how to be a success with cafepress and printfection

So, where to start?

ROME WASN'T BUILT IN A DAY:
First off, I and many successful shopkeeprs before me, have said, time and time again, to a new and discouraged shop owner that patience is really a part of the CafePress strategy (a big part). What I mean by that is this; you can set up a shop overnight, but you can't expect it to be a success overnight. The old saying "Rome wasn't built in a day" is really true when it comes to CafePress. It's true that it's POSSIBLE to be an overnight success, but chances are, you won't be. Unless you are coming with a built in audience (i.e. you have a radio show or band or something where people already know about you) or you have a large budget to spend on advertising and marketing, you are going to have to build your clietelle GRADUALLY. I wouldn't consider myself a success per se just yet because I haven't reached my ultimate goal, but I know I am working towards it. I am regularly hitting the bonus tier and getting checks on a regular basis so I am definitely making money from CafePress. So for those of you who ask "can you really make money with CafePress?" the answer is definitely a yes. What you want to make will determine how much effort and savvy you'll need to get there. Quitting your day job to work CP full time is going to take a substantial amount of work and time. But can you do it? Can you make money from CP? Can you replace your job with CP? Yes. There are reports of six figure incomes from CP shopkeepers (and these were shopkeepers WITHOUT built in audiences, so no, I'm not talking about the Phil Collins store or the Star Trek store, I'm talking about Joes and Janes like you and I). The people who are at the top however, are savvy, work hard, and had a turn of luck as well. The planets were aligned for them, but is it possible? Yep.

COMMON SHOPKEEPER MISTAKES:
So, you aren't looking for a six figure income from CP (at least not yet). You are just looking to get off the ground. Okay, so lets analyze your shop. What are you doing right? What are you doing wrong?

1. TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS:
Shopkeeper mistake number 1 (and I would say, number 1 by a mile) is the lack of titles or descriptions on your products. Many shopkeepers plunk a design on an item, price it, and let it sit in the shop hoping for a sale. This is the kiss of death for your product. Why? Because if you hope to get traffic from the search engines (and this is by far the EASIEST way to get targeted traffic) you need to give the search engines something to find. Search engines can not see your image on a product, so they aren't going to be able to index anything that a customer is going to be typing into that little Google box if you haven't given them any text to work with. Make sure that everywhere you can, you are adding relevant text. The key here is relevant. I'll give you an example using one of my products.

Click on the following link:
http://www.cafepress.com/zapgraphix.46893099

This is my "Rabbit Love" Tee (no sarcastic comments please). Why did I name this product that way? I could probably have named this product something that rolled off the tongue a little smoother, but for someone searching for a rabbit product like mine I figured that "rabbit" and "love" would be big search engine words. Thus my title. It's not spectacular and I may rename it one day if I can think of a way to make it better, but for now, this is sufficient.

Now, the description.

"Do you (heart) your rabbit? Perhaps you have your own little bunny at home, if so, then this rabbit illlustration/graphic tee is perfect for you! The perfect gift for any rabbit owner!"

This is the bread and butter for your search engine hits. Here is where you need to be on your game. Think as if you were SHOPPING for your product. What might you type into a search engine to find your product? For me on this product, it was obvious that I needed to include things like rabbit, bunny, heart, love (which is in the title), illustration, graphic, tee, and gift. All of these are included here. Utilize your space. Be as descriptive as you can be without sounding like you are ONLY catering to the search engines. Remember, customers will read your descriptions too. Make them readable to both humans AND search engines. This is a bit of an art and there are better description writers out there than me, but I do know the concept at least, of how to write an effective description.

Bonus tip for more effective descriptions: When you enter a search into a search engine, searchers can use quotes. What this does is this: if I search for something like "rabbit illustration" in quotes, then only text on the web with the words rabbit and illustration DIRECTLY NEXT TO ONE ANOTHER in the description will show up in those search results. So if my description said something like "this is a classy illustration of a rabbit" and someone searched with quotes for "rabbit illustration" then my product wouldn't pop up because illustration and rabbit are separated by the words"of a". I only say this so you keep it in mind. If you can, put descriptive words next to each other to (slightly) improve your chances, but don't force it if it doesn't work, it's just a small way to improve your chances of getting the hit and probably not worth it if you are sacrificing description quality to do so.

