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Internet Inevitability




I was recently contacted for a little Q&A by Printwear's Associate Editor, Heather B. Fried. My Printwear issue arrived today and her article Internet Inevitability provides a great look into today's Internet marketplace and the in's and out's apparel decorators should be aware of. Especially if you have not jumped into the world of e-commerce, or at a minimum created an online presence for your business.

Read the Digital Issue Online

Don't *%^& With The Art Department




Today CafePress may have turned a positive Internet entity into a graveyard of former talented designers. If you follow my magazine column you know the company I am talking about. For those unfamiliar, CafePress is a fulfillment service that provides print on demand production for online designers and shopkeepers.

From their web page:

In a nutshell we sell T-Shirts, apparel, gifts for the home, stationery, gear, and other stuff that gets printed on. But the interesting thing is, we don't design a thing. Our shopkeepers create the designs. So every time a shopkeeper designed product sells, they make money.

Great Program, Great Traffic

The CafePress web site averages a reported 11 million unique visits per month, and see as many as 2000 new independent shops join the online network each day. The great thing CafePress has (or after today, had) going for it is the designers. Anyone in the imprinted sportswear industry knows that it is the designs and creativity that sell. With a virtual army of designers covering thousands of styles, markets and audiences CafePress has probably one of the largest art departments in imprinted sportswear history. And, they set their own pay scale and are happy with that!

Prior to today the policy was simple for designers. Open your CafePress store, upload your designs and start selling. You are given a base price for each item and the profit was left up to you by marking up each item to what you feel is a fair price for what you have created for the market.

I have had my dart shirts web site going strong there for quite some time now, and as many of you know I have marketed the web site effectively in the search engines, online forums, blogs and other channels around the Internet. After today that will pay off, as I have had to pull all of my designs out of the CafePress marketplace.

Don't *%^& With The Art Department

The announcement arrived in this mornings email. CafePress will now be setting prices for anything appearing in their marketplace, and providing the designer 10% commission for each item sold through the marketplace. Thinking that was surely a typo, some joker broadcasting a 4/20 prank message to shopkeepers or me just plain reading it wrong I was off to investigate.



Unfortunately I found that to be true. CafePress has taken it upon themselves to set a 10% commission - on a pricing structure they create - and apply it as a "reasonable licensing fee" to the designers. What that means is the very graphic designers, photographers and artists that generate sales through CafePress have now had their income cut by an estimated 70% to 80%. Plus, they will have no say in pricing.

What This Means

Shopkeepers who have successfully created a CafePress store that does not rely on marketplace traffic are not going to suffer very much. The way I understand this new policy, all sales through your shop remain the same: your pricing with your designated markup. So in my case, in all honesty I feel like my target audience will find my web site first if not right after searching the marketplace and finding that all of the talented designers have pulled out. Other shop keepers who have kept their Internet marketing strategies focused outside the marketplace will likely experience the same.

However the thousands of designers and entrepreneurs who have been selling through the marketplace and finding success are now left out in the cold to either move to a different print on demand company or suffer the pay cut. Many are reporting that this decision will more than likely destroy what was their primary source of income. Others are simply shutting down, while the majority are just packing up and leaving for another place to sell their creativity.

What it means for CafePress is yet to be determined, I can only imagine it isn't very pretty with the majority of the art department packing up and moving to the competition.

Having brought all of that to the blog, I apologize to any readers of my magazine column that joined in on last years "Online Adventure" series and have been working on a successful CafePress web site. Of course, if you've been successful with the marketing tips I included and not relying on the marketplace for your traffic you're fine for now just as I am. Despite that, I am still disappointed in this turn of events.

A Word On POD / Fulfillment Services

For anyone researching fulfillment services and print on demand opportunities, consider this a heads up. I won't deny CafePress still has my nod of approval for the way things are set up for their premium shops, the shopping cart system itself and the services offered. I decided to go with them for those reasons and more.

