How Cash In on Cafepress – No Design Exp. Needed
Posted by Holly in Case Studies, Honest Marketing Methods, Make Money, Top 10 Tips
Would you like to cash in on your creativity? Are you interested in current news and trends? Have you ever thought of mixing your creative energy with a trendy news topic? If so, you could make some money from it. One profitable hobby of mine is creating Cafepress shops based on current events or niche topics. UPDATE on PROFITS are at the end of the post below!
What Is Cafepress
Cafepress is a website which allows regular people to create their own storefronts and sell clothing, bumper stickers and other gift items. You just signup for free, login to your account and begin creating storefronts (as many as you like for free). When creating a specific shop, you would then create a related graphic which you would upload to certain items that you want to sell. If you are thinking to yourself, “I am not good at creating graphics,” and you are about to leave this page, “Wait!” Recently, Cafepress launched a new ultra user-friendly “designer” software to allow people with no graphic design experience to create beautiful designs through their library of clip art and text tools. Just select the option, “Create a New Custom Product.” There is no need to download anything, as it is all done on their website.
Here is a screenshot of the tool:
After your graphics are created and uploaded, you then choose the item you want them to be displayed on. You are given an item’s base price, then any amount that you charge above that price will be your profit per sale.When people purchase, the items are made and shipped out, so you have absolutely no involvement in the “work.” If you do not like the choices of graphics available with the “Designer” tool, while using it you can also upload your own graphics or buy some on Dreamstime and upload. Dreamstime is where I buy graphics for web design purposes. If you would rather design this on your own with Adobe Photoshop or another software (Gimp is a great free photo editing software), then you can do that as well and skip the Designer tool altogether. Lastly, you could pay a freelance designer on Scriptlance a small amount of money to create a graphic for your shop.
Quality of the Clothing
Before revealing how I am making money on the side with Cafepress, I just wanted to take a moment to assure readers that the clothing sold is of high quality and really nice. I used some of my “Cafecash” (Cafecash is the amount of money you have earned by selling and you can either withdraw it or use it to buy things on their site) recently and ordered a beautiful sleeveless T-shirt. I was very happy with the quick delivery time and the high quality of the item itself. Some of the shirts seem to be a bit expensive, but the positive thing about it is the quality is excellent, and people are buying. The site is highly popular with an average of 11 Million unique visitors per month, according to the Cafepress blog.
How to Use the News for Ideas
About six months ago I was watching the news and heard something about a billboard that caused a big stir. Let me warn readers, it does not matter to me what political interests anyone shares – if it is popular in the news, it can be used. The popular billboard was one that showed former President Bush with some text next to his photo that said “Miss Me Yet?” It caused quite a stir and ideas began turning in my head about creating a Cafepress shop on that topic. So, right away I opened up Adobe Photoshop to begin creating a graphic. I thought it turned out alright and uploaded it to my shop and it began to sell. You may wonder if it is hard to gain exposure through Cafepress if there are so many competing shops, but it doesn’t take much for your shop or your item to make it to the top for the specific keywords.
After creating that shop, I immediately noticed a few sales. The commission I set per sale item is $2.00, which I think is fine as I do not want to overcharge the customers. The base price is high enough to begin with. But if you have a lot of sales, it adds up quickly. After creating that shop, a family member who is highly into the news and politics heard of it and started to inform me of other hot topics as they would arise. So, as groups gather for events or rallies in Washington D.C. regularly to support their organizations, I try to keep up with the events and create shops to sell clothing related to them. The sooner I hear about the upcoming event, the better – as it gives me time to create a graphic, storefront and put it out there.
Tips on Getting Your Cafepress Shop Massive Exposure
After creating my shops, I usually do nothing more than wait and move onto another idea or other work. But, recently I created a shop that corresponded to an event that will take place in a few weeks. I wanted to be sure it would gain exposure prior to the event, as well as beat out the competing shops for a higher placement. I noticed that the more sales I would get, the higher up my shop would get in the Cafepress marketplace.
People generally go to Google or directly to Cafepress to type in search terms related to their shop. What you need to do is discover what those terms would be. Type the term in and if your shop isn’t at the top, then view the shop that is. Scroll down on their shop page to view their “tags” that are related to their items being sold. The tags are not auto-generated but typed in specifically by the user creating the shop, and play a vital role in gaining exposure. If your competitor’s shop has a list of tags that relate to your shop, then copy them and paste them into a document or your notepad on your computer. When you create your shop, be sure to go to: “My Cafepress,” “Your Shops,” then “Info.” There is a tutorial on this here.
