent is to maintain a website that has something to do with more than selling things with pictures printed on them, a website that has to do with matters you care about. People who care about the same matters but are not interested in buying things with pictures printed on them will visit your website, and they'll talk to you, and you'll talk back, and you'll have a good time. People who care about the same things you do and who also want to get a thing with a picture printed on it will find you and make a purchase through links from your web page. It's a no-pressure way of making a living connected to things you care about, and I for one really like it.
If you are a designer for CafePress who is not dependent on the marketplace model, then there's really no more reason for you to put your product on the marketplace. It's turned from an enabling tool to an exploitive tool, and who wants to be exploited any more than necessary?
Independent shopkeepers, consider withdrawing your products from the marketplace. The next time our kids give us an hour or two of free time, we here at Irregular Times certainly will. I don't expect many people to follow suit, because independence is a bit scary to most people, but I do think it would be in many designers' best interest. If enough people do follow suit, then the highly controlled marketplace CafePress has fashioned may collapse on account of its own emptiness
CafePress will decrease the marketplace commission paid out to designers, especially for non-apparel items.
When it comes to shirt sales, people who add a low markup won't see much change in commission: if the retail price for a dark made-in-the-usa shirt goes up to $25, we would still see a $2.50 commission, a mere decrease of a penny. But designers like Green Gecko, who currently add a markup of $4.00 or more (look it up for yourself, you'll see these folks are more common), will see a decrease in their commission.
The effect is much more pronounced for items with a low base price. Buttons sold through CafePress currently have a base price of $2.99, and shopkeepers usually add $1-2 in markup for their profit. (We add $0.96, but psssst%u2026 we also produce our own buttons of exactly the same size for $2.95 including shipping and handling.) If CafePress sets its no-negotiation retail price for buttons in its "marketplace" at $3.95 (you think this includes shipping and handling, by the way? Think again: delivery at the speed of first-class mail will cost you another $7.00), that gives designers a much-lower profit of 40 cents, while CafePress rakes in more profit.
CafePress will undercut designers who sell on the marketplace and on their own shop.
In its announcement, CafePress has declared its intention to stop linking to designers' shops from the marketplace pages displaying an item. This makes no sense from the buyer's point of view, who may want to buy similar items from the same designer. It also doesn't help the individual designer, obviously, since as discussed above she or he stands to make more profit from his or her own shop. But it does make sense for CafePress%u2026 if it is interested in taking shoppers' traffic away from designers' shops and onto the price-controlled marketplace.
Designers of items that sell on both their own shops and the new marketplace will find themselves in a fix. On the one hand, bumper stickers will have to retail for $10 on the marketplace in order for designers to make as much profit per sale as before. On the other hand, if CafePress doesn't raise the retail price of its bumper sticker exorbitantly - say, to $3.49, designers could find the marketplace version of their item out-competing the shop version of their item%u2026 and producing more profit for CafePress and less profit for the designer. The shops are undercut by the marketplace, inducing designer/shopkeepers to lower their prices on their shops, again with the result of lower profit for designers.
I'm not making a moral case here that CafePress is a bad corporation that must be spanked for its naughty behavior. Corporations are built to squeeze people - it's not good or bad of them, because corporations have no souls. This is just what they do, and the CafePress corporation is doing what it's doing for a reason - most likely (despite CafePress' oblique protests to the sort-of-contrary) because its sales are way, way down and it's looking for a way out of its own hard times. Screaming at the unfairness, the injustice of it all won't accomplish much, because despite its VW-bus ad copy the CafePress corporation is not organized around principles of fairness or justice.
I'm making a practical case directed primarily at designers for CafePress, and here is the case's conclusion:
If you are a designer for CafePress who is dependent on the marketplace model, then well, chum, you're out of luck, at least until you find a way to become independent of the CafePress marketplace.
The best way to become independent is to maintain a website that has something to do with more than selling things with pictures printed on them, a website that has to do with matters you care about. People who care about the same matters but are not interested in buying things with pictures printed on them will visit your website, and they'll talk to you, and you'll talk back, and you'll have a good time. People who care about the same things you do and who also want to get a thing with a picture printed on it will find you and make a purchase through links from your web page. It's a no-pressure way of making a living connected to things you care about, and I for one really like it.
If you are a designer for CafePress who is not dependent on the marketplace model, then there's really no more reason for you to put your product on the marketplace. It's turned from an enabling tool to an exploitive tool, and who wants to be exploited any more than necessary?
