Cafepress.com has custom markups that you can set on all your custom made Print on Demand products. This is a familiar territory with competing websites as well.
Unspoken Rules?
Let's get right to it without beating around the bush. This is merely advice speaking through the window of experience and, nothing more. Seasoned veterans at Cafepress who have been around for a while typically have the higher markups than new shops who have just opened their doors.
Rebuttal Alert! Hey, but that's not true! What if you are a great designer and it has nothing to do with how long you've been around!?!
HOT TIP! Ah, it's yet another trick on the mind with the analytical thinking of a person sitting at home or work on the computer shopping. If you have only 10 sections of a few products with $10-15 markups, a potential visitor is going to think to himself, "Who the hell are you?"
If you have been around for two or three years (maybe longer), you now have most likely 200-500 sections containing hundreds of variations, styles, and colors. The potential visitor now sees thousands of products at a higher price. Hmmm, that must mean quality. That must mean you can be trusted. Maybe now he's thinking, "Wow, you've been at this for a long time. Look at this large selection of products! I think I might buy from you." Don't you do this when you shop online? I know I do. What makes my customers any different? They are just like you and me because we are all consumers.
When you start out, you gotta learn the ropes anyway. Take it slow and I'd start with a $2-3 dollar markup. Build up that inventory and fill the store with coupons from this guy. Remember, your free coupons are paying for your Cafepress markups anyway. There is a free coupon feed you can integrate into your shop. Do a Google search for "cafepress coupons" at any day or time to post up new ones. (new window)
Go on, give yourself a raise! You've earned it, 'ol boy or gal...
If you've been around for three or four years, I'd start going higher on the markups. Make sure your Internet presence is strong, though. As long as you are constantly advertising and promoting yourself, I'd go with a high markup tier on your products. Go fer it!
A $15 button or sticker?
Of course, I wouldn't do a $10 markup across the board. A product that is already $2 or $3 at cost is just not reasonable with such an extreme markup. The lower the cost on the product, I'd recommend choosing your markups by percentage. A $2.50 item should be commissioned at no more than 50%. Remember, (usually) these items at Cafepress are for that little "extra" to meet or beat that coupon that's burning a hole into their computer screens.
Oh, while I'm reminded of this - I personally would never pay over $5-$7 for a bumper sticker. Markup your commissions and look at the final selling price to your customers. Would you pay that? If you wouldn't, neither would your potential customer.
Adjust Accordingly
SUPER DUPER HOT TIP ON FIRE!!! Open up your Google Analytics accounts if you got 'em folks....90% of all large successful Cafepress stores reach at least 85% new visitors versus 15% repeat visitors. At least 5% of the repeat visitors are your competitors. Trust me...
My point? If most of your traffic is new visitors, most won't know it if you've made a change to your site or Cafepress store! Change your markups and give them at least 2 weeks. Check your saved email sale reports (if you got 'em). If not, enable email notifications of sales at Cafepress and save every one of them from now on. Now you can start seeing waves of your 85% new visitor reach and whether or not they will pay your price you've set. Sales will go down if they think you're too high.
If your sales slow down, go back, lower the markups a little and wait another few weeks. If you want solid results, wait an entire 45 day period from the 3rd day of any given month of the year.
I have no sales! I only make $10 a month! What gives?
Another possibility of zero or low sales is you are selling a product that just won't sell, low promotion, no advertising, or you just plain suck. Sorry, I have to be honest here!
I've made hundreds of designs that haven't sold at all before. I've made some that have only sold one in an entire year. It happens. It's what makes the world unique and different. One might think your design is crappy, but another peroson will absolutely adore it. Just don't take it personal! It's just business.
What do you do? You make a TON of options for them. Make a blue version, a red version, a blue with orange version, a PINK version for the ladies....give people options and make more designs! You're fishing your castnet of creativity and design in Cafepress's ocean of a marketplace. Maybe somebody will see your vision or humor.
