Selling T-shirts Online

Creating a free shop on CafePress

This  is a brief step-by-step guide to opening a  free CafePress shop.  The aim is to help you save “learning how” time and concentrate on the “doing it” time that I wrote about in my last post.

Opening a CafePress shop is not difficult, in fact it is very easy, but there are a lot of sections and boxes to complete and it helps to have a route through them. Also, being consistent means that you are less likely to miss out something important.

Requirements

There are a couple of things you will need to get started.

One is a CafePress account if you don’t have one - that is easy, just go to the Cafepress website and register. Simple as that.  All you need to open a free shop is an email address.

The other thing is an image which is a suitable size. our image should be sized at 2000 x 2000 pixels for best results. This  is what CafePress recommend as it will fit onto almost all of their products, all except very small items.

In fact you don’t even need to have your own graphics as there are many thousands of designs on CafePress that you can use in your own shops if you prefer so just have a good look at what is available.

There is a lot of help on the CafePress site about preparing images for printing, including onto black fabric.  Take a look later and maybe I’ll write a guide to image prep as well sometime soon.

Why only one image?

That’s my advice and here’s why because I  wasted a lot of time before I recognised this and the purpose of this blog is to save your time.

The important thing to realise is this:  you can only have one of each product in a free shop.

So, for example, if you put a design on one style of  t-shirt you cannot have a different design on that same style of t-shirt in that same shop. And if you have more than one design in a simple free shop then it can get confusing for the shopper. Not a good idea.

OK, let’s get started!

Login to Cafepress and click on ‘Start Selling’ at the top of the page and then the ‘Get Started’ button under ‘Basic Shops’.

Now we are at the form for creating the shop.  First thing to enter is a short ID for the shop. As well as helping you to identify the shop in your account it will also be part of the unique internet address for your shop.

I suggest you choose something short that reminds you of the design. I’m going to give my new shop the ID of galaxyburst and the link for my shop will automatically be created by CafePress as http://www.cafepress.com/galaxyburst/

If you are unsure about this, don’t worry too much about the exact names you choose at this stage because they can all be changed later on.

Now we enter the name of the shop which the customer sees. Remember you will only be using one design in the shop so the shop name is probably going to be related to the design itself. We’re not looking for branding or product ranges here - you will need a Premium shop for that.  I suggest we play around with the free shops and learn the ropes first. The shop name will also appear in the title bar across the top of the window of your shop’s web page and in the favourites bookmarks list.

I am calling my shop ‘Galaxy Star Burst’ and if you look at the design in the shop you will see why.

There are a few other boxes which you can look at. They are self-explanatory and you can almost certainly ignore them. Just accept the terms and conditions and ‘Submit’ to create the empty shop and go to the next page.

Setting up a design in the shop

Before we go on, here’s a tip. You’ll see a link to your new shop on the page. Before you click on the big button labelled ‘Build your Shop’, open the link to the shop in a new tab in your web browser. This is what your customers will see and you can monitor exactly what changes you’ve made as you go along.

OK, we’ve clicked on ‘Build your Shop’. First thing to do is go to ‘ Store Settings’

Enter a product name, probably the same name as the shop, and a description of the design if you wish.

Now we need to upload the design so click on ‘Select Image’ then ‘ Upload New Image’ and follow the instructions. Once it is uploaded you should go to may need to select it so it will be added to your shop. Of course you can upload several different designs at the same time if you wish but don’t forget, only use one design in each shop.

Now we are back it the product set-up section again and we need to set the mark-up on the products. Each different CafePress product has a fixed price which is what you as the shop-keeper will be charged. In order to make a profit the products will be on sale in your shop at a higher price and the difference between the two prices is the ‘Mark-up’. There are several different ways of setting these so make your choice and click on Save

Setting up products in the shop

OK, we are nearly there. We have a shop set up for a particular design and we have uploaded the design. The final stage is to create the products to go in the shop and Cafe Press offers many different types of item that you can sell.

Select ‘Add Products’ and simply choose from the list. Click on Done and there we are - it’s as easy as that! Now is a good time to check your shop in your web browser. You’ll need to refresh the page if you already have it opened as I suggested earlier.

Finishing touches

There are just a couple more things that I recommend that you do. You should be at the shop management page (if not then you can get to it from any of the links to ‘Your Shops’).

First select ‘Edit Shop Appearance’.

Anything you write  in the ’shop description ‘ box  will display at the top of your shop page beside the shop name. Remember again, the unique point about the  ’shop’ is really the design so you will probably put a description of the design here. In fact if you added a description in the Storefront Info section you could re-use it here.

