band online store

[Fli]

So my my band and I really like the idea of having an online store for us and fans to get merchandise from, but the more I mess with cafepress.com the more I absolutely hate it.
You can only have 1 design per shirt unless you pay for a premium membership, you can't get buttons or stickers in any color but white, you can't preview your design on hats at all, & $18.99 base price for a black t-shirt!? ***

I'm not really worried about the profit, just the products and functionality. Also, I don't want to have to worry about setting up another paypal account or shipping stuff to people. Does anyone know a better site to do this stuff without paying out the ass?

thanks

[Jehos]

I don't know any other sites that do what cafepress does, although there must be at least one.

Still, you should try doing things the old way once. Choking down a couple hundred $$ silkscreen setup fee, trying to decide whether to buy 100 or 200 shirts at a time, doing all the order-taking and shipping yourself...

Trust me, sites like cafepress are *much* easier than the way merchandising used to work.

[Fli]

the "old way" is the way we currently do it. We pay around $400 for 75 black tshirts with white logos , various sizes. We normally charge just $5 a shirt at gigs and give some away to friends, we make enough back for another batch.

Cafepress seems to be a good alternative because it will allow fans from all over to buy directly online and we don't have to do anything, and we could also buy our own merch from there and sell it at gigs (if it wasn't $20 a shirt). So I would agree, it's much easier. But again my main complaint is the ridiculous prices and the fact that you can only have 1 design.

I think I found a solution though - I will just open about 4 or 5 stores, 1 for each shirt design I want to sell. Then I'll just post the pictures of the shirts with the links to the different stores on the band website. Don't tell on me

[MatticusMania]

Cafepress sucks. Everything is overpriced and the placement of your images can suck it. I made some awesome shirts and had 25 black shirts with white print made for $100.
Go the old fashion way, youre much better off.

[lavmonga]

bigcartel.com, it's free

[Fli]

Originally Posted by lavmonga

bigcartel.com, it's free

from bigcartel.com:

Do you handle printing and fulfillment?

No. We provide a lovely online store, but getting products made and orders fulfilled is up to you.


All they provide is a webpage. You have to get your merch printed somewhere else and handle your own orders.

[IanStephenson]

Ultimatly you're going to always have the same choice:

1) do the work yourself, and make a profit.
2) let someone else do the work, and expect them to charge you for their work.

Cafepress make it easy, and they're charging you for that. Anyone else doing the same job will do the same. You're simply not going to find somewhere that handles the legwork for you and DOESN'T charge you havily for that.

Your best option might be to find a friend/fan who wants to take on the job. Setting up a website to work through the paypal shopping basket is easy, and costs nothing, so if you've already got a website you can do online sales through it for just the regular paypal charges. Simply set up the paypal so it goes to the friends account, they make and send out the shirt, give you $1 and keep the rest for themselves... Give them the same deal at gigs, and let them make some cash for themselves. You get TShirts for zero work, make a little cash, and maybe someone you know earns some cash rather than a faceless eBusiness.