To be honest, the affiliate program through cafepress has been a great money maker for me. It's simple and easy to do. How it works is you go to cafepress.com and sign up for the affiliate program. You can then find other cafepress stores who are also involved in the affiliate program and link to their site from your own with your own special affiliate ID number. Every time someone uses your link to purchase something from this affiliate store you receive a percentage of the sale! You can also network with other cafe press stores and have them link back to your site with their affiliate number.
I have read a lot of merchants complain that affiliates take part of their profit, which is true, however I look at it as being extra sales that I probably wouldn't have made if it hadn't been for these other sites linking back to my page! If it's bringing more people to my site then that is the most important thing!
If you're not sure where to start to find other stores who are also in the affiliate program you can go to the message boards and look for threads regarding affiliate programs or you can post that you are looking for affiliates and welcome people to link back to your store. It's a great way to get your name out there to more people and to maybe earn you a few extra sales or a few extra bucks! It's great either way because you are always earning money!
You can make a page like mine to let people know about the affiliate program. People don't have to own a cafepress store, they can easily just sign up for the affiliate program and get their ID number and just link back to your site from their own, whether it be a personal website, a myspace page, a blog or a business page.
You can find a lot of very helpful information on the affiliate program through the community message boards at cafepress!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Making your own website?
In my opinion, if you are thinking about starting a cafepress shop it would be in your best interest to create a main domain page website. It gives a little bit of a personal touch to your shop along with a more professional look.
Just because you may not be html savvy that does not mean you can't create your own website. I am pretty ignorant when it comes to html but I made a simple homepage with a domain name for my shop. I not only give information on what my cafepress shop is about, but I also add various pages to the site including a links page and information on becoming an affiliate of the store. The possibilities are endless and having a domain name is much better and easier to remember than having to type out cafepress.com/blahblahblah right?
You can use your imagination and be creative with your website and give people a reason to keep coming back! You can advertise sales that you may be running or new products that you have designed and added to your store. You can post up various shirts or products that you have in your shop to entice people into looking at the actual shop location. You want something that is going to catch the viewers eye and keep them going straight to the shop where they can purchase your products.
You can get a lot of ideas by looking through other cafepress shops and their own homepages!
Again, the link to my homepage is: daftcreations
Just because you may not be html savvy that does not mean you can't create your own website. I am pretty ignorant when it comes to html but I made a simple homepage with a domain name for my shop. I not only give information on what my cafepress shop is about, but I also add various pages to the site including a links page and information on becoming an affiliate of the store. The possibilities are endless and having a domain name is much better and easier to remember than having to type out cafepress.com/blahblahblah right?
You can use your imagination and be creative with your website and give people a reason to keep coming back! You can advertise sales that you may be running or new products that you have designed and added to your store. You can post up various shirts or products that you have in your shop to entice people into looking at the actual shop location. You want something that is going to catch the viewers eye and keep them going straight to the shop where they can purchase your products.
You can get a lot of ideas by looking through other cafepress shops and their own homepages!
Again, the link to my homepage is: daftcreations
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
A few of my cafe press shirt designs!
You can find these shirts at: daftcreations
I decided that every once in awhile I'm going to showcase some of my shirt designs from my daftcreations shop. Here are just two. I try to target more than just one specific kind of customer in my shop. I have everything from shirts for expecting parents, shirts for babies/kids to political shirts, sarcastic shirts, marijuana support and more! I have a lot of different interests in my life and I know that other people do, too!
These designs are pretty simple. Believe it or not, the watermelon shirt has been my best seller! It is ofcourse meant for expecting mothers. It's so surprising to me that it has been such a big hit because it's such an utterly simple design! None of my designs are too fancy or spectacular, but there really isn't a lot I can do with phrases!
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Promoting Your Cafepress Store
If you are thinking about starting a cafepress shop the first thing you want to consider is what target audience are you going to try and reach? Is there are certain niche you want to touch on? Do you want to target teens? Adults? Kids? Maybe you will be like me and have a little bit of everything?
Once you decide what area you are going to delve into, the next thing to think about is how to promote it. You might have some great looking products in your store but if no one knows about them, no one is going to buy them! You might get a few sales here and there through the cafepress searches and other search engines, but you want to go beyond "getting lucky" with search engines.
There are a lot of ways to promote your website and here are a few that you can try.
*The obvious: tell your friends and family about it!
*Join forums that focus on the same subject as your store and be sure to add your link into your signature. Jump into different conversations throughout the forum and have your link seen by many!
*Put your link in your email signature.
*Make a myspace page! Check mine out: daftcreationsmyspace (I will focus more on networking through myspace later on)
*If you have your own personal myspace page be sure to advertise on it there.
*Make business cards.
*Make shirts or bumper stickers through cafepress to help advertise!
*Search for free advertising/classified sites to advertise on.
*If you have the money, you can pay for advertisement, just do your research and decide what you think will work best for you.
*Do lots of reading in the cafepress shopkeeper forum for other tips and ideas
*Join traffic exchanges. Yes, a lot of people say that they don't work, but I honestly think they do. Even through just surfing for credits I have found a few websites that caught my attention! Just make sure that your website is eye catching and attention grabbing!
*Be creative! I'm sure there are many strategies that will work, just use your mind and think of new ways to get your business name out there!
If you start a cafepress store, don't expect it to take off immediately. It can take months and months to get your business name out there unless you happen to have a decent amount of money for advertising! If you have the patience to stick with it, you will be successful and eventually your efforts will pay off.
I'm surely not acting as a cafepress professional, but I just want to pass along the knowledge that I learn along the way!
Once you decide what area you are going to delve into, the next thing to think about is how to promote it. You might have some great looking products in your store but if no one knows about them, no one is going to buy them! You might get a few sales here and there through the cafepress searches and other search engines, but you want to go beyond "getting lucky" with search engines.
There are a lot of ways to promote your website and here are a few that you can try.
*The obvious: tell your friends and family about it!
*Join forums that focus on the same subject as your store and be sure to add your link into your signature. Jump into different conversations throughout the forum and have your link seen by many!
*Put your link in your email signature.
*Make a myspace page! Check mine out: daftcreationsmyspace (I will focus more on networking through myspace later on)
*If you have your own personal myspace page be sure to advertise on it there.
*Make business cards.
*Make shirts or bumper stickers through cafepress to help advertise!
*Search for free advertising/classified sites to advertise on.
*If you have the money, you can pay for advertisement, just do your research and decide what you think will work best for you.
*Do lots of reading in the cafepress shopkeeper forum for other tips and ideas
*Join traffic exchanges. Yes, a lot of people say that they don't work, but I honestly think they do. Even through just surfing for credits I have found a few websites that caught my attention! Just make sure that your website is eye catching and attention grabbing!
*Be creative! I'm sure there are many strategies that will work, just use your mind and think of new ways to get your business name out there!
If you start a cafepress store, don't expect it to take off immediately. It can take months and months to get your business name out there unless you happen to have a decent amount of money for advertising! If you have the patience to stick with it, you will be successful and eventually your efforts will pay off.
I'm surely not acting as a cafepress professional, but I just want to pass along the knowledge that I learn along the way!
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