How to Make Money with CafePress

This article is about how to make money with CafePress, the web’s leader in print-on-demand shirts, stickers, cups, and other gift items.

I get a lot of questions about my own CafePress shop. Most of them come from graphic artists, since I’m involved in several design communities.

People want to know stuff like:

• Do you make any money? How?
• How much do you make?
• How is it working for you?
• How do I do it?

I’ll do what I can to answer these questions, and give some honest advice on what works, and what to expect.

First, my background:

I’m a professional graphic designer, and have been one for the last dozen years or so, and I’m also an illustrator. I’ve self-published two books, Caught Creatures and KlawBerry, which I sell on my own online store, Magic Skull.

I began my career as a standard “screenprint artist”, starting with cutting amberlith and hand stippling the color separations for the shirt designs. So, shirt design isn’t that new to me.

I’ve had my shop for two years now, and I have something like 100+ designs. I decided to stick with a monster/Halloween theme, since I really enjoy drawing monsters and weird stuff. It took a bit of time, but I now sell product on a weekly basis. During November and December, I sell at least one shirt per day.

Do you make any money with CafePress?

Well, yeah, I make some for my time. Not all of my designs sell, but some of them sell quite a lot. Just know that all of your work is on the front side; you won’t make any money unless you’ve done many good designs, and then spend a great deal of energy and time promoting them.

However, also know that when you make a sale, you’re done. Take it from me, there’s a lot more work that one has to do, once you actually make a sale from a standard ecommerce shop. Usually, you’ve got to go out and buy packing materials, correspond with the buyer, go to the post office, wait in line, etc. CafePress takes care of all of this for you, so that you can spend your time marketing and designing. Really, this is worthwhile, as with my own online business, this kind of thing takes half of my time.

How much do you make with your CafePress store?

I only made $800 my first year and $1800 my second. Nothing amazing, but not bad for drawing what I wanted to draw, the way that I wanted to do it. I already have designs done for the types of things I want to cover, and I’m slowly gaining traction and links from online friends and communities. It takes time to start from the ground up.

What sells?

I have one design that outsells all of my others, 10 to 1. I won’t say which design (because it matters less than you think), but I’ll tell you why it sells.

Basically, I just found a subject that didn’t already have 10,000 great designs. In fact, it seemed kind of weak. So I made a good design, and started promoting it everywhere I could think of, online. Eventually it sold. Then, it came up the CafePress rankings. Then I sold more. Then somebody blogged about it. Then I sold more. Now, when somebody searches on Google for my design, CafePress has purchased advertising so that “X design” shows up first. Click that, and my design is #1. Is it my best design? Not on your life. But, since it sells, it makes it easier to sell more.

Will I get rich with one design?

Nope, probably not. Not unless it’s super-great, you’ve got a huge web audience already, and you’re willing to spend a ton of time/money promoting it. Marketing is the key for success with CafePress. Designing is the easy part. The tough part is finding a way to make people see your designs beyond all of the other t-shirt shops out there. It’s tough. You’ve got to find communities that connect with your designs. This is why I believe it is important to choose your store subject well.

I’d suggest designing lots of shirts, as opposed to a single design; just make them all great.

What should I do to make money with CafePress?:

Decide what kind of shop you want to have, and develop that. A unique focus will do you a lot of good. Know that if you’re going to follow the “popular trends”, you’ll probably make more sales than me. However, also know that everyone else is doing that, and that your library of designs will become dated very quickly. I decided not to follow that model, so I believe that I’ve had to work a little harder for sales. But, in a few years, I’ll have tons of designs that I can sell for years to come. In my book, this is good.

Do quality designs. I’m not saying that my work is amazing or anything, but I take time to make sure that I don’t skimp on my designs. I design both the front and the back of every shirt, since it doesn’t cost anymore to offer a 2-sided design. I see a lot of people skimp on doing both sides, but I think that they’re just cheating themselves out of sales. If you’re going to do junk art, I really wouldn’t bother. There’s tons of it out there already.

Make bold designs. This is one that I’m learning more and more as I go on. Basically, you’ve only got a tiny graphic image to sell your design. If it’s subtle, small, or difficult to make out, you probably won’t sell it. Selling designs online and in person, are completely different. Just make sure that your customer can actually see what you’re selling, by making it bold.

