Farewell, Cafe Press

I never did much on Cafe Press--I found their site difficult to understand and use, and the only royalties I ever made through them--a whopping 52 cents--were mysteriously claimed for "fees" of an unknown nature, so when word came that Cafe Press intended to royally screw over its dedicated contributors, I didn't feel much of a personal loss.

For those of you that don't know, Cafe Press recently announced a policy change that has its most productive, talented, and dedicated contributors outraged.  Although contributors had until now been allowed to set their own royalties for their designs, CP has announced that starting June 1st, anything a designer sells through the Marketplace instead of their own shop will receive only a piddly 10% royalty.  What does this mean? This means that not only will all of these professional designers suddenly be making a fraction of what they're worth, but also that they will be forced to compete with themselves.  After all, who's going to spend $30 for a shirt that they can get from the Marketplace for $15?  CP justifies their decision by saying they're trying to clean up the Marketplace and make it easier for customers to shop there, and point out that users have the ability to keep their products out of the marketplace. What they are actually doing is forcing the most talented contributors--the ones whose work is worth more than 10%--out of the marketplace, and thus out of the notice of potential customers that visit CP.  Eventually, the customers will leave too, because they will just plain get tired of searching Cafe Press and finding only crap.

Furthermore, CP is not satisfied with denying their contributors what they're worth in the Marketplace--they are finding ways to weasel users out of their royalties even if the sale comes from their shop!  If a customer is linked to your shop, buys an item, and then goes to the Marketplace and picks up something else, Cafe Press will count YOUR sale as a MP sale as well, because it was in the same shopping basket.  So, even if you opt out of the Marketplace, even if you promote your shop, even if you do nothing but sell your own work out of your own shop, you will lose your markup if the customer decides to see what else they like on the Cafe Press site.  That's a hell of a way to thank their contributors for drawing in traffic!

My heart goes out to all of the Cafe Press designers who are suffering the bad business decisions of their home POD.  These are people with hundreds or even thousands of products who now must decide, "Do I stay here, or do I move?"  To move would mean finding a POD site they can trust, completely relearning from scratch how to design products, making do without products they're used to, learning new ones, and then trying to bring in all of the designs they once made money off of in Cafe Press.  To stay where they are would mean a drastic cut in profits--perhaps the loss of their livelihood--and an uncertain future on a site that seems determined to deny them everything they deserve.  It's not an easy choice to make.

I would like to welcome any displaced CP designers to the Zazzle.com community.  Several former CPers have already established themselves on Zazzle, and many of the Zazzle veterans are keeping watch on the forums to help answer any questions newcomers may have with the site.  Unlike CP, Zazzle has no insecurity issues, and won't forbid you from mentioning their competitors, and they allow you to set your own royalties on your products, even if they ARE in the marketplace!  You also may create as many products as you want in your gallery without ever having to pay a cent for a "premium" gallery.

And of course, if anyone is a newbie on Zazzle and has any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.