I myself make some rather bizarre or twisted types of what I consider "humor". Call it dry, call it dark, call it what you want - it's KaptainMyke.
The rumor mill is spinning
I heard numbers. I've heard $12-15 markups, even as high as $25 per product! These guys are making some money! Lordy! they also got thousands and thousands of sections, grandfathered in from the recent Cafepress section limits on shops.
If you are a great designer or author, people will pay your price if they want it bad enough. Again, if I want something bad enough, I'll pay that extra dollar myself. So will your potential site visitor.
Be creative
A great and creative example of an extreme markup is the $100 Shirt at Cafepress. Does he sell any? If so, how many? Comment here if you read this, Mr. $100 T-Shirt Guy. I'd really like to know.
The sky's the limit with your imagination.
The SLOW SEASON
The dreaded slow periods of any luxury retail website that sells products (that we all don't really need) suffers from this period twice a year. When? After Christmas and after school's out.
Period one: January to April. Period two: May to July. Things start getting good when grade school and college returns every fall. Then, Christmas comes again!
It really IS the season to be Merry at Cafepress!
At Christmas I'd hike up any markup you got currently by $5 or more (at least!). People will pay anything during Christmas time. Why? I do, why wouldn't anybody else? Consider it your bonus for the year. Everyone typically has received some extra money during this holiday
season at any job. Albeit tips, wages, bonus checks, or "Jelly of the Month" club memberships.
Inflation's a B!7@%!
This is 2008. Gas is high, groceries are high, shipping costs are OUTRAGEOUS, contract work, services, etc., etc., LIFE - everything is going up in price.
Why don't you?
Posts
5 comments:
I don't know if he's sold on or not but here is a post by the guy if you were looking for him
http://www.t-shirtforums.com/cafepress/t4617.html
Actually, the person who posted in the link the previous poster referenced isn't the same person selling the $100 shirt that the owner of this blog was talking about. That person may indeed be selling his or her own $100 shirt, but it's not the same one.
I can say that confidently because I actually am the person selling that particular $100 shirt on Cafepress. It's partly a joke, partly a fashion statement, and partly a conversation starter. And no, I don't discuss how many I've sold.
In general, though, I think the blogger does a massive disservice to the community he is trying to serve when he advises them to start with small markups and wait a few years before going for higher markups. I started marking up my shirts $10 after my first few months and have never looked back. And yes, plenty of people are willing to buy magnets for $6.99 and bumper stickers for 7.99 if it's a design they want that they can't easily find elsewhere.
Face it, products at Cafepress are gonna be too expensive for your average bargain hunter even if you put a $0 markup on them. It's just the nature of the whole Print on Demand business model. Nobody is going to pay $14.99 (plus shipping) for a t-shirt when they can get one at Wal-mart for $9.99 or less. Unless, that is, the shirt happens to have the aforementioned design they want that they can't easily find elsewhere. And if the shirt does have a design they really want, most likely it won't matter if the shirt is $19.99 or $29.99.
Also, it's another disservice to tell people to assume that all potential customers are just like they are. That's simply not true! A lot of people (perhaps not you or me, but plenty of other people) tend to equate price with quality. That's why the same exact pair of Jeans will sell at K-Mart for $12.99 and a high-end department store for $69.99. It's the same pair of jeans, but people would rather pay more if they think they are somehow getting a better product. This is especially true when buying gifts for other people. If you buy somebody a $9.99 shirt as a gift, you are cheap. If you buy them one for $29.99, you are a good friend -- even though it's the exact same shirt.
Do I recommend that everybody goes out and marks their shirts up to $100? Of course not. There are plenty of t-shirts that sell for $100 (and much, much more) out there, but those shirts all have the name recognition of established designers behind them. But if you feel your designs are high quality and unique, don't be shy about marking them up by $10 or so. If people like them, they will buy them. And if people don't like them, they wouldn't buy them even if you were selling them with no markup.
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