CafePress = CafeStress: and that’s the polite version

Well, the much-discussed, much screamed about and much bemoaned changes have now taken place at CafePress and the collaborative warm-and-fuzzy feelings that a majority of designers once had for this giant of the POD world have all but totally evaporated.

Yes, as of midnight May 31 (US EST time), CafePress rolled out its Marketplace changes and began taking a lot more money from customers, while paying their designers a lot less.  I’m too disheartened to go into it all here, but luckily the intrepid and insightful Jim at Irregular Times has done it for me.  His latest article on the issue can be found here with the title “Confirmed: New CafePress System Raises Prices for Customers, Cuts Pay to Designers” - says it all, really.

The problem is that customers will in some cases be paying more for an item than they were before if they shop via the CafePress market place (located at CafePress’ main site), rather than direct from the designer (whose online individual stores can be found via urls that look like this: www.cafepress.com/incognitashop).  A large mug will now cost you, the customer, $18 via the Market Place, yet if you buy it direct from a designer’s CafePress shop, it will only cost you, on average $16.99.  AND if you buy direct from the designer they will get paid the full commission they signed up for, not the rather insulting 10% CafePress now seem to feel their designers’ work is now worth when a customer purchases via the general Market Place.

What is interesting to note is that CafePress’ site traffic has dropped 7.8% since February this year (according to Complete.com).  Could explain the money grab. 

Not going to say any more about it here – just read The Irregular Times article.

I’m off to Zazzle to keep working on my new store there – updates on that to follow …

~ by incognita on June 3, 2009.