by 24 people |
Guide to more clicks, more sales, more cash
I want this page to be helpful to beginners and veterans alike. A useful list of ideas to bring together all the tips, tools, and advice to help any shopkeeper along the way. Got ideas yourself? Share them below in the guestbook. Thanks for your visit and good luck with Cafepress Success 101.
Get Started Cafe "Impressing"!
#1 Secret To Cafepress Success
Patience.
You might think things on the internet "etail" are you super fast paced. Some things are like eBay auctions, but building,maintaining, and growing a stready stream of customers through your Cafepress shop is a daily challenge. There's alot of competition.
But this ol' internet's not as big as you think. Like Michael Bolton would say showing your cafepress shop a little "Time, Love, And Tenderness", you can become a "Cafepress Success"
Best Design Software Available
Work smarter not harder
![CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 Education Edition [DVD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Ri6T7wV3L._SL75_.jpg)
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 Education Edition [DVD]
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4 lets you tackle creative graphics and design projects with confidence. New tools make it easier and quicker than ever to deliver any creative project, from layout and photo editing, to illustration and bitmap-to-vector tracing. Powerful text and layout enhancements give you the look you want plus market-leading file compatibility makes collaboration easy. Updated high-quality content, a step-by-step Hints Docker and new tutorials written by experts get you started fast. Professional and aspiring designers along with anyone who needs to express creative ideas will be able to turn their ideas into professional results: from distinctive logos and signs, to striking marketing materials and eye-catching web graphics.
Avg. Customer Rating: 
Amazon Price: $85.99 (as of 07/13/2009) 
List Price: $99.00
Cafepress Shopkeeper "Must Do's"
Check them off your list today
- Promote Your Shop Offline-Get Business Cards
I went back and forth on whether I should invest in some business cards for my Cafepress shop. When I finally did, WOW! I handed them out to just about everybody I came in contact with and the results are plain awesome. I make extras sales from offline customers by personalizing or customizing a product just for them. I highly recommend this investment which has unbelievable rewards. - Register Your Domain Name-Very Professional
Although your shop has it's own Cafepress URL (http://www.cafepress.com/yourshop) when you're trying to spread the word about your shop it's much simpler if you have a cool sounding web address to give out. You simply decide the name you want, check with Register.com to see if it's available and grab it before somebody else does. They are very inexpensive, usually around ten bucks a year. It adds a professional touch to your shop. Once you get your own domain name (www.yourshop.com) you point it to land on your actual Cafepress URL. It looks much better on business cards as well. Which brings me to my next stop on the tour... - Join Linkshare-Earn Extra Affiliate Money
Let's face it, not everybody that visits your Cafepress shop is going to buy something. The fact is only about 2-3% of visitors will make a purchase. So why not give them other banners and/or products they can click on during their visit? If they buy something from that merchant, you get paid. Nice...
Obvious Tips for Cafepress Success
I pity the fool who don't read these tips
- Very simple. Fill in the blanks. Cafepress is about your visual designs and images but search engines want keywords. There's all kinds text boxes on Cafepress to enter keyword rich names and descriptions of your products. Name all your products give them descriptions. No excuses. How else will anyone find it's not described properly. Search engines are smart, so just fill in blanks with the correct information. Of course if you have a premium shop with multiple sections, be sure to name each section, section teaser and section description. All these are great places to load up with accurate words describing your products. How else are customers
- Link, Link, Link How did you find this page? Some crazy combo nation of words to find what you're looking for. It's a beautiful thing. The more links you have out there, the more chances people (customers) will find your products. Blog about your shop, put some links on your MySpace, Facebook, with links. Another idea about linking is the old saying "if you can't beat them, join them". If I had made this very webpage on my own from the ground up, it would be a struggle to rank in searches for several months if even then, but thanks to Squidoo, it's right here in front of you. Ride the big boys coat tails! They are fighting the search battle for you everyday. Take advantage to promote your shop!
- Stay Current Need a new idea on what to design? Watch TV for an hour! Whether it's news or regular shows. You'll see tons of ideas and trends right there on the screen. Like right now, Barack Obama Inauguaration Gear is number one. I'm not that political myself, but I am a businessman. I got in on the Election craze last summer. I made Obama and Nobama t-shirts, stickers, and buttons, etc. Whether your political views lean to the left or right, get in the middle of the huge selling opportunity in politcial gear at Cafepress. If you design it, they will buy. The media and word of mouth is the best free advertising out there. It gets ideas into people's (customers) heads and then you capitalize by having your unique product when they go looking for it online.
- "Fun-Centrate" This word is a combination of "Fun and Concentrate". Sit back and do some thinking before you start designing. Break out the old fashioned paper and pencil. List your ideas and thoughts. And then, "Funcentrate" over them. Circle what you like and cross out ideas you don't like. It's usually not a good idea to go "guns-a-blazin" into the Cafepress world. A little brainstorming now can mean mores sales down the road. My philosophy, "Work smarter not harder". Experiment with your designs. When you decide on a design to make, try it in different colors and styles. See what works. Tweak, tweak, tweak until you are satisfied. The little extra time you took to design it will show. Your customers will be satisfied as well. Good Luck! And see you at Cafepress.
Build a Squidoo Lens
Squid, what?