There are other options such as a shop logo. You could combine these options to create branding for your business across your entire range of shops without the expense of a premium shop - but also of course without the flexibility that a premium shop gives you either..

Back at the management page, select ‘Edit Shop Profile’. You can change things like the Shop ID here if you wish. We are going to complete the name of the shop website that appears in the title bar and favourites bookmrks list by adding something in the box marked ‘Title’. Whatever you put here will appear after the shop name, separated by a colon. I put ‘99Bells at Cafepress’ because my business uses the name 99bells so the tiltle bar of this shop says ‘Galaxy Star Burst : 99Bells at CafePress.com’.

SEO: Search Engine Optimisation

The final entry boxes on the Shop Profile page are for Keywords and Meta-tags. These help optimise your shop for search engines. SEO is a a huge topic all of its own but the basics are really pretty simple: use keywords that relate to your design and products and don’t try to fool the search engines with ‘clever tricks’ which will eventually result in your page ranking being down graded. There are some tips on the Shop Profile page and plenty of advice on the CafePress site and in the forums.

Good luck and let me know how you get on creating and selling t-shirts using CafePress!

Many people will have used Vistaprint for free or low-cost business cards but if you haven’t yet heard of them, or if you haven’t had a good look at all the items and services they offer, a visit to http://www.vistaprint.co.uk is well worth while.

Vistaprint offer a huge range of products for establishing a business identity such as letterheads, mouse mats, cards,  compliment slips and return address labels or even complete websites.

They also offer many items for the home or as gifts such as clocks, calendars, photo and greeting cards - there really is a very long list.

All their products are low-cost but, even better, there is a section of “FREE” items.

You pay a small charge for the post and packing (shipping costs) but that is all. I recently obtained 500 business cards for only a few pounds.

Of course these are loss-leaders to entice you into the site and you will receive other tempting offers as you check-out followed up by frequent emails with other offers. But that’s OK if you only purchase what you really need, especially if you wait for them to be on offer.

There is more. As well as the prices and range of goods there are a couple of other things that make them stand out.

One is the wide range of graphic designs, templates and fonts available on the site. And the templates are customisable - you can easily change fonts, colours and placement. I was able to take a stock business card template and move every different element around and completely personalise it.

If that is not enough you can upload your own graphics or photographs.

There is usually a charge for this - but free uploads are often available in the follow-up emails that come once you have made your first purchase. In fact be prepared to receive an email everyday - but that’s a small price to pay for the free and low-cost services.

They even produce very low-cost t-shirts! They provide a ‘gift’ service, similar to Cafepress, where goods are shipped with no invoice so you could use them as a drop-shipping Print-on-Demand service. For example, sell on eBay then put in the order. They generally turn-around orders very quickly. In my expereince usually within 24 hours and delivery is usually within 48 hours although it would be wise to allow for delays and state alonger delivery time on an eBay listing.

Finally, Vistaprint do have an affiliate program of course although they pay in credits (redeemable as Vistaprint purchases) rather than cash but if you are interested in seeing what they have to offer, here is my link: http://www.vistaprint.co.uk

I Have posted an entry about how sensible - or not! - it is to start an online business right now. Take a look, it’s on my general-interest blog www.sydhancock.com:

http://www.sydhancock.com/start-a-business-now-you-must-be-mad/

Think of a Few Words First
When you have found a suitable design graphic,  I suggest that next you think about the title, product name and keywords for your new product - even before you start the procedure of opening the shop.

Why?
Well the process of opening a new free shop and adding a design isn’t difficult and doesn’t take long but what makes all the difference - and can take much more time to work on - is the title and keywords that you use to describe the product.

The reason this is so important is that these words are what is picked up by search engines and after all it is search engines that will bring most of your customers.

So spend some time thinking of a suitable name and simple words to describe what your design and product is and who it is aimed at. There is no need to be too clever or witty, just keep it simple and clear.

Example
Say you have a child’s drawing of a rabbit. It is a charming naive sketch and you believe that it will appeal to children and their parents. You want to put it onto mugs and children’s clothing and maybe other items.

Title
Your title could be something as simple as “A cute bunny rabbit on children’s clothing, mugs and other gift items”

Keywords
Now list some of the most important words that go with your shop and your design. Think about it from the point of view of someone searching for something to buy. What are they likely to put into a search box that will end up with them viewing your page with your designs and products?

Maybe words such as:  bunny, rabbit, baby, bib, sweatshirts, mug, coffee cup, gift, unique - I’m sure you can think of many more.

Description
So we have a title and keywords and now we need a description.
This can just be the title repeated, perhaps with a few words to make it into a complete sentence such as:
‘We sell pictures of cute bunny rabbits on children’s clothing, mugs and other gift items.”

