Passion and Profit Part 1

Are you a:
photographer
print artist
digital artist
witty person that comes up with cute or interesting phrases

Would you sell your own products if you didn’t have to stock and ship them or need to set up a costly merchant account and deal with the possible fraudulent transactions that are occurring with increased frequency? And what if you didn’t have to deal with the technical aspect of setting up a shopping cart and maintaining it, plus taking the orders, confirming the information and all the other pre-processing that comes before you even ship the orders?

CafePress.com is a print on demand service, you can add graphic or text images to a selection of over 70 products, mark up the prices and use their website and shopping cart to take and fill orders. They handle all the order processing, credit card verification, order fulfillment and customer service. Customers get a 30 day return window, so you get your cut 30 days after the order has shipped (45 days for international orders). And they fill and ship orders internationally.

What Products Can I Sell?
There are approximately 70 different items available for sale. The apparel selections range from a variety of shirts, including t-shirts, sweatshirts, and camisoles to boxers and thongs. And there is a shirt for the dog too! Then there are Housewares and ceramic products include mugs, steins, tile coasters and tile boxes, Stickers, buttons, magnets and other goodies, Baby and Kid Stuff, Bags and Hats, and the paper items, cards, prints, journals, calendars and posters.

And for the musicians, there are music CD’s, and for graphic artists, data cds. For the writers, there is a publishing division that does print on demand books. Self publishing with NO upfront costs!

What can I put on all that stuff? This is where your passion comes in. Are you an artist or photographer without a gallery? Do you come up with witty sayings and your friends tell you “that should be on a t-shirt!” What sparks you to creativity? You can license clip art and images to use, or you can create your own! Photographs, digital art, text art are all perfect for use on CafePress.com products. If you can create jpg or png files, you can create products to sell at CafePress.com.


Next edition: So How Does this Work?
Upcoming Editions:
What Kind of Shop Should I Use?
Text Art vs Photographs
Optimizing Your Images