What the heck is a Squidoo Lens? Well, you're looking at one. Squidoo is a super cool website that allows you to sell any Cafepress item, Ebay, or Amazon Products, make a page on anything in the world and make extra affiliate bucks along the way. You create a webpage, or a "lens" as they call it. You can promote your Cafepress products free and a very easy way to make extra money along the way. Very interesting and very addicting. Loosely put, it's an easy to build one page website. These lenses are a great way to showcase your best sellers from your Cafepress Shop and get more free exposure to help drive sales up, up, up. All for free on Squidoo.If you don't have time to build Squidoo lenses yourself, I would be glad to build one for you. Take a look at some I have made for my cafepress shops below. Those could be your designs churning and burning up the search engines everyday. If you are interested, please Contact Me - jdanwheeler@yahoo.com
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DesignWheel™ Squidoo Showcase
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DesignWheel™ - offers unique t-shirts and gifts like buttons, stickers, mouse pads, clocks, coffee mugs, etc. Designs include - The Famous My Grass is Blue, NOBAMA, Will You Marry Me?, Thin Red Line, Go Green Light Bulb, Seriously Funny, Band M...
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Jolly Roger Flag Stickers
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The Jolly Roger is the name given to any of various flags flown to identify a ship's crew as pirates. Historically, the flag was flown to frighten pirates' victims into surrendering, since it conveyed the message that the attackers were outlaws and w...
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Funny T-Shirts @ DesignWheel™
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Looking for a seriously funny t-shirt? Sure, we all are. Check out some of the best from the DesignWheel-Unique T-Shirts & Gifts. You'll find "TV Color Bars" T-Shirts, "That's What She Said" Ringer T's, "Keep Off The Grass" Sweatshirts, as well as "M...
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Sticker Town™ Squidoo Showcase
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Sticker Town is a little online store to drop by when you are travelling around the internet looking for unique stickers. We offer unique oval stickers, rectangle stickers, and bumper stickers with new designs added daily. Like the bumper sticker to...
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Cool Music Baby Onesies
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I'm a graphic designer and a new dad. It gets better and better everyday. Always something new. I have put together some of my designs here to showcase my love for music and my child. She loves listening to music with her daddy. I used to be a classi...
Share "Your" Tips
what did I miss?
Margo_Arrowsmith wrote...
Got a Mac a little while ago. Am doing amazing things with some great pictures from France. I will devour this lens! 5* and thanks, friend.
margo
Posted June 26, 2009
unique_freak77 wrote...
Nice lens! :) Welcome to the CafePress Tips and Tricks group!
Posted April 08, 2009
iteritus wrote
you're awesome. thank you times infinity
Posted March 21, 2009
yojspew wrote...
Hello JD!
Awesome lens!..Thanks for the tips..it's indeed a big help..^^
Posted February 06, 2008
Tim-Hollis wrote...
Thanks for the advice. I'll be spiffing things up and reporting back on the results.
Posted January 26, 2008
Open Your Cafepress Shop
Haven't opened a shop yet?
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Design And Sell Your Own T-Shirts Online
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Have you ever had an idea for a t-shirt? And thought you could make some real money selling them if you only had a way to do it? How much would it cost? How and where do I get started? I wondered the same thing about a year ago. Then, I found the ans...
Try Zazzle
Another great print on demand service
Zazzle is another great print on demand service. They are similar but also offer many different products you can add you designs too. Of course they have t-shirts, apparel, etc. And they also have skateboards, Keds shoes, postage stamps, and many more unique choices for you to sell. Give it a try, it's completely free. Nice.Click here to visit Zazzle's website
5 More Cool Pages
Explore
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Rockabye Baby! CD Collection
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The Rockabye Baby! CD collection transforms timeless rock songs into beautiful instrumental lullabies. The soothing sounds of the glockenspiel, vibraphone, mellotron, and other instruments will lull your baby into a sweet slumber. All your favorites...
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Old School Sesame Street Musical Guests
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Sesame has been an institution on television since 1969. Teaching children about the alphabet, numbers and a host of other topics. One thing they always incorporate is music which makes learning more fun for the children. I love music myself and alwa...
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Coolest Fact Ever
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I first learned of the coolest fact ever on a Friday. It was like any Friday, it couldn't get over fast enough. The weekend was waiting. I was doing some research on the 1977 Pontiac Trans Am Smokey and the Bandit Car. Before I knew it, I had been ma...
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iWin Top 10 Free Game Downloads
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iWin.com has produced more than 90 games that are available through PCs, Macs, mobile devices, handheld devices, consoles and retail locations. iWin is the creator of the massively successful Jewel Quest and Mah Jong Quest franchises, some of the ind...
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My Virtual GI Joe Toy Box
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I grew up in the 80's. G.I. Joe was king. I had a ton of action figures, vehicles, planes, etc. But like the goofy kid I was, I decided to blow them up, have "real" battles in the backyard, and destroyed most of them along the way. Now 20 years later...
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- aka jdwheeler
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- just bought a new domain name for his eBay car auctions hobby... www.jdwheeler.com
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- I just updated my Squidoo page: Hot eBay Handbag Auctions / http://tinyurl.com/n87y9y
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- When the world is on your shoulders, you gotta straighten up your act and boogie down.
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by JDWheeler
Unique Graphic Designer, Squidoo Lensmaster, Blogger, Cafepress Shopowner, and Member of BlueFridays.Org
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