Name and Shop ID
Finally think of a simple name for the product. I suggest you pick a name based on the design - remember this example is for a free shop using one single design, not a shop with lots of designs which could have a broader name or brand. So let’s call our example “Cute Bunny” and the one-word shop ID which you’ll be asked for could simply be  “cutebunny”.

Done

OK, we are just about ready to open our free Cafepress shop with the minimum of fuss and bother.

Till next time!

Syd

Create or find a suitable design

Without a suitable design you have no product!

Remember,  save it at 2000×2000 pixels (i.e. 10″x10″ at 200 dpi)  for using in CafePress and the “Save As… ” file format should be JPEG or PNG.

Today I looked through some saved graphics because I am planning to add some new products soon.
These will be for children and young people and I am looking for bold, simple, colourful.

Don’t forget about copyright - designs must be either your own original artwork (or by a friend or family member of course) or else from an authorised design pool such as the cafepress marketplace - don’t use other people’s work or any commercial logos etc without permission!

I will be posting exactly how to add a design to Cafepress in the next few days.

More soon
Syd

“Oh the first days are the hardest days…” - Grateful Dead
Patience: that is what is needed in the early days.
Patience and planning.

Before you can even start selling online there are a lot of things to learn and a lot of things to do. And if you don’t plan what you are going to do then you’ll be overwhelmed and try to do everything at once and get nowhere fast.

But the good side is that everything will get easier and quicker as you learn more. And that’s where this blog comes in - the aim is to save you time by cutting down on “trial and error” learning. I’m doing that for you

Researching and learning and setting-up the structures all takes time. A lot of time.

Once you’ve learned how to do something, it’s quick. Learning how to do it isn’t quick.

When you’ve researched what needs to be done, you don’t need to research it all over again, you just get on and do it. That’s quick. Researching takes time though.

Setting up the structure of the business takes time - once it’s there it will function but there’s a lot to be learned and done.

I do forsee that once it is set up and making sales then the ‘internet dream’ of working anywhere for a few hours a day will be possible. But it takes a lot more effort and hours than that to get it built.

And the patience to wait for sales: reading forums it seems that starting a few sales a month after four or five months is a realistic expectation if you keep working to create and promote the products. That’s a lot of work, and patience, before seeing even small returns.

Slow, slow quick quick, slow:

• Doing time: quick
• Learning time: slow

• Thinking and planning: takes time but saves time

• Creating time: well, that may be quick, a flash of  inspiration, may be a lot of time completing. There is the old saying about “1% inspiration 99% perspiration” and another that says that “the devil is in the detail”.

Still, once the foundations are laid it and is all set up then I can concentrate on the doing and the creating.

Patience and planning. And just keep on keeping on. And enjoy it!

I began my project of selling t-shirts online using CafePress.

This was because they seem to be very big in the US and that is going to be a primary market.

Here is a brief introduction to the CafePress service with my opinions and the thinking behind them.

Location

CafePress operates from the USA and makes payments for sales in dollar cheques only. No Paypal, no other currencies. They take payment for orders by Credit Card only.

They do ship goods to many different countries outside the US but it can take a couple of weeks to deliver which could be a problem for selling directly to international customers.

CafePress seem to be very well-known in the US, maybe the market leader. They have recently started a UK website but the goods are still produced in the USA and shipped over to Europe with all the delay that entails.

Products and Designs

CafePress offers a very wide range (over a hundred) of different items that designs can be printed on. These include mugs, clocks, mouse pads and many other homemaking and office products as well as many types of clothing.

If they want, designers can simply upload their designs, photos and images for others to pay to use. This means they can concentrate on designing without having to open their own shops if that’s a hassle. Naturally that also means that non-designers who want to open on-line shops have a wide range of great designs to choose from. Designers get paid a commission if their designs are used.

Of course, the ideas of having “shops” and a ”design marketplace” are not unique to CafePress.

On-line Shops

CafePress offers free shops which are quite small and simple with limited options and paid-for Premium shops which can contain many more products and designs and can be completely customised.

Premium shops can be paid for monthly and do not cost very much.

The best way to use free shops seems to be to have one for each separate graphic design and then select a range of products to be sold in that shop using that design. This is because you can only have one of each product in a free shop. So, for example, if you put a design on a t-shirt you cannot have a different design on that same style of t-shirt in that same shop.

Each free shop has a unique URL (web address) so you could have either a CafePress Premium shop or your own website showing the designs and link from that site to the separate shops.

CafePress has links with Squidoo to promote shops and it is also possible to sell on ebay then have CafePress send the product directly to the buyer - you have to order it yourself and have it sent as a gift so that the ebayer does nor get an invoice included showing them what you paid compared to what they paid you!

