Question for users of cafepress.com?

Question

I'm an artist and I have a portfolio of designs that I would like to use to create products to sell on cafepress.com. I've checked the site out and it seems legit, but here's my question: Now that I have the designs, how do I turn them into greeting cards, calendars, etc? If you can help me thank you... :)

Answer 1

Cafepress is a wonderful place to sell your artwork!

If you go onto the cafepress website, you will see a tab along to sell your products. In this section you will find templates for the correct sizes to look the best on whatever products you decide to sell. These templates are easy to download and use in a program such a photoshop. Use of the templates ensures that your art will look great on the product i.e. properly fit so there is no white around the edge, unless you want it there.

Once you have your images sized for the products you want make a premium store on cafepress ($6.95/month...but highly worth the price) and upload images to your media basket.  Once your images are there you can go to the manage your store section and add new products and sections to your store. Add a product, choose the image you want on it, and voila...it's there!

Set your own markup...advertise...and you're good to go!

Hope this helps

Answer 2

I have not published any cards or calendars but I have sold a lot of t-shirts with my imprinted designs. If it works like that it if very simple.

Upload your designs, tag the art, pick your product, add your markup, enter descriptions and manage your sections. It is all pretty user friendly. The more you get into it the more you will be able to do.

The only definite advice I would give is get a premium shop. It will run you about $5/month but you have a lot more options here than with the free shop.

The hard part is getting customers to your shop. The CP Marketplace will draw in some sales but it takes a little more work to get the sales that really pay off. Network and learn as much as you can from experienced shopkeepers.

There is a large community of cafepress shopkeepers on social sites like Squidoo with lots of information to learn from. Here is a invitation to a Squidoo group that will help you: http://www.squidoo.com/group/create_lens...

Like I suggested, network, blog, join twitter and Squidoo. Anything to get the name of your shop out there. Exposure is the key!

Good luck.

The hard part is marketing your shop.