Independent shopkeepers, consider withdrawing your products from the marketplace. The next time our kids give us an hour or two of free time, we here at Irregular Times certainly will. I don't expect many people to follow suit, because independence is a bit scary to most people, but I do think it would be in many designers' best interest. If enough people do follow suit, then the highly controlled marketplace CafePress has fashioned may collapse on account of its own emptiness
Boycott Cafepress - Rest In Peace Cafepress
Cafepress Shopkeepr Oppression Shirts
Soon to Be Extinct Cafepress by CafepressCraP
Buy tshirts at Zazzle.com
Rest In Peace Cafepress by CafepressCraP
Browse Cafepress T-Shirts
Rest in Peace Cafepress Coffin by CafepressCraP
Make Custom T-Shirts at www.zazzle.com
Boycott Cafepress by CafepressCraP
See more Cafepress T-Shirts
CraP by CafepressCraP
Browse more Cafepress T-Shirts
RunOverbyCP by CafepressCraP
Create a personalized t-shirt using Zazzle
Boycott Cafepress by gretagrabbo
Design Custom Tshirts at zazzle.co.uk
CafePress ShopKeeper News!
CafePress Virtually Lays Off Thousands of Shopkeepersby Arthur
Posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 11:37 am CET
CafePress, the world's leading print-on-demand service, announced a major change yesterday that will have a huge negative impact on its huge community shopkeepers that manage over 6 million shops.
Since 1999, people can upload their designs on CafePress and sell them on t-shirts, stickers, buttons and many other products. The designer determines the price of the product and thus the commission they will earn when the product sells. When someone orders one of your products, CafePress will kick into gear by printing your design and sending it to the customer. The shopkeeper gets the commission. CafePress also has a marketplace where everyone's designs can be found (if opted in). For many shopkeepers most of their sales come through the marketplace, as CafePress spends a lot of money on advertising and their pages rank very high in search engines.
What CafePress announced yesterday that is making everyone very mad is that they will fix all prices in their marketplace and give shopkeepers only 10% of the final retail price. 10% is very low, as some shopkeepers have markups of as high as 30% to 40% to make a living. If in the past a t-shirt had a base price of $15 and the shopkeeper decided to have a $5 markup the t-shirt will sell for $20 and the shopkeeper will get $5. In the new scheme CafePress will be able to determine the retail price of all products in their marketplace and give the shopkeeper only 10%. So if they decide to sell the t-shirt for $18, the shopkeeper will get only $1.80. That is a huge cut in earnings.
In the summer of 2008, CafePress already made some unpopular changes to their volume bonus scheme that resulted in shopkeepers' income to drop 20% to 30%. As a result of that change some shopkeepers already left CafePress and moved their designs to other print-on-demand sites, like Zazzle or Skreened. This week's announced change will cut another 50% to 80% off people's income. This has hundreds of people enraged on CafePress' forums.
Many shopkeepers have built up a business on CafePress that allowed them to quit their day jobs and work on CafePress full-time. A lot of these people will now be forced to find other jobs in a time when jobs are scarce. There are also people who have managed to make a living off CafePress because their illness prevented them from working out of the house. They are also screwed. Others were laid off from their job and are using CafePress to make some extra money. Thousands of others are relying on CafePress to supplement their income besides their other job(s). For all these people their CafePress income pays for their mortgage, bills and children's educations. A sudden cute of 50% to 80% in income is outrageous.
There are countless charity shops on CafePress run by people that donate some of their earnings to charity. For instance someone may sell a $2 bumper sticker for $15 and donate $13 to a cancer charity. In this new scheme CafePress may only sell the bumper sticker for $3 and the shopkeeper gets $0.30. This will result in charities getting a lot less money.
It is not only an immoral and greedy business decision, it also doesn't make any sense from every other perspective. CafePress' entire community is built on the premise that shopkeepers own their own designs and can determine the markup. Some people just put simple text on their t-shirts and sell them with a low markup. Other designers get expensive graphics software, buy fonts and spend hours or days to make an elaborate design. It makes no sense whatsoever to fix prices on all these designs and to lower people's markup to 10%.
CafePress argues that shopkeepers can still determine pricing in their own stores, but how can shopkeepers compete with lower prices in the CafePress marketplace, which ranks much higher in Google. CafePress argues that "the traffic in the CafePress Marketplace is a different from the traffic Shopkeepers drive to their shops and buyers rarely jump from one to the other," but buyers will soon figure out that if they see something they want to buy in a CafePress shop all they have to do is go to the CafePress marketplace and get it cheaper.
Even affiliates make 15% on every sale they send to CafePress. What this means is that the person who created the design and owns the copyright and spent time making the design with his own software and wrote the SEO description and keywords will now get only 10% for a sale, while an affiliate who only made a link to the design from his site will get 15%.
If CP is smart they will revert this planned change. Many big shopkeepers, who work on CafePress full-time and depend on the income to pay their bills cannot afford the 50% to 80% pay cut. CafePress' announcement yesterday was the equivalent of laying off thousands of people. Many of these successful shopkeepers have already announced that they will close their CP stores and move to other PODs like Zazzle. If CP goes ahead with this change it will be the end of CafePress.
