Cafe Press

[Analog6]

Does anyone have a Cafe Press account. Do you sell anything through them? I have one but have not uploaded any images and wondered if ti is worthwhile doing so.

[ving]

my wife had one... or she still might. selling images online is always gunna be hard and very hit and miss i am afraid. I have had a redbubble store for ages and have not sold anything at all. I also had a cafepress store but canceled it.

my suggestion, if you dont care what format you sell your photos in, try a greeting card store. cheryl has had one for a while and its just a matter of selling to the right market. it could mean turning a beatiful image into a clichéd xmas card tho. cheryl has sold hundreds of cards this way.

[Analog6]

I'll never be putting up what I consider my best stuff for those type of sales, anyway. But I suspected it would be a waste of time. Did you mean an online greeting card store or physical companies?

[farmer_rob]

I'll never be putting up what I consider my best stuff for those type of sales, anyway. But I suspected it would be a waste of time. Did you mean an online greeting card store or physical companies?

Excuse my ignorance here (and I am not trying to be rude), I would have thought that only putting up your second-best stuff for this type of sale (online, untargeted) is a way to *not* get sales. Why buy the second-rate?

I am sure there are good reasons why you don't want to put your best photos up, but it seems to me that you should be testing those reasons and perhaps coming to the conclusion that you don't need/want to have any online sales this way (and hence not bothering with a cafepress account).

[Analog6]

I worded that badly. Some shots, just a few, I am keeping aside to hopefully market one day as a 'fine art print' type of work. Not really suitable for mugs and T shirts anyway. But in most cases I have similar shots of the same subjects.

[farmer_rob]

A bit clearer now. Thanks.

Some questions I'd be asking:

How do you distinguish yourself on Cafepress - it is easy to search for an item, or a topic - but what makes *your* photo make it to the top of the search page?

Do you have a marketing plan/website that points (or will point) people to look at *your* images on cafepress?

It seems to me that a lot of these sites have vast numbers of photos and the casual browser who will be buying a poster/tshirt/mug/framed print is not going to search too hard. Either you can follow a "put it up and pray" approach, or use it as part of a larger marketing plan.

In a brief browse of cafepress, it seems it is not possible to search by artist/photographer *unless you know who it is*. Having found a photo, there are no direct links to find photos by the same photographer. As such, it seems very product-centric and not very creator-centric, which is great for cafepress and not great for you.

[farmer_rob]

A couple of extra comments after having a quick look at your blog:

a) some lovely photos
b) Your imagekind account seems a better option to push (more photographer-based and still part of cafepress )
c) in the top frame of your blog, you say "see my zenfolio ...." - however, clicking on this does NOT get me to zenfolio. As a general browsing experience, I find this mildly annoying. (Just a minor niggle )

[Analog6]

Thanks for letting me know! I'll see if I can fix it.

[ving]

I'll never be putting up what I consider my best stuff for those type of sales, anyway. But I suspected it would be a waste of time. Did you mean an online greeting card store or physical companies?

yup online greetingcard store. she uses greeting card universe... she, as i have said has sold hundreds of card. not all of them photos, most are digital art types. you just have to resign yourself to not selling works of art, but just cards. you wont become a millionaire from it but i guess its a way of putting your work out there, and making a few buck on the side. cheryl has well over 1000 cards now and only sells on peak times like holidays usually with just a trickle of birthdays, bar mitzvahs, etc the rest of the time. you have to cater to the crowd to make it work.

rob: best shots, worst shots... it doesnt really matter. if it doesnt work as a card it just wont sell.

[ving]

oh heres the addy if you are interested.
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/

[Erin]

Personally, I think you'd be better off using RedBubble. Their quality is pretty darn good.

[Analog6]

I have a huge problem uploading to redbubble - it always times out or hangs. I've contacted them and I just cannot get it to work for me properly.