Be careful with distressing and staining. My first designs had the “distressed” or worn look. I even added stains, to make my vector designs look more organic and “real”. The only problem with this is that when I’d wear my shirts in public, friends would comment that I must have spilled something on my shirt. Looking at it, it was just the stain that I put there on purpose. Unfortunately, this probably caused me a few returns from unhappy customers, so don’t do that. I think I’m probably the only CPer who’s made that mistake.

I’ve found that raising my price has made my shirts sell better, not worse. I don’t know why, but it’s true. I’d suggest that you’ll sell more shirts at a $5 profit model, than at a $1 profit per shirt.

Make CafePress an extension of your regular business. I’ve seen that this could be the best possible way to grow your store. For instance, I’m an author/illustrator of a monster-haiku book, so I do designs that are related.

Now, I use CafePress to provide a lot of swag and product that I couldn’t usually do all at once, which allows me to sell prints, shirts, cups, ect. I’ve seen people extend their regular business, such as a custom portrait studio. They’ll do a custom portrait of you or your pet, and that’s that. BUT, then they also sell their best designs as prints and t-shirts in their CafePress store. Now, they get business from both directions. (From their own store, and from Cafepress.) Think about what might work for you.

Look for marketing opportunities (online and offline), and use them all. I’m always on the lookout to get my designs seen, and you should do the same.

Here are some of the places that I’ve promoted my shirt designs and artwork:

• Craigslist
• Flickr
• Deviantart
• Googlebase
• My own websites (3), using various 3rd party scripts like CPshop.
• Shutterbook
• Comic conventions like Comic-Con International (Business cards and 4×6 photos featuring my art, postcards)
• Coffee Shops (Business cards and 4×6 photos featuring my art)
• Myspace and Myspace.
• Squidoo

Remember that marketing is the key here. (Just make sure you follow the individual site rules.) The more people who see what you’ve got to sell, the better. Try to combine your marketing efforts between both online and offline media. Wear your stuff. Talk about it. Make business cards. Be seen.

Write great product descriptions. Yep, this will help search engines, and customers, to find your designs. Think about the words that a person might be using to search for your product. Use those words in your description. Be specific. DO NOT just make lists of keywords. Tryi

Get listed on web search engines and directories. I know, this one is obvious, but do it. Search google, and you’ll have more than you need to submit to.

Get your own domain name, and use a great script like CPshop to manage your site. I do this will all my sites, including Monster-Shirts.com, where I affliate other shopkeepers too! Having your own domain is much easier to market than the standard CafePress domain.

Need a great and affordable webhost? Try DreamHost! I use them for all of my sites and I love ‘em!

Trade links with bloggers, and put ads to your store on the side. How? Start a blog, and talk about a specific subject. Post often. Know what you’re talking about. (What about just blogging about other people’s CafePress designs, all with affiliate linking? That would work.) Get you blog listed with Technorati, so you can watch how other people are linking to you.

Why have I gone to this much effort for a measly $1800.00?

• I’m sure to make more money this year! A year into it I’m just starting to gain some online traction. I knew that it would take time, so I’ve been patient. If you’re going to do it, go for the long run.
• It’s much more fun to design monster shirts the way that I want, than to design websites for dentist offices the way that they want.
• I can offer as many designs as I can design. Think about it, if you’re getting shirts printed, you’ll only be able to afford maybe just a few designs at any one time. With printing and set-up costs, you’ll be stuck selling these before you can make others to sell. This has no limits.
• It’s a blast to get feedback about my artwork. When something sells, I know that I must be doing something right. It becomes a compass for my design and illustration, which is helpful for my self-development.
• While I’m at conventions marketing my book, I can also market my CafePress designs. It all builds on itself, growing and growing.

Other articles I’ve authored at Squidoo.com:

• Make Money with CafePress - #1 Focus
• Make Money with CafePress - #2 Design
• Make Money with CafePress - #3 Marketing

Well, that’s all that I have to say right now. I hope that this was somewhat helpful to you. If you’ve got advice or experience of your own that you think I should add to this article, contact me and I’ll add it.

Good luck!

- Daniel
www.steamcrow.com