2. TAGS:
Tags are an important way to get recognized in the cafepress marketplace. I am not a firm believer that effective tagging will end up in a ton of sales, I think writing effective descriptions and titles will make you more sales in the long run with the search engines, but tagging will result in some sales. I know there are some shops out there that get most of their sales through the marketplace therefore, for them, tagging is of paramount importance. I always fill out my tags because while the bulk of my sales may come through Google, I still do sell a few things through the CP main site. And why not utilize every tool you have afterall? Tags are going to help your overall sales picture. You get 20 slots, use them well. You may not need 20, because sometimes you just top out at a certain number of tags, but if you can find a relevant keyword, use it. Keep in mind variations and misspellings here. I have a pet oriented shop and sell Doberman designs. So for my Doberman products I have to keep in mind that people refer to Dobermans in different ways. I have to tag my Doberman items with "Doberman" very obviously, but what other tags will help me? "Dobe, DobermanN (with a second 'n'), Doberman Pinscher, Doberman Pincher (without the s in pinscher = misspelling), Dobie, Security dog, purebred, purebreed" and so on. Use things you think people will search for and then consider misspellings and in some cases plurals. You don't need to tag a dog design with both "dog" and "dogs" because the CP search engines take into account "+s" for plurals which means that any item that can be pluralized with an s added to it is covered. But if you are selling a design of a octopus, you would want to put in "octopi" because it's not a common pluralization, same with words that change at the end from "y" to "ies" like "pastry" to "pastries".
Don't flood the marketplace with irrelevant tags though. All this does is devalue the effectiveness of the search because anyone searching for a "doberman" is not going to be interested if I'm inappropriately tagging my item by putting something like "George Bush" on them. Sure that might be a popular tag, but putting your item with other popular items, if it's unrelated, is completely pointless and won't net you any sales anyway.

3. DESIGNS THAT DON'T FIT THE PRODUCT:
Over and over again, new shopkeepers plaster their designs on EVERY SINGLE PRODUCT there is. While some people find success with this strategy they design designs that fit all products cleanly. What do I mean? Many designs are square or rectangular, just because that's a common and obvious format. So go ahead and plaster it on stickers, mousepads, shirts, etc. But be careful of those clocks and round buttons! A clock or a button has a round display area. If you go ahead and stick that square or rectangular graphic on a round clock do you think someone is going to buy it with the white areas it leaves behind? Answer: No. Of course there may be rare exceptions to this rule, but largely the answer here is a big fat no. So why not do it anyways? Heck, if you can get 1 sale over the period of a year, then it's worth it right? Wrong. Why? Because if I'm shopping at your little shop and see a nice design but then see it on a clock (looking all screwy because it doesn't fit) then my immediate impression is that you aren't a professional because you are forcing this design to fit on things it doesn't fit on. It makes you look less professional as a shopkeeper, if you look less professional people are less likely to buy from you (even if you have other swell designs). So if you want your really nifty picture of a lizard on that clock, make it fit. How? Make your overall design into a circle or make sure the square is appropriately placed so that it's bleeding off of the edges (bleeding means that you have parts of the image exceed the borders of the display area). Or rework the design so that it's a circle for this particular product. Whatever you do, the key here is to get rid of awkward white space. The only reason you should have white space is if your image/graphic demands it. If you can't make your graphic fit on a clock or button, then just leave it off, be content offering it only on the products it does fit cleanly on. You may eventually sell a clock with an ill fitting graphic like this in the long run, but who knows how many sales of other items you lose in the process because other visitors saw the haphazard designs on your products and thought "I'll just move on." If you are going to invest time in this after all why not make your products and designs look as professional as you can? The amount of extra effort is minimal compared to the end effect on your shop appearance.

4. LOW RESOLUTION OR POOR QUALITY IMAGES:
I've noticed this less of late, but one problem that I had seen for a long time was that people were taking web quality photos and putting them on products. If you do this your product is probably going to get returned if it even sells in the first place. When you take an image from the web (which you shouldn't be doing anyhow unless you've received express permission) it is 72dpi (dots per inch), for a print quality item (i.e. any of the products sold here at CafePress) you need at least 200dpi. So make sure the images you are working with are at 200dpi at least before you consider putting them on anything you plan to sell.

Secondly, look at the picture you are putting on that mug, postcard or tee. Is it something someone is going to want to buy? Be smart. A picture of your cat laying on your bed is a nice snapshot for you or your family, but would I (the consumer who doesn't know your cat) want to buy it? If you look at a picture and can see that it's more or less a family type picture then it's not likely to sell. Photos need be generic in a manner of speaking. Accessible to everyone. If it tells a story, great, but does it tell a personal story or a story that someone like Joe Public might share? So instead of that picture of your cat on your bed, zoom in, catch your cat with some nice lighting, eliminate the hamper in the background and the dirty sock on the floor. You have to have a professional enough looking image to expect it to sell (see the next point for more on this).

