Cafepress: I am the world's best gift-giver
Written: Feb 22 '04
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Every holiday season, since I'm married to a non-Jewish man, I now have to buy gifts for relatives I see once a year. I used to love buying gifts and I prided myself at being able to find the perfect gift for every person I know... something that just screamed that person's name and fit their character perfectly... But lets face it, nobody likes to put THAT much time into holiday shopping for the in-laws (or is it just me who doesn't like that? Well lie to me then and don't make me feel guilty!). So for years it was chocolates in various creative displays. I love Sam's Club for their holiday candy boxes that usually cost under $15. Not that I mind spending more than that on the in-laws, I mean after all, their family! (ok, you caught me, I'm covering my you-know-what in case they read epinions) But how much can you spend on impersonal gifts like candy?
Well this last holiday season (2003) I was finally able to bring everyone personal gifts that warmed their hearts and mine: I brought a large 10" kitchen clock with one of my twin sister's paintings as the background for the parental units and mugs with other paintings by my sister for the siblings. Nobody would have been all that impressed with a kitchen clock or a mug as their holiday gift, but decorated with a painting by a family member the item was transferred into a personal and precious gift, not to mention that my sister's paintings are truly awesome and actually fun to look at. Tee hee.
And the point of the story? A few months ago my sister announced to her friends and family that she opened a store at cafepress.com, a site I had never heard about before. But now I'm familiar with it because it has become my favorite place to shop for birthday and holiday gifts. So let me stop patting myself on the back for my renewed gift-giving skills and get to the specifics:
At cafepress.com you can shop at existing stores or create your own store with your own designs on various products. Stores are owned by companies that sell products with their logos (e.g., epinions, ASPCA, and a large number of small businesses) and individuals (mostly artists that want their designs on various products). Products include a wide variety of items from clothes (T-shirts, hats, underwear) to home accessories (wall clocks, mugs, coasters, calendars, mousepads) to more "novelty" items such as lunchboxes, greeting cards and journals. I like this site a lot and I find it both entertaining to browse through and convenient to shop at.
For Sellers:
As mentioned in the introduction, my sister is an artist and has a shop at cafepress.com. Her paintings are very bright and full of color, and they look beautiful on the products she selected to sell at her shop (mugs, tile coasters, lunchboxes, greeting cards, wall clocks and the like). Her shop is at (http://www.cafeshops.com/hava) if you'd like to glimpse how artistic designs are manipulated to be displayed on such products.
Opening a shop on cafepress.com's site is free, which is surprising but true. Their profit comes from selling the actual products, where the owner makes a very small cut from each product sold. For example, my sister probably makes only a dollar or two from an item that is priced at $12-$16 whereas the consumer would pay not only that price but an additional $6 or so for shipping and handling. So unless one sells products in bulk, cafepress.com shop owners are not likely to make any kind of substantial profit.
Presumably, a larger business (e.g., epinions) can make some profit from selling T-shirts with their logo, with very little startup cost. An artist, on the other hand, reaps the benefits of owning a shop at cafepress.com by providing access to their designs more than by making money (unless, that is, they become hugely popular).
The categories of stores that currently exist on the site are businesses, art, comics, gaming, humor, media, non-profit, personal, pets and animals, publishing, recreation, school, software, and special interests. I'm most familiar with the artist's perspective so that's what I'll concentrate on.
Not every artist would like to see their creations on household products, so this site is not for everyone. However, as far as putting artistic creations on household products goes, this site does a rather tasteful and classy job of it. First, the variety of products is truly impressive, and shop owners can select the products that best fit their designs. My sister's creations, for example, lend themselves quite beautifully to framed displays (such as on a square metal lunchbox or tiled coaster) but would not look very good on cloth (T-shirts, canvas bags, hats). Second, the quality of the products is actually quite high and the transference of designs to the products is done professionally (at least the results look very professional, which is all that really counts).
Customization of the store is not limited to the types of products one can offer. The way your store's site looks is pretty much up to you (color of background, fonts, content, images, etc.). Management of the store does not appear to be a heavy burden and I would guess anyone, regardless of their familiarity with the web or availability of free time, should be able to easily run a store on cafepress.com if they so wish.
From the seller's perspective this is the perfect way to shift all the burden of cost to the consumer. That is, rather than paying up front for items bearing your logo or design and then hoping they would sell, items are created on a need-to basis and sold immediately with the cost getting covered by the customer. This, of course, would not work in situations where you'd want your products displayed for the impulse-buyer (such as T-shirts at bars where someone may buy one if they had a particularly good time there). So I would not go to cafepress.com to create products that I would buy in bulk and then try to resell because the products just cost too much per item. But I would open a cafepress.com shop if I wasn't sure how many products I'd actually be able to sell but still wanted to offer them to the public.
I'd say one of the more creative uses for this site would be if you wanted to outfit a group of people in a certain logo or image (for example, a photo of the whole family for a large reunion) you could do so easily by opening a shop at cafepress.com, uploading the image you want to use, and letting each member pay for their item themselves. I'd be surprised if there aren't a number of shops that were opened for this exact purpose.
To sum up this section, the shops are free to open, easy to manage, very customizable, and are the safe way to go when it comes to selling (that is, they don't require a startup cost but are also not the best way to maximize profits on products).
For Buyers:
The only reason I know about cafepress.com is because my sister announced the opening of her shop on that site, and the only stuff I've ever bought on the site has been from my sister's shop, but I've done so several times as has the rest of my family.
I've bought several products off the site (several small and large mugs, 2 types of calendars, mousepads, journals, tile coasters, and a kitchen clock) and all have been very high quality both in terms of the actual item construction and in terms of the decorations. The cost of the items was not cheap but also not overly expensive (most items are in the $13 price zone); the shipping also isn't cheap but not extravagant either (each item adds to the cost of shipping, but there is some break in the cost as items are shipped together). The shipping was prompt and all items were packaged with extreme care. In fact, I was beyond impressed when my first box arrived and I saw how carefully the items were packaged.
The only other thing I can comment on as a consumer is customer service. First, as soon as I bought my items I received a confirmation email as well as a coupon for my future purchases. My own purchases arrived intact, but my mother reported that one of the coffee mugs she had bought arrived with a slightly less than crisp image, and customer service replaced the item immediately with no questions asked. I usually judge a business, especially a web-based business, by how well they handle conflict or problems, and cafepress.com seems to do so professionally and promptly. And have I mentioned they really know their packing materials?
Overall:
I toyed with the idea of having some of my own designs on cafepress and I've looked around at random shops on the site as well. But in the end, to tell the truth, I'm not likely to use cafepress.com for anything other than my sister's shop. Nevertheless, I find it a great site and I can foresee many a scenario where people may want to open shops at cafepress.com for their own benefit, whether it's personal, artistic, or business-related. In the meantime, I got 3 different birthday gifts to shop for and I just *know* my gift will be personal and heart-warming. Tee hee.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
ngurevic
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Member: Naomi Gurevich
Reviews written: 61
Trusted by: 26 members
About Me:
I finished my Doctorate (in Linguistics) and had a kid. now what?!
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