Tips, time savers, tricks & resources for Cafepress Premium Shopkeepers
June 14, 2007 at 8:10 pm
· Filed under CafePress Tips, Design Tips
I may not make many friends with this post, but I feel it really has to be said. And I hope the few friends I have at CP understand my position. This isn’t directed at any particular shopkeeper, just a portion of the SK community at CP.
As some of you may know, I recently redesigned the navigation for Lekker Bride. I wanted to go ahead and add some more designs from other shopkeepers while I was at it (it had been a while since I had), so I started looking around the marketplace at wedding and bridal items. Why, oh why, do so many shopkeepers just copy the general theme or idea of a popular seller? How does that shopkeeper feel? Can you honestly tell me that they can find no other image than a martini glass to represent a bachelorette party? I couldn’t find one single new design that I felt was original enough to feature. I have sites that get tons of targeted traffic that I am willing to share with other designers - yet it seems everything new is just another version of a design on the first few pages in the MP. Do these designers honestly think that you’ll ever rise above a design that has been a proven seller for years? It’s doubtful. And then the same person will come into the forums and complain that they aren’t getting any sales. Originality sells. Quality sells.
I am so tired of people just feeding off popular designs and thinking it’s cool. It’s not. You can’t call yourself an artist if you can’t come up with one stinking original idea. I understand inspiration - especially in fashion. Whole lines have been inspired by a movie or one crazy sequined unicorn sweatshirt. But the marketplace at CP is beginning to look like a dern swap meet, with everyone selling their version of a popular design. All this time people spend complaining about things not in their control yet they can’t spend a few minutes brainstorming their own ideas. Everyone acts as though they care about the customer and their shop - yet they are perfectly happy copying designs of other shopkeepers, which I think is a disservice to the customer.
I’ve seen comments about people getting “tons of great ideas” from the CP Newsletters. Uh, newsflash - those newsletters aren’t made so you can just ride on the back of someone else’s hard work. The marketplace should not be a place you should troll for ideas. Why not, instead of just copying “what sells”, you create your own brand and/or your own style and go from there? Why be so content to just follow in the footsteps of others rather than blazing your own trail?
I have absolutely nothing to base this on, but I wouldn’t be surprised (or unhappy) if CP did start limiting what designs they offer in “their store” (the marketplace). In fact, I would be much, much happier, because I think that design quality in the MP is lacking in many areas and it would only improve the image of CP.
Feel free to give me your 2 cents.
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Kristen wrote @ July 11th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
I’m a big fan of originality too. I tire of seeing so many versions, only slightly different, of the same design. I think this isn’t just a cafepress thing though. John and I run a couple of t-shirt blogs and get submissions all the time from ‘indie’ sites that screenprint their own tees, and many of those are just copies of the same old same old. Not ALL of course, but many. My two cents. 
Kip wrote @ August 7th, 2007 at 11:18 am
What about 2 pence? 
Michelle wrote @ September 5th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I understand what you’re saying to a point, but at the same time it seems like you are claiming to be the originator of a martini glass at a bachelorette party. Even if designs are similar, there is a great chance, especially with something so basic as the designs being discussed, that people have similar thoughts and ideas. It doesn’t take a genius to come up with the idea of a bachelorette party with a design featuring a martini glass or a cosmo glass or a shot glass and so on. Just like a bachelor party will be identified with beer glasses and strippers. It’s just the way it is. Like you I don’t look in the marketplace too often because I find so many of my designs being ripped off. I loathe being in newsletters and in the popular shop lists because I can literally track the copycats in my shop. The less I look at the marketplace, the better I feel because I have less to get upset about!
jen wrote @ September 5th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Michelle - “Seems” is the important word. I don’t think I originated it in the retail world, but the fact is that those are some of the earliest (and according to CP “Best Selling”) bachelorette designs in the marketplace. And it’s not just my stuff either, just an example that fit at the time. Take “Lil Bro” and the other sibling variations. Way, way back in the early days of the MP, someone did a “Lil Bro” design which looked like 6 blocks (an example, not sure if it’s the CP originator: http://tinyurl.com/2vjmnd). It seems like every new baby shop that opens does their version of that design. I am just suggesting that maybe SKs should, (can’t believe I’m saying this) think outside the box and not just get their design inspiration from the MP. It’s not just the elements you use that make you “unoriginal”. You can make the martini glass your own and have a kick ass design like I’d never seen that I’d love to affiliate. But if you just do the same matini glass, words and stars that’s all over, you aren’t adding anything unique. Or, if you find that your only inspiration has already been done to death in the CP Marketplace, perhaps you were just a little too late. When I find myself in that situation, I just open an affiliate shop and promote the work of other designers.
Ina wrote @ January 6th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Unfortunately originality and quality is not always what sells and what people like. Don’t forget that people like “belonging to a group”, they need it, so wearing the same slogans and same designs is sometimes part of this need.
Many people, not to say most of the people, don’t necessarily need original ideas to wear and get inspired from - they just prefer the same, old martini glass, with the same old stars, same colors, and they don’t give a damn who designed it and how original this design is. So many shopkeepers are driven to copying the same designs, well OK they change the font , colours and disposition a little, but they don’t dare to put a campari glass instead of the martini glass, because they know it will not sell.
I believe that WE, t-shirt designers, can educate the public and if WE stop copying and reproducing the same stuff, knowing that perhaps we might sell less, we wiil teach the potential clients how to appreciate originality and creativity.
Thanks for this nice discussion Jen…
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