Back to School Apparel and Gifts

Day548
Brick and mortar stores already have there back to school items in place and so do online stores. The difference is in malls you see the same thing everywhere. My online shop has unique designs or you may send in your own design or photo and we’ll put it on the product of your choice.

We can help decorate your dorm room with pillows, mugs, posters, calendars, wall clocks, magnets, mouse pads and more. We also have school related apparel and tote bags. Coordinate your own design for a matching set. No extra charge for custom designs! Any of our designs can be put on any product.

http://www.givitup.com



Our send more money line makes a cute gift for the student going off to college. Give them a package of postcards already addressed to mom and dad. They’ll need them! And put a stamp on them. They’ll need that too! Suggest they take a picture of themselves in a Send More Money t-shirt or ball cap and send it home. The folks will get the hint.



We’ll put your school, fraternity or sorority, graduation year, dorm floor name, major or just about anything else you want on one of our large variety of t-shirts.

New Year’s Resolutions

Day343
Only 2 weeks until New Year’s Eve! This is about the time I started my store last year. My original idea was putting what you were giving up for your New Year’s Resolution on t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, aprons, caps, mouse pads, stamps, buttons, magnets, etc.

The store has evolved quite a bit and my New Year’s Resolution items are now just one section of the shop. But, givitup is still all about fresh starts and positive changes. Whether you are giving up a bad habit or putting on a good one it' s been proven that goals shared stick better! So show the world - it might just inspire them to make a change too!

Whether it's: regrets, excuses, or road rage, share it with others on your choice of over 90 items. givitup

"No fear"

Day80
I sent my state free classifieds out today about “no fear”:
”With everything going on in the world; from bird flu to terrorism to drugs, crime and natural disasters, Americans have been living in a shadow of fear. With online store, givitup's, "no fear" t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, caps, buttons, magnets and more, you can show the world that you are ready to step out bravely and experience life again. Start the trend! Get America back where it's meant to be!” http://www.cafepress.com/givitup/1078889

The history of CafePress

Day60
After spending several hours on promotion again today I read up on the history of CafePress and found these interesting facts.

CafePress.com is an online marketplace that offers sellers complete e-commerce services to independently create and sell a wide variety of products, and offers buyers unique merchandise across virtually every topic. Launched in 1999, CafePress.com has empowered individuals, organizations and businesses to create, buy and sell customized merchandise online using the company's unique print-on-demand and e-commerce services. Today, CafePress.com is a growing network of over 2 million members who have unleashed their creativity to transform their artwork and ideas into unique gifts and new revenue streams.
Our members have created over 22 million designs on 80 customizable products ranging from apparel, home and office accessories to music and data CDs and books to prints, posters and cards. Roughly 25,000 new products are added every single day!

I am constantly appreciative of the efficient touches they’ve built into our site: from size charts and "email this product to a friend", to information about the materials; things I wouldn’t have thought to add. And all I have to do is create a design and then I can pull up every product to see how the design will look on them. Considering the company is only 7 years old and they have so many shopkeepers they do a tremendous job! Check them out here. http://www.cafepress.com/?pid=4370506

What are you giving up for Lent?

Day58
I was disappointed CafePress didn’t do any kind of Lent promotion like they do for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, New Year’s, etc. Since that was the original idea for my store (what are you giving up for Lent?) I was prepared! But, there was no mention in their news section and no design contests. Oh, well, I’ve sent out some press releases (of course). Here’s an excerpt:

Ash Wednesday is March 1st. For the next 40 days (the season only counts weekdays) Christians all over the world will be reflecting on their faith journeys. It has become a tradition to give up something you enjoy as a sign of penance and also to get the smallest glimpse of how much Christ gave up for the World.

givitup has taken the most popular things people give up for Lent and put them on hoodies, sweatshirts, t-shirts, mugs, hats, buttons, magnets and more. Whether one is giving up caffeine, sugar, coffee, gossip, road rage, TV, whining, alcohol or dessert givitup has you covered.

Visit us at www.givitup.com

Sold 3 t-shirts!

Day39
Yea!! Finally, my dry spell broke! A really great guy in Houston bought 3 of my t-shirts through Wacky Shirt’s blog!! I actually looked at my statcounter before anything else when I turned on my computer and saw I had a repeat visitor who spent over 4 minutes on the site. I remembered reading that’s about how long the order takes if they’ve been on before and kind of know what they want! So I covered my eyes and pulled up my CafePress account and peeked through my finger…and there it was!!! 3 t-shirts. How fun is today!!

Second sale!

Day12
Got another order! All I know is she is from NY and bought 6 “no excuses” buttons and I love her!

Day13
Started looking up Diseases of the Month and emailing the “disease” association with my anti disease themed button, mug or t-shirt. Haven’t heard back from any of them.

Starting my online store "givitup"

Day 1
It really all began several years ago when I had the idea of making and selling buttons that would have what you gave up for Lent with a red line drawn through it. I found someone online who made a dozen samples and I took them around to stores who bought them, but didn’t give me any orders for more.
I realized it wouldn’t be easy to advertise, take orders, get them made and then shipped – so I gave up.
Fast forward to early December when I was looking for a monogrammed coffee mug for a present and stumbled across CafePress.com. They provide on- demand manufacturing and e-commerce services. Their list of products include: t-shirts, hoodies, baseball caps, sweatshirts, magnets, buttons and children's apparel. As I looked around the site I remembered my Lent buttons. As New Year’s was coming up I thought the same type of designs could be used for New Year’s Resolutions too.
It’s not like me to jump into something like this, but it was inexpensive (if you don’t count all the time I put into it!), and my husband had recently gotten into web design and internet consulting so for the past 3 years I have been reading everything I could find on online marketing – and finding it fascinating.
CafePress offered templates and John said he would help me get set up.
I chose my URL http://www.cafepress.com/givitup and I immediately came up with 22 designs/words and chose 22 of their products to put them on. As John was creating the image he was erasing the background and then realized with some of it still showing it was really neat looking. So we left it that way. That became our design.
We sort of stumbled on a name and logo too. Giving it up….Give it up….givitup…of course a lot has to do with what’s available on-line name wise too. We hunted through all the font styles on the computer and decided to use the same colors as our designs. Again we left the background in place because we liked the looks of it.
Next step to write descriptions of all the products and price everything. That took a couple days.