5. IS YOUR ARTWORK GOOD?:
"Your artwork isn't any good" is something that no one wants to hear. And you'll have a hard time getting honest answers from your friends and family and probably even here in the forums. Why? Because everyone wants to be nice to you and not hurt your feelings. But try as much as you can to be objective. Is your artwork good? If you are going for an artistic approach to your designs, make sure they are saleable. If you draw like your 6 year old niece chances are you aren't going to make a lot of sales. Ask people what they really think of your work, plead with them to be brutally honest, then, when they are, don't get upset about their response if you don't like it. Honest answers will save you time here, afterall, if your work isn't saleable, don't waste your time making more unsaleable stuff. Now, that being said, don't take one or two peoples' opinions as gospel, get as many opinions as possible. And if you are truly objective, you should know what is good and what isn't.

So what should you do if your artistic designs stink? Well, take heart my friend, all is not lost. Many sales are made on CP through text only designs. In fact more than 50% of CPs sales are largely text items. So if you aren't the artistic type, maybe you can be the witty type, or you can find another way to create products that work for you.

6. RELYING ON CP TO MAKE YOUR SHOP SING:
Okay, CP is not going to hold your hand and make you rich. CP gives you the means to be successful but you have to do the work and take the steps. Don't just rely on the marketplace and don't complain about CP not making you successful. You have to make yourself successful. Get out there and promote your shop. How? Find blogs, websites, discussion groups, etc, that are related to the theme of your shop (more on this later) and let people know you are there. Ask if sites would like to do a link exchange or if they'd like to earn money as an affiliate for your shop. Doing this will net you more visitors than just search engines or marketplace alone. Be warned though, this is a time consuming effort and it's actually quite hard. But if you get a few quality links, they could result in gangbuster business for you. And don't just join a forum and be spammy. Join in the discussions and if permitted, put a shop link in your signature. But if you look spammy or like you are only there to drive people to your shop (even if you are) then you'll turn people off.

7. GOOGLE:
Google. Ah Google. I hate it. I love it. My relationship with Google is fickle. I get traffic from Google. I get most of my sales from Google. But regardless of how hard I try and tweak my site for better rankings from the king of search engines it seems sometimes like I'm hitting my head against a wall. Google is a great resource for sales and you should optimize your shop for it (see titles and descriptions), but realize, there are other search engines out there. Google has something called a 'sandbox effect' which means that your site may be in kind of a holding pattern for the first couple months after you create it. The good news is this. You won't have to deal with that since your shop is a part of CafePress, but if you have a portal site (i.e. a site outside of CafePress that leads to your shop) then THAT site WILL have to deal with it. You won't get any traffic from that portal site until that site is out of the sandbox which can take between 2-4 months on average. During this time don't forget about MSN and Yahoo!, they are great search engines too. The traffic is a fraction of Google, but that's not to say that you won't get sales from them. MSN for example, seems to be very friendly to new sites. In fact I personally like MSN and with all of the resources that they have, I wouldn't be surprised to see it challenge Google eventually (though they have a ways to go).

8. PRICING:
Often enough people will come along and wonder if they are selling their merchandise for too much money. Usually the answer is no. Pricing (within reason) doesn't seem to affect sales to adversely. If one shop has markups across the board of $1.00 they are more likely to have more sales than a similar shop with markups across the board of $3.00 right? Nope. Weird as it is, price (again, within reason) doesn't seem to impact sales too much. In fact there have been numerous reports of people saying they experienced a sales JUMP when they raised prices. Why? I'm not sure, but I guess perceived value may be a factor. People think that if you charge more for your product it is more boutique-y and therefore more desirable. That's just a theory. I don't know if that's the reason or not, but I recently raised my prices on a few items and I haven't noticed a dip in sales as a result. In fact I sold more of one product than I was used to after I raised the price an extra buck. Of course if you price your bumper stickers at $9.99 I would expect sales to drop (or disappear) because that seems excessive, but selling your bumper stickers for $3.49 is probably not going to get you more sales than if you sell them for $3.99 or $4.99. You can also play around with prices and do a little research of your own and see what works best for your shop. Just make sure you give your new prices enough time so you can judge the impact of your price changes.

