No, not more information products…software…or any amount of
Here’s a free video from my friend Lance Mock.
The example, this person creates products using CafePress and sell them for a 20% commission in a store there, by by changing the venue and marketing on Ebay, he has the chance to spice it up by calling it “retro” and drop ship orders direct from Cafe Press to the buyer.
The average sale is about $30 gross revenue. He clears @ $21 dollars per T Shirt. The buyer pays for drop shipping. And of course you pay Ebay and PayPal fees. Still… a respectable profit for never having to handle a thing and investing no upfront money.
This person has become a powerseller by creating his own designs.
Here’s the free 20 minute video… Making Your Own Products To Sell Online
You can check out CafePress here
Could you do that?
Linkin on June 24th, 2009 at 5:24 am
In June 2009, CafePress began competing with the artists for whom it acts as printer and shipper.
CafePress rents web shops to its artists. The artist creates a website page and manually loads the desired blank products. The artist imports his image onto each product, arranges the products on the page, describes the products, titles the products and tags the images.
Initially, the artist would set a markup and received the markup for each product sold.
However, recently CafePress began competing with its artists, using the artists’ own images. CafePress created a marketplace where a customer can search a keyword. That search brings up artist products. When the customer buys from the marketplace CafePress pays the artist 10% of the price CafePress set. Both the customer and the artist lose money. If the artist’s shop sells a t-shirt for $21, the artist makes $3.01. If the marketplace sells the same shirt for $25, the artist gets $2.50. The customer pays $4 more, and the artist gets $0.51 less.
CafePress tells artists to “promote your own shop,” but CafePress buys Google adwords using the very image tags the artist provided.
CafePress justifies this bait and switch of service terms by telling artists they can opt out if they don’t like the new terms; however, many have spent as much as 7 or 8 years creating as many as 88000 images.
In spite of their sweat-equity, many shopkeepers (content providers) are building shops at other print-on-demand companies and then closing their CafePress shops due to the broken faith and trust, the financial hardship CafePress has delivered into so many lives, and the huge amount of time and dedicated effort all lost in the momentum of their own businesses. Would you keep your AMOCO station franchise if AMOCO built a company store across the street from you?
Chuck on June 24th, 2009 at 6:21 am
Thanks for this news. It’s truly a sickening development.
Eleanor on July 2nd, 2009 at 10:22 am
Yes, it has been a very bad month for shopkeepers; very little return for the time invested now.