However, I will no longer offer my designs in their marketplace under these new terms. I will also be keeping my eyes peeled for a place to move my dart shirts web site. And I will stand by my peers as an insulted graphic designer who has been offered a mere 10% commission on the artistic expression that made CafePress what it is... Or was.

Blog Rolling the Subject

If you post a blog I have missed feel free to add the link in the comments section with your opinion or shoot me the link. And of course, linking back can only better the subjects chances of search engine goodness.

New Tech Scam: Smishing





By now you have become familiar with the term Phishing, and learned how to spot these attempts that arrive in your email. Despite the scammers getting better at creating phony web sites to try and capture users information, they're still not good enough to work around ISP's blocking their email broadcasts, filters and other forms of defense.

A new form of Phishing has arrived that you should be aware of called Smishing. Rather than delivering the traditional email, scammers are now sending phishing come ons and scams via SMS message to cell phones.

One popular attempt notifies the user that thay are about to be charged for something unless it is canceled. For example: "Thank you for signing up for our online backup service! You will be charged $2 per day unless you cancel your order by clicking here or visiting this-phony-web-site.com." Just like Phishing emails, the site users are directed to is 100% fake and will ask for your credit card number, certain login information and perhaps even try to install something to your machine or manipulate your browser. Smishing messages have also been reported to have asked for users to call a toll free number in order to complete or cancel a financial transaction.

Another scam reported may try to mimic a message alleged to be from your mobile carrier: "Congratulations! You won $300 worth of free talk time minutes today. To claim your prize just type: (insert random numbers here) and send to 2292 three times. (LOAD REWARD) Thank you!"

With the possible exception of your mobile service provider, the chances of any legitimate business contacting you via text message are slim to none. And most mobile service provider's messages will be recognizable. The recommended action to take if you receive any scam messages is of course to laugh and carry on with your day.

Getting Started With Twitter




As I was preparing my follow up blog to accompany my upcoming magazine column on Twitter, I discovered much of the content was being taken up by Twitter jargon alone. Yes, as usual new technology and new applications come with their own set of keywords, language and terminology.

Rather than type all of that out, thanks to the folks at CNet.com there is a quick video to cover the basics.

Once the issue has arrived to subscribers I will follow up with some links and comments for readers to use. You can follow my webmaster account on Twitter @Webmaster_Rags.

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Considering a Mobile Friendly Website




I was just looking over some Internet statistics and once again had to raise an eyebrow at the increase in users of mobile Internet. Not only has the number of users exceeded those with desktop Internet access, there are now more people surfing the web on a mobile device than the number of people driving automobiles.

If you haven't put any thought into adding a mobile friendly web site to your online presence, now would be a great time to consider it. After studying the development end and testing hundreds of websites from my Blackberry I've come up with a few recommendations.

1) Be clear about how you can benefit your audience

As I've mentioned in a previous blog post a restaurant having a mobile web site is a no brainer, and a great example of a business that needs a mobile web site these days. People on the go use their mobile devices to find everything from movie theaters to hot spots on the town. But what about other businesses?

Understanding your customers and target audience will guide you to creative ways of utilizing a mobile friendly web site. If your business sells products you could offer real time order status and package tracking from the moment an order is placed, through any production process and its availability for delivery or pick up. A business that operates by appointments could allow users to make and cancel appointments online. Any business could offer their current specials, sales promotions or incentives.

In short, consider how your customer base - and potential buyers - would enjoy the ease of use, communication and extra service that can make their life a little easier.

2) Be clear and simple

Considering the load time and the nature of small screens on mobile devices, your mobile web site should be simple and effective. The information you decide to offer should be first priority over excessive use of images and/or highly detailed graphic layouts. This is a win win situation for you and your audience, as they're enjoying a speedy visit and getting what they are looking for in a timely manner and on your end there is very little to be concerned with in terms of maintenance and development.