9. SHOULD I SET UP AN EXTERNAL SITE?
A lot of the time people come to the forum and ask if having an external site is a benefit and whether or not it helps sales. Well, I expect that's going to be different for everyone. I think the majority of the time however the answer will be that yes, it does help. Creating an external site (I have mine which is www.zapgraphix.com ) gives you a way to showcase your products and get other visitors that you might not get directly into your shop. You will have to wait out the 'google sandbox' time but eventually your external site will draw visitors as well and then you can have ads or links that link to your shop and you'll get sales that way. One thing you have to realize however, is that if you decide to go for an external site you'll incur more expenses: you have to register a domain (I would go for the same name as your shop name) which is fairly inexpensive and you'll have to find hosting which is a monthly cost but is also fairly inexpensive. Another thing is that you'll be investing time in this site if you want to do it correctly. Maybe a LOT of time. So consider what you want to put into your shop before making this leap. How you set it up is up to you. Maybe you want to do a news site for your theme, maybe you just want to talk about your products, maybe something different altogether, it's up to you. Just make sure you have content on your site that the search engines can index so that you get visitors. And don't forget to link your external site to your store for pete's sake!

10. OFFLINE ADVERTISING:
Consider what can be done offline too. You can wear your own merchandise, you can place ads in local papers, you can print flyers and hand them out to local shops that might put them out for their customers, you can participate in charitable events. There are lots of ways to get your name out there, some of them take money, some don't. Thinking outside the box sometimes means thinking outside the web. Afterall people are buying a product not a webservice. If you can get people to see your products then you are heading in the right direction. Heck, print up a bumpersticker with your shop name on it, stick it on your car, and drive around. Wear a t-shirt that says "JoesShop.com" or something. You may not get a lot of traffic this way, but you might get some, and who knows, they may convert. Be creative with the way you advertise your site and you'll eventually hit on something.

11. BASIC SHOPS VS. PREMIUM SHOPS:
People are frequently asking if a premium shop is worth it. If you find yourself about to ask that same question, ask yourself this: "Do I want to put some products together and just let them sit on the site and hope to make money or do I plan to invest some time in this?". If you plan to see your project through and give it some effort, then the answer is 10 times out of 10 that premium is the way to go. The expense is minimal and after a few months you are likely to have your shop paying for itself anyways. Basic stores are better for someone who is creating products to sell to themselves or their families and friends. Premium shops don't have restrictions, look more professional out of the box (so to speak), and don't have to be linked together to bring a bunch of products together. If you can afford to spend ANY money, this is where to do it. Basic shops look cheap and unprofessional and you are less likely to find success this way than with a Premium. So don't be cheap if you plan to invest the time, plunk down the money for a premium shop, but if you think you'll be on to a new money making scheme by next week and will forget about CP, then stick with basic.

12. FIND A THEME:
Okay. This point is debatable and that's why it's the last one. But I think that if you find a theme you'll find success easier. A general shop is still going to make sales but a themed shop is going to (in my opinion) find those sales easier to come by. Why? If you have a themed shop people are more likely to stick around. If you find a niche of coin collectors for example, the people that visit your shop are going to be coin collectors and more likely to bookmark your shop/site. You can also learn more about your own product this way. Be an expert. Share your knowledge on your external site if you have one. If your shop is themed, make sure it's a theme you are passionate about so even if the sales aren't really what you want them to be you are at least interested in your own shop. Themes are just easier to work with in my opinion. There are successful shops out there that aren't themed, lots of them in fact, but your road may be less bumpy if you find a niche that you are passionate about.

In any case, running a CP shop is not going to net you millions in your first few days or weeks. I didn't see much in the way of results for the first year and almost threw in the towel myself, but I stuck it out. Now I've seen the seeds start to grow and I'm optimistic about the future. So whatever you do, hang in there. It can be done!

RESOURCES AND TOOLS FOR NEW SHOPKEEPERS:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization):
http://www.highrankings.com/
This is a good site for people wanting to learn how to optimize their shops/sites for search engines. There is an active forum and lots of beginnner articles. Also check out the newsletter for new tidbits of info you can use each week.

Domain Name Registration:
http://www.namebargain.com/
Register your shops domain name for $8.88 a year.

Site Hosting:
http://www.lunarpages.com/
There are many hosting services out there but I've used Lunarpages for more than a year now and am more than pleased with them. $6.95 a month for basic hosting is more than you'll likely need. Their support in the forums is also top notch and I've NEVER had any downtime. Of course this isn't the ONLY host out there, just the one that I recommend.

Visitor Tracking:
http://www.statcounter.com/
If you visit the forums, you are going to hear about StatCounter. It's free in it's basic format and allows you to see where your visitors are coming from and where they are going within your shop. It's invaluable and pretty easy to install. Definitely install it on your shop, it's one of the best free tools out there, and once you get enough visits and sales, you'll probably want to upgrade. Statcounter can only be used with a premium shop (sorry basic shop owners).

I invite other shopkeepers to post their tips in this thread. I think it would be wonderful if new shopkeepers had a resource to use to answer the most basic questions. I know I had a ton of questions when I started out and could have used something like this.

Good luck to you!