CafePress is a very popular online store that lets you upload your designs and make money every time one of your designs sell.
This does require some creativity, but if you can create awesome designs you can make good money selling products.
Running a store at CafePress is not free, but it’s incredibly cheap, and the money you save using this site makes it well worth it in my opinion.
Earning an income online designing shirts is a great way to make a passive income online, but I prefer another way to make a huge passive income online. If you’re serious about making a full-time income online, check out My #1 Recommendation, it’s how I made over $13,000 online last month!
In this CafePress store review, I’ll cover how it works, how to get paid, and if designing t-shirts at CafePress is a scam!
How Does CafePress Work?
1. Set Up Your Free Store
The first step is setting up your store. They have 100s of templates to choose from, and at this stage, you’ll design your storefront. There’s a lot of customization available; you can even upload your own header and logo.
It’s important to create a themed shop that fits into a particular niche; they have some training I recommend going through before starting the process.
2. Upload Product Designs
After you set up your store, it’s time to upload designs. CafePress lets you put your designs on over 250 products including clothing, cups, buttons, key chains, and much more.
They have a visual editor, but you should create the design beforehand and upload it inside the editor.
Once you’re happy with the design, you can choose the name and put it in specific categories of your store.
3. Choose Markup
Once you complete the design of your product, CafePress gives you a base price it costs to produce the item. It’s up to you to choose the markup (amount you make per sale.)
For example, a t-shirt may cost $18 to make, you can choose your markup, let’s say $5. The t-shirt sells in your store for $23. Every time your shirt sells, you’ll earn $5.
Although you can choose your markup, a $5-$8 markup is what most people use.
4. Promote, Promote, Promote
Along with awesome designs, this is the most important step of the process. Without traffic to your store, you’ll never make sales and earn royalties.
Luckily, CafePress does have a lot of training on how to promote your store. The key is having a targeted niche and getting your products/store in front of them.
5. Get Paid Your Royalties
On each product sold, you’ll earn the markup price you set. CafePress allows returns, so payments are delayed. You’ll get paid about 45 days after the end of the month via PayPal or mailed check.
There’s a small fee for running a store on CafePress, but it’s minimal, and I’ll cover it next.
6. Store Volume Bonuses
If you become successful and have a lot of sales coming in each month, you can earn store volume bonuses. Keep in mind that volume includes the base price of items only, markup does not count towards the bonus.
If you sell $100 or more of base price items, you’ll earn an additional 10% of your total monthly sales. There’re multiple tiers of volume bonus; I’ve included a table below:
How Much Does a Store Cost?
It’s completely free to set up your store and list products for sale, but having a store is not completely free.
You have two ways to pay the monthly fee for your CafePress store.
Option 1 is paying 10% of your monthly royalties with a maximum charge of $10. This seems like the best option at the beginning, because you pay nothing if you don’t make sales.
Option 2 is upfront pay. To pay each month, it cost $6.95, if you pay for multiple months, you can get the payment down to $5.
Once you establish consistent earnings at CafePress, paying a small fee upfront may save you money. Either way, the fee is never more than $10, so it’s a minimal expense.
How Does CafePress Pay?
As mentioned, you get to set the markup on all of your products. You get to keep 100% of the markup per sale. CafePress also offers bonuses for volume. For example, sell over $100 in a month ($100+ of base price only/not including markup) and receive a 10% bonus on your sales.
CafePress does allow customers to return items for 30-days, so there’s a bit of a lag in payments. You’re paid your monthly earnings around 45 days after the end of the month. For example, March earnings are paid on May 15th.
CafePress offers payments via PayPal and mailed check.
CafePress Store Complaints
It’s all about Store Traffic
Honestly, this is not really a complaint, but it’s the key to success with a CafePress store. Think about it, a typical brick and mortar t-shirt shop isn’t going to make any sales if no one visits the store. It’s the same thing with your online store.
If you can’t drive traffic to your online store, no one will buy your products, which means you won’t make money.
Luckily, they do have training on how to promote your products, but it’s a lot more work than just uploading some designs and start making sales.
Is CafePress A Scam?
CafePress is legitimate. They do pay their store owners all the royalties earned. With that being said, it’s not as easy as uploading a design and making money. Promoting your store and products is the key to being successful and making sales.
CafePress has some training, but I highly recommend this $.99 e-book at Amazon. It gives details on how to successfully promote your store and products.
If you’d like to learn more about the process or to open your own store, visit CafePress.com!
Designing clothes and promoting them isn’t for everyone. Make sure to check out my Work At Home Jobs Directory for more leads.
If you’re serious about making a full-time income online, check out My #1 Recommendation, it’s how I made over $13,000 online last month!
If you didn’t find what you were looking for here, check out these helpful links to other ways to make money online:
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