(by 5 people)
Tips for CP Shopkeepers Beginners
Opening your own business is hard. Using CafePress to do this makes the process easier. Selling your own designs at little to no cost for you? Sounds like an easy way to cash in. But CP shops take hard work and time, if you really want to profit. Get some tips on this lens on how to start up your shop, make money, and improve your designs.
Quick Tips
Some quick tips to get you started.
- Keywords. Keywords are VITAL. Use your descriptions to put your keywords for your search audience.
- Patience. It could take MONTHS to finally get that first sale! Have some patience.
- Practice. Play around with your designs, even after you've put them up! Make them nicer, if you find better ways to make it. If it's feeling kind of stale, remake it.
Best Tips to Use
Vote!
What do you think is the best advice CP Shopkeepers can take from the list? Add your own as well!P
Niche Shops
Find your niche and make your shop based on a smal more...0 points
Free Ways to Market your Shop
Learn a bit on Social Marketing for FREE!
Blogging is a very important part in promoting any business or website online. You can share your ideals on your blog (haha, Twix commercial), and it also works as a money maker. You can have multiple blogs and use programs like Google Ad Sense to put ads up and get money whenever other people click on them. The key part in this is to get a lot of traffic heading to your blogs, but if you keep making good posts and frequent ones, you'll start to build up a bit of traffic!
I suggest using some free blog hosts, like Wordpress or Blogger.
2. MySpace/Facebook
These days, just about everyone uses MySpace or Facebook. Make a Facebook page or a MySpace page, and make sure to promote it on your CafePress, or website (or whatever you have!). People will want to add you because they probably have a page as well, so you can update them more frequently! Even professional businesses are starting to make MySpace and Facebook pages, so keep your fans up to date with either page!
3. Squidoo
If you're looking to make free web pages, Squidoo is the place! Squidoo allows you to make individual "lenses", which are just like a webpage. They love CafePress, and you can make your own lens and promote your store to the world, for free! You can also make money from Squidoo (or give to charity), with their eBay, CafePress, Etsy, Amazon modules, ads, and more!
4. Twitter
Twitter is a great way not just to communicate with your friends, but also potential customers! It's free, and you can also Twitter from your phone! You can link people to important or cool things, or you can update your followers on what you were doing. Cool, huh?
That would be the basics to free marketing! Of course, it's late, and I'm tired, so I've probably missed a lot. Haha. If you know some really awesome, FREE places for promoting your website(s), drop a comment!
Tips on Newsletters
Sending a newsletter? Here are some helpful tips.
Newsletters are an important way to communicate with your customers. You should keep a constant newsletter, whether it is once a month or once a week. The best thing is to keep it to once a month, because there probably will not be any important weekly news. You don't want it to get repetitive.I use YMLP.com because the CafePress newsletter-forms just don't agree with me. Either way, you need to get subscribers somehow. The best way to do this is to put an HTML newsletter subscription form on your CP shop. If you have a contact page, you will want to put it on there too.
Once you start to get subscribers, you'll want to send out that newsletter. Keep your titles short and sweet, you don't want the subject line to cut it off. Try not to use too many exclamation points and do not write in all caps. Don't use titles that SCREAM OUT AND ARE IN ALL CAPS WITH !!!!!!! because the newsletter will probably be put in the spam box. Also, suggest to your subscribers to add your email to their address book so that your newsletters don't end up as spam.
When writing your newsletter, pick relevant topics. Use lots of pictures; don't make it all text, or no one will want to read it. Don't make it too graphic-filled either though, or it'll be a hassle to load for dial-up users. Remember, links, links, links! Update on all your recent designs, and any sales you may be having.
Something lots of people like to use is a "Buyer's Club". Offer a "secret sale" for all of your subscribers to your newsletter using hidden sections in your CafePress and then give them the link.
Basic vs. Premium
So you've decided to open up a CafePress shop?
Basic Shops:
Basic shops are the free shops. They just recently got a makeover from CafePress, and are looking pretty sharp now! Here are the pros and cons of a free shop.
Pros:
-Free
-Recent makeover
-You can add your own personalized header
-Items are separated by categories.