Service

CafePress prices are low and delivery times to US customers seem quick. If you are not in the US, the shipping delay could be a problem if you wanted them to deliver directly to international customers. CafePress offer a bulk-order discount so could be a good source for buying in bulk to resell yourself, perhaps using eBay or supplying local shops or market stalls, if you wanted to go down that road.

Personally I definitely do not want to operate a mail-order business. I want to handle the orders but use a full Provider service to produce and ship the goods, not be tied to physically packaging and mailing parcels.

It may be less profit but you are not tied to a physical location nor do you need storage space and capital or employees. In fact you can run the business anywhere there is an internet connection. A lot of the nitty-gritty work will be done for you and the work-team will also be scaled up automatically as the business grows without you needing to find more staff, premises or capital. These are some of the ways that this is similar to the eBooks business model.

So does CafePress offer what I’m looking for?

First thing to say is that CafePress offers a great service. The website is vibrant, the designs are vivid and topical, they have a great community and a huge choice of products. A great site for both graphic designers and buyers and also anyone who wants to get started selling stuff quickly and easily and simply.

I love it but is it what I am looking for to develop my business ideas in the longer term? I’m not sure it is and here’s why.

The CafePress ethos seems to be to make it as easy as possible for graphic designers to sell their designs and their mission seems to become THE first-choice site for people who want a themed or topical t-shirt etc.They aim to provide a complete service within the confines of the  CafePress system.

That’s not to say that they do not encourage people to open shops or that CafePress shops are not successful. And the tie-in with Squidoo makes it a lot easier for people to promote their products outside of CafePress. It’s just that their facilities for developing shops outside of CafePress or linking to eBay seem limited compared to some of their competitors. It’s not really what they are all about.

Another way of looking at it is that they do provide a simple and completely self-contained system. CafePress is a complete free-standing design-and-sell universe and that’s great if that is what you are looking for - go for it. As I wrote above, their emphasis is on making it easy for designers to get on with what they do best and get those ideas out to people with the minimum complications.

So - what next?

Well, I’m certainly going to continue to open free cafePress shops and put designs into the CafePress pot. CafePress is big, it’s a USA market leader and it’s free so I’d be a fool not to. I’m going to pay attention to tagging, to descriptions and to any other simple SEO techniques.

But I’m not going to spend a lot of time trying to develop a CafePress presence beyond that. Although I could develop a Premium shop or a website linking to my free shops, I’ll not be doing that just yet. Maybe later on but not yet.

Why? Because next up is to try out  Spreadshirt. From what I’ve read so far on their site and forums, Spreadshirt offers much more scope for what I want to do.

With CafePress, you create a CafePress site. With Spreadshirt you develop your own ideas while Spreadshirt does the heavy lifting.

Also, Spreadshirt has a delivery operation in Europe as well as in the States and that is important to me too. It means I can easily sell in both continents without the long delivery delays to europe from the US.

And there are a lot of other factors that appeal to me too: like Paypal. Ethical policies. Links to eBay. Stuff like that.

Maybe I’m mistaken. I’ll find out soon. More later.

Hello!

My name is Syd Hancock and I am setting up an online business selling t-shirts and other clothing and apparel as well as things like mugs and other gifts.

Maybe you are like me - you’ve looked at many of the internet business ideas going round and thought ‘”yes, that’s great but a lot of them seem to be how to make money online by selling ideas about how to make money by selling ideas about how to make money…” and so on forever.

Nothing wrong with doing that, I’m looking into that as well, but what about providing something tangible, physical things that people also want and need?

Well the great thing is that we can do that just as easily as selling ebooks to download.

There are businesses that will produce and ship the goods all over the world for you. You just take the orders and pass them on so you don’t need to be tied to running a mail-order business or need lots of warehouse space or capital.

That’s what I’m going to use - they are known as PODs or Produce On Demand services.

I am also studying successful internet marketers who specialise in ebooks and information selling and looking at ways of adapting their stategies to a business selling physical items.

Having a blog to raise profile and gain interest is one of the first things the mentors suggest.

I’m not looking for quick riches. I believe that it could take at least a year for my projects to become established. Patience is an essential quality or, as the I Ching put it many centuries ago: ‘Perseverance Furthers’.

This blog is a record of my project. If you are also setting up an online business, or thinking about it, please feel free to read and leave comments and let’s support each other on the ride - the more the merrier!

This is my first real blog so learning how to set up and manage it is one of the first things I’m doing so there will be rough edges for a while. But that’s OK too. First of all I’m putting some content up so the search engines, and readers, can start to find it. I’ll tidy up all the presentation over the next few days.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Syd Hancock

Suffolk UK