Once you get there, edit the tags you created for that specific graphic, to at least match the tags of your direct competitor, and add even more if you can think of ones that correspond. My other secret tip here is to go to the Topix forums here and try to find a forum that is related to the topic of your Cafepress shop. It doesn’t need to be a perfect match, but something that could generally fall into that forum or topic. I did this after creating my most recent shop – “Restoring Honor Tshirt Shop,” a shop selling T-shirts to people who will be attending the “Restoring Honor Rally” in Washington, D.C. on 8-28-2010. In the title text of my Topix forum post, I used specific keywords that related to my Restoring Honor shop. I then wrote a few sentences in my forum post about the shop, with a direct link to it. Within a couple of days I typed in the terms in Google and was hoping my shop would be listed or the link to the shop on the Topix forum would be listed – and sure enough the Topix post was listed right near the top of the Google search results for some of the keywords I was targeting. It may not stay there forever, but the link to the shop is still valuable. As a result, I have gained more traffic and visitors, and made more sales. Right now when people go to Cafepress to search for “Restoring Honor” shirts, my shop products show up within the first results. Here is a screenshot of that, with my two products listed first and second.
Here is a screenshot from August 9, 2010 – very shortly after I created the shop. The sales started right away as the topic of the shop is timely – it is related to an upcoming event. Is the shop making me a multi-millionaire? No. But, creating it involved very little work on my part and I do this as a hobby. The other thing to note is that I have 10 other shops that all make money as well. It all adds up.
UPDATE on PROFITS
I just wanted to share a quick update (as of September 20, 2010) I am still making money from sales from that Rally in Washington D.C. I was surprised as it is after the event and people are still buying the stuff. But I just wanted to share how much I made so far from it (some of the sales on here are from other shops but 98% are from the recent shop I made on the Rally in Washington D.C.). Here is a screenshot I took today:
Total Sales: $2681.00 and My Total Profits: $268.10
Am I a millionaire? No. But was it easy and enjoyable to create this shop? YES! And I will continue to create niche shops on Cafepress as I really enjoy it and the extra money is always helpful.
Do you have any tips or ideas for creating and profiting from Cafepress shops? If so, please share them in the Comments Section below.
18 Responses to “How Cash In on Cafepress – No Design Exp. Needed”
Leave a Reply
MartinDC
09. Aug, 2010
Holly, glad to see you posting again. This is some good information. I will give it a try. First, I will have to come up with some ideas. Think, think, think.
Holly
09. Aug, 2010
Hi Martin, this may help: http://www.google.com/trends
Jenny
10. Aug, 2010
Holly I am very glad you posted this, I have been looking at CafePress for some time with many ideas in my head and to be honest the graphic part really did deter me from going ahead.
I will have to look at Dreamstime do you like them better then Istock?
Anyway thanks for the info, glad your back posting, and I will look into this seriously!
Irish Tom
10. Aug, 2010
Hi Holly, I am so glad to see you posting again. We missed that regular interesting blog.
I quite like this Cafepress idea and think I seen it a few months ago, but didn’t know how it worked. Thank you for the info. I have a few ideas to look at.
BTW, your hit on Restoring Honor and the 08/28 Rally, I believe this will be hugh. I am not sure if you are a Glenn Beck fan, but I cetainly am and enjoy his education on American History and the Founding Fathers along with of course his exposes of the corruption within the Government. It is very scary.
Another add on you might want to look at is the 9/12 movement who are interlinked to Glenn. They also have a big rally coming up. They have a very good web site.
Thanks again and keep up the good work.
Holly
11. Aug, 2010
Thanks everyone for the comments! Hi Tom! It is so good to hear from you and thanks for the comment too! I have been offline for way too long – not feeling well but getting better. You know how it goes with life.
But Josh starts kindergarten soon and hopefully I will get back into the swing of things. I miss posting here and interacting. Thanks for the comment on the Restoring Honor shop – my mom first told me about it. My mom is going to the event in September. I’m sure she’ll post her pics and videos on facebook (her name is Liz Giuliani). She went to an event there last year – someday I will make it back there to D.C. I really like it there and lived nearby at Ft. Meade Maryland while in the Army. I loved it. Have you been there? Maybe someday we’ll meet up at one of the events! I do watch Glenn Beck sometimes and definitely support the Country and Constitution. 
Louise M.
11. Aug, 2010
What a great post Holly! That’s a good idea indeed and you give great tips about how to get more traffic. I think I actually did create a Cafepress shop a few years ago but now that I know that it’s easier to design graphics directly on the website, I may open a new store!
Thank you!
Holly
11. Aug, 2010
Thanks Louise! And sorry it took so long to approve your comments. All of them should be auto-approved from now on. If you still have an acct maybe you can login and see if you’ve made any money on it!
