CafePress Shopkeepers up in arms!

Day428
CafePress Shopkeepers received a very unpleasant email from one of the founders on Thursday. Since then the forums have been in an uproar. I tell you this, because people reading this blog who are most likely thinking about starting an online shop, need to know the kinds of things that can happen when your shop depends on someone like a CafePress as opposed to being totally in control.

CafePress started an affiliate program a year and a half ago. In Thursday’s email we were told that program was going to dissolve and a third party, Commission Junction, would be taking over. As shopkeepers read the news we had to wonder how CafePress could so blatantly ignore the hundreds of hours we have spent searching for products and stores to affiliate, creating ads, sections in our stores, whole websites of affiliate stores and thousands of links both to our stores and to the stores we affiliate. People have spent money advertising and for special tools of course too.

Setting all of this up over the past year, we would joke we were working for about 10 cents an hour. We could joke, because we were full of hope it would pay off in the future.

Just look back over this blog how many products I have in the past 300 plus posts. Those all have a link, which after the new program takes over April 10th, will become links just sending traffic to competitors instead of affiliate links to people’s stores I admire, where I would get an affiliate commission if the customer bought something. Do I take all theses out? Two thirds of my blog posts? How about the 6 sections in my shop that are strictly affiliates?

If you could read some of the forum posts about how overwhelmed and angry shopkeepers are feeling right now you would probably say, “Why don’t they just close up shop and do a shop that is totally theirs or go to a competitor?" I think that will happen in many many cases.

But, first the shopkeepers have to grieve. As one put it, it’s like having a family member that you loved hit you and say, “I never loved you.”

Newly Wed store

Day168
I didn’t really do much work on my store today because we went up to the mountains all day. Then I popped into the CafePress forum to see what was new since I was on a day and a half ago and there were 1124 new posts! Needless to say I skimmed!

I’m still on a wedding kick. Maybe because tomorrow is my anniversary!
Here is another newlywed site that is a lot of fun!
http://www.cafepress.com/bridalboutique/777170?pid=4370506
This site has lots of Just Married bumper stickers and “newly wed” and “honeymoon” designs.

So much to read and learn!

Day98
I spent all my work time today reading forums, which of course lead me to clicking on people's URLs and getting slightly sidetracked. I always go through the CafePress forums, but after doing that today and posting on one thread, I managed to get to several small business forums that I've wanted to read for a long time. Read a lot about online marketing and affiliates. I'm beginning to think there is very little new information on the web. It's mostly the same thoughts just slightly reworded. However I keep plugging away looking for those rare ah ha moments!

What's the bloody problem?

Day75
Today I got involved in the CafePress forums (after checking all four of my email addresses.) I usually click on “show me what’s new since the last time I was on” which keeps it down to between 100 and 400 postings. Then I skim the titles and only read what I think is really interesting or helpful. Today there was a lot of both of those and I ended up posting to three or four threads.

Finally I read the online USA Today and saw an article about the Australian Tourism ad in Britain getting banned because it used the word bloody. Which I thought was funny because I thought all the Brits used that word including the royals. (But, what do I know.) What really made me stop was the article said, “But Tourism Australia is having the last laugh. In the days since British newspapers reported the flap, downloads to its site have more than tripled from 13,000 to 50,000.

I couldn’t resist creating some products and sending this classified ad out to Sydney and also put it on Craigslist and on MySpace.com

"2 countries divided by a common language. Australia and Britain are at it! Who's right? Who cares? If you do, show us with givitup apparel!Online store, givitup, has dozens of items from t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, caps, buttons and magnets to bags and teddy bears which allow you to show the Brits you just don't see the problem! Visit http://www.givitup.com/ or go straight to the section: www.cafepress.com/givitup/1285416 "

So that left me just enough time to read two ezines I’ve been wanting to.
Which led me to join photo bucket. I put that aside then to study further because I think I will have use for it…. As soon as I know how to use it!

This is pretty much how a day in the life of an online storeowner goes. You start on your list of things to do first thing in the morning and go off on a bunch of tangents. It reminds me of my days exploring Paris. I would have a cup of coffee in the hotel room, stuff a croissant in my pocket, grab a map and hit the street planning on going from say The Bastille to Montmartre, but somehow on the journey I would see something interesting down this side street which would lead me to a market down that side street and on and on until an entire day went by not at all how I planned, but so much more interesting! And didn’t I learn and see lots!!