Let's Get Ready To Rumble

Hi There! I'm running a little experiment (actually two little experiments) and I'm going to use this blog to chronicle my successes and failures.

The experiments involve these Print On Demand (POD) t-shirt sites and whether I can make money on them. I'll be using two - CafePress and Zazzle - with the same designs on each. My goals are 1) see if I can make any money at all, using knowledge gained along the way to improve my chances, and 2) see which site out-performs the other.

I've already got both stores up and running, but not found by the search engines, other than a few scattered pages, so I'm starting this blog at ground zero. Each site is roughly two weeks since inception. Well, the CafePress site has been around since 2007, but under a different name and with no legacy designs.

The sites can be found at http://www.cafepress.com/brightsparktees and http://www.zazzle.com/brightsparktees.

I've got my images in the zazzle marketplace, but I've opted out of the cafepress marketplace. After reading up on that site's latest news and forums, it seems cafepress has recently changed the rules of the game in their marketplace. I won't go into it, but suffice it to say, they are a bunch of unethical bastards, and I won't be playing their little game. It'll make things more difficult on cafepress I'm sure, but that's part of the game. Advantage zazzle.

I'm no great artist, but I will do my best to create quality designs that people will be happy with. So far I'm pretty happy with what I've done. I'll hope to keep getting better and improve images as I improve with the graphics software.

I'll create images in a wide range of topic areas to give myself a shot at the overall marketplace. I'll evaluate what works and what doesn't and adapt appropriately.

So, wish me luck. I hope to prove somebody of limited talent can at least pay off the $5/month fee to have a premium shop at cafepress, while also making customers happy with the quality of my work. Advantage zazzle.

Oh, and if you are reading this and are good as this stuff, feel free to drop me a line making fun of me:)