Jerry
12. Aug, 2010
Very well written and informative post Holly. I am considering using cafepress on some of my older niche sites because Amazon will not allow North Carolina residents to be affiliates anymore. Thats cool that you used to live in MD. I used to spend a lot of time in Havre de Grace, Md…which is an hour outside of Baltimore. Very nice place to visit. I hope you feel better soon and it’s nice to read your writing again. Take Care!
Robert Alton
12. Aug, 2010
Hi Miss Holly, my timing was perfect. On Aug 9, after exhaustive months of researching on line businesses, I decided that I would purchase your e-book Honest Riches. I read it rather quickly just to get an overview and will return to re-read it slower and more in debth in the coming days. After my quick read I came here to see what is new and low and behold I saw this post. Well, it has convinced me to open a store front and I am brainstorming ideas for merchandise at this time. I must say, after my quick read I was a bit confused as to where to begin with my internet career. There is just such a wealth of information in your book I found myself wondering, ok, now what? I believe this will be the perfect way for me to be productive and hopefully generate some cash flow while I continue my Honest Riches education and start working on my plan for success.
Thank you so much and warmest regards,
Robert Alton
Holly
12. Aug, 2010
Hi Robert,
Also, it is normal to be unsure of where to start after deciding to get into marketing online. This article I wrote on that topic – and how to move forward, may help: http://honestholly.com/10-ways-to-cure-information-overload-start-making-money-online/. Thanks for commenting Robert!
Well that is great news! It always helps to get ideas flowing by seeing what other people are doing. I really like making cafepress shops – it doesn’t take too much time and when the topic is popular, you make money right away from it.
Robert Alton
14. Aug, 2010
Thanks again Holly. The article indeed was a big help. As was the Niche research videos that came with Honest Riches, which I just completed viewing.
Holly
20. Sep, 2010
Thanks Robert I am glad the niche videos helped as well!
Bartholomew John
14. Aug, 2010
Welcome back.It has been ages.
I saw one of your stores ,the one about Bush, a while back and wondered how you could compete in such a market.You have succinctly explained it with your article above.I will give it a try myself now and use the resources you suggest as well as the clip art gathering dust on my harddrive. I’ll dust them off and wash and rinse before I stick them on some tee shirts.Just thought I would say it that way to give you a little cheer after your lengthy session of “not feeling well” and your gas leak scare.
Best wishes and good health to both you and Josh.
Holly
20. Sep, 2010
Thanks John. I really appreciate the nice comment and encouragement. I am picking up the pieces from the health scare and not feeling well – definitely has affected me but I am trying to get back to where I was before! I hope you do well with Cafepress – if you need help with anything feel free to ask.
Mike
18. Aug, 2010
Great idea – how do you get the Create Your Own design into your Cafepress shop?
I created a design with no problem but don’t see how to move the design into my shop?
Thank you
Mike
Kieran
27. Aug, 2010
There you are Holly.. good to see you back on deck, hello once more!!
You popped into my thoughts this evening, and I thought I’ll check my inbox to see if there’s anything new from Holly. Low and behold there’s your email to this blog post. Only it was from like 3 weeks ago. My bad, but it kinda got burried amongst hundreds of other IM newsletters – yes I know, I’m an info adict..
Your post is brilliant – never knew it was this easy. Its so simple, and opens up all sorts of opportunities. My creative right brain is ticking over for keywords, sporting events, milestones, Google Insights, Trends, etc, etc.
Can see it being loads of fun too. Does your store create any sort of “community” where customers can communicate with you post-purchase? How long does it take you to set up a store like your Restoring Honor Tshirt Shop?
Holly
20. Sep, 2010
Hi Kieran! It is so good to see you on here! It has been a long time – I have not been posting like I used to. So to answer your questions – the store only took me 10 minutes to setup – the graphic took me half hour or an hour to create probably. So all that and let it go and post links to it from some of my sites or Topix.net. This month is Breast Cancer awareness month and there are lots of events related to that for anyone who is interested. If I have some time today I will create another shop.
I was really surprised after the recent Rally in DC that I made the shop on – even weeks afterwards people kept buying the tshirts. So maybe they attended and wanted a tshirt and bought it after the fact. Pretty awesome. I am not sure actually if there is a way for the customer to communicate with me – but they do give you access to who the customers are and their info I believe. I will look into this – also if you upgrade your shop for a cpl of dollars – I think it may offer more interactivity.
Jake
06. Oct, 2011
Thanks for the article Holly.
I noticed your cafepress shop has a very clean (transparent) design: most ot their default templates have too many colors and look unprofessional.
Can you share some tips on yours? I’m wondering if you customized a basic design or if it is available for paid accounts.
Thanks!