3) Consider purchasing a mobile domain

The .mobi domain is now standing with top level domains like .com and .net with the increase in mobile Internet users. The major difference is that the .mobi extension is exclusive to delivering web pages to mobile devices, although other popular extensions can still be viewed over a mobile device. You will find it beneficial as search engines listing mobile friendly web sites to devices will recognize the extension, and mobile users will recognize it in your marketing efforts.

4) Provide a call to action, but keep it simple

Your existing customers might enjoy the ability to send you a quick message online, while users just discovering your site may want to contact you for more information. Having said that, it would be advisable to include a contact form but a very bare-bones version. A form asking for their contact name, email address and comments is more than likely about all a mobile user will have the patience to fill in from their device.

5) Return on investment

On the development side of things I have discovered that creating a mobile web site is not a very tall mountain to climb at all. In fact, with some clever developing an existing site could easily handle traffic from desktop users as well as mobile devices by using a little browser recognition code in creative ways. Therefore, I expect the cost of having creating a mobile web site to be more than worth the effort.

Accepting Payments: The Death of the Money Order




Last week I experienced something new in terms of receiving payment for services rendered. The first of the month arrived and as usual the pile of bills that go with it. So when sending current invoices I offered clients a discount for fast payment in order to rest assured I could get everything paid up quickly for the month.

To start an interesting chain of events, one customer submitted payment online via PayPal. Trouble is, it was to the wrong email address. It was one of my email addresses, but not the email address connected to my PayPal account.

This no doubt brings a question to my mind: "Why is PayPal accepting payments to non existing accounts?". I was offered the opportunity to add that email address to my existing PayPal account. But that is beside the point. What if it had NOT been to one of my email addresses? Could the recipient have claimed my funds? I had to email my customer and have them pull the payment, which I assume was just sitting in CyberSpace waiting for someone to take it.

I was on the road that day on a field trip to Oklahoma to meet a client, and it was then I discovered that when using my Blackberry to send email an advertisement was being included with my outgoing mail just after my sig file. One in particular that caught my eye was "Pay me through PayPal" with my email address included in the ad. Clearly it was that which created the confusion in the days PayPal transaction going to the wrong account, and something I need to take up with my provider.

My customer then decided to send payment overnight, and rather than write a check they sent a money order to save me any problems getting it cashed. Often banks will hold out of state checks for several days, and almost every check cashing service has some sort of verification process. I - as well as my customer - thought that a money order was just as good as cash.

We were wrong.

My first stop was my local Cash Express. I like the place because for a small fee - much less than banks charge me - I can cash my checks quickly and easily, along with reloading my credit card if necessary. I can also pay many utility bills there all in one stop. I was told that they couldn't cash the money order without verifying it with the issuing bank, which was closed due to the time difference. I then took it to my local bank which informed me they won't cash a money order unless it is issued from a branch of their bank. Two more banks gave the the same answer.

On to the grocery stores. Same thing. You can buy money orders all day, however they will not cash any unless you bought the money order from them. I've never felt so poor with that much money in my pocket before. The feeling is quite disturbing actually.

Later that day I received a check in the mail and returned to Cash Express. While they were cashing my check I explained my afternoon adventure in Money Order Chaos and was told that Money Orders are likely about to be a thing of the past. Apparently they have become very easy to create and/or have become popular in cases of fraud. I was told that every establishment has these strict policies due to that, and it would be in my best interest to stick to online payments and receiving checks.

Just passing along that experience. I am no longer going to accept Money Orders, and having learned that little lesson in finance I'd suggest everyone review their own policies before any hassles arrive in your mail box.
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New Web Site: Tripleight USA




Recently, John Kuczynski contacted me regarding a new e-commerce web site for darts and supplies. This particular project utilizes the PayPal standard, shopping cart integration and checkout procedures.

Today we went ahead and launched the new web site featuring John Kuczynski and Scott Kirchner's Signature Series darts as well as a full line of Tripleight Universal Barrels. We are adding darts supplies and accessories as they arrive from Tripleight.

It has been a pleasure working with John on this project and I look forward to the completed supplies and accessories site.