Cons:
-You can only add one of each product to your shop
-No full customization options
Premium Shops:
Premium shops have more options than basic shops. The best choice is to pay $60 a year, which comes to $5 a month.
Pros:
-As low as $5 a month
-Full customization (including HTML)
-Unlimited amount of sections
-You can create pages inside your shop using "hidden sections"
-Separate your designs by category
Cons:
-If you only have one design, it's pretty useless
-Products not separated by categories (men's apparel, women's apparel, home, etc)
-Can get pricey
Basically, if you're looking to open up a shop with many designs, go for premium. If you're not looking to expand, you can make many basic shops for each design. It's all up to you and the details that matter to you!
Premium shops vs. Basic Shops
Which shop is better? Premium shop, or a basic shop?
Premium or basic?
Fetching blurbs now... please stand byBasic Shop
unique_freak77 says:
If you're not planning on adding too many designs, a basic shop is the way to go, at least at first. It's free and still has some customization options. It all depends on your situation.
Posted December 09, 2008
Premium Shop
Cassiopeia says:
Premium shops are promoted highly on the Cafepress Marketplace, they have more products available to sell than a basic shop, and you can customize it!
Posted December 31, 2008
adventuresinautism says:
I've had a premium shop for about 3 years, I always make more than enough to pay the monthly fee in Cafecash. I don't think I have ever paid out of my own pocket at all. The best part is I have the flexibility to structure my store with as many different designs as I want on the same product. IE: I have a section of Christmas ornaments with lots of different designs.
Posted December 11, 2008
dcgal says:
Premium shop. Hands down. More keywords, more products lead to more sales.
Posted November 29, 2008
Happiegrrrl says:
Though the new layout CafePress has for basic Shops is very nice, I really feel the control and flexibility I have with a Premium Shop makes it the right choice for me. I like that my customers can see all my designs on one page. Though I would like to see an increase in sales overall, I have noticed that a sizable percentage of the orders I DO get involve purchases of more than one design from my shop!
Posted November 04, 2008
Online Promotion
- MySpace
- The largest social network around, create a MySpace for your shop to attract all MySpace users and get them to add you. Get the word out!
- Create a page and get fans, show your designs, and send updates!
- Keep your followers updated on latest designs and more!
- Squidoo
- Do you Squidoo?
- Blogger
- Blog and keep your readers updated on your newest designs and more!
External Site?
Not sure whether to go for that external site?
Here are some of the great webhosts out there:
-DreamHost.com
-StartLogic.com
-BlueHost.com
-HostGator.com
Looking to add CP on your MySpace?
MySpace and CP just don't get along. If you want to link to your cafepress shop, you can't do so using your domain. Link to your external site, if you have one, instead!
Money makers
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Thank you for visiting this lens! I hope it has helped in your journeys with CafePress!
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Helpful?
Important Links
- CafePress
- Get started on CafePress.com!
- Cafe-Success
- Learn to be successful with CafePress!
- Success with CafePress
- More success!
- Guide to Premium Shops
- Have a Premium Shop on CafePress and not sure what to do with it? A guide on how they work and how you can use them to the fullest, by ArtofFoxVox.
- Setting up your shop
- A crash course in setting up your CP shop for success!
Homebase
Check out our shops and sites!
- ShopFunkHouse.com Main
- The main site for our CafePress shops!
- The Funk House
- TV/Book-inspired merchandise, artsy gifts, and hilarious tees!
- Holiday Funk
- Holiday Funk: Your one-stop for buying the perfect things for the upcoming holiday!
- Funky Kicks
- Funky shoes on Zazzle, made by yours truly!
- Funk House Plus
- More of what you couldn't get on our CafePress!
- Our MySpace
- Check out our MySpace page, and add us!
- Our Twitter
- Follow us on Twitter and get the latest updates!
- Our Squidoo
- Check out our shop's Squidoo page!
Our CP Shop
Mondays Are Evil Women's Dark T-Shirt
Price: 26.99 
Super Cool Party Person Value T-shirt
Price: 12.09
We Will ROCK You Women's Dark T-Shirt
Price: 26.99
The Cake is a Lie Long Sleeve Dark T-Shirt
Price: 32.39
Peace, Love, Twilight Hooded Sweatshirt
Price: 45.49
