Hi, All. I'd like to hear from any of you about your thoughts and experiences with CafePress.com. I have recently set up a shop there as a way to sell shirts related to one of my web sites. It seemed like a pretty nice deal -- no upfront cost, easy to set up, etc. and the extra revenue made it seem like a no-brainer. So I recently bought a few shirts from my site just to have around, wear them out and about as a way to further market the site...and I got them just to see what the quality was like. I have to say I was extremely disappointed in the quality. The shirts themselves are fine, but the printing is...to put it nicely...really bad. One the screen the designs are rich and vibrant. The colors really pop. The finished, printed shirt, however, is washed-out looking and the colors are much more muted than they should be (especially the reds). And one of the designs was printed off-center and crooked (noticable to the naked eye). As a designer I love designing these shirts and I have plans in the pipeline to do more cafepress stuff...but now after seeing the finished product I'm feeling pretty apprehesive about moving further forward with it all. I don't want my customers/site viewers to get a bad feeling/impression about my site(s) just because they feel they didn't get the quality of product that they expected. If any of you out there have any cafepress experience and/or advice I greatly appreciate it.
I was wondering about this fact time ago while design my own products with the fear of being using low resolution images. I guess resolution matters, but if your pictures are neat high quality then the problem is on their end.
It's a great marketing idea to cross advertise with other venues but if the products no good what’s the point. I have recently opened an account there and was going to purchase some of my designs good thing I read this thread.
Don't just take my word for it. I just found out they have another printing method...you just have to "turn it on" in your preferences for it to show up as an option. I think this will help out my color problems. Basically you can set it up so the customer can choose the printing method -- each has its pros and cons. I'd still look into it further, if I were you. It may well be worth it. After doing a little more digging and finding a little more out about what to do it's back in my good graces...for the time being.