CafePress Shopkeepers will no doubt recall their decision to change the marketplace. I recall the chaos in the forums as I was very active there at the time, and my advice to everyone was simple. Opt out of the marketplace.This meant making sure none of you images were tagged at all, and that you had opted out through your shops settings. As it happens I've discovered there can be a flaw so I wanted to bring it to shopkeepers' attention.
I left one - just one - bumper sticker tagged which made it available in the marketplace. The bumper sticker includes mydartshirts.com under the design, so I thought maybe that would be some way of reaching the marketplace without actually being in the marketplace. Ever since I've removed all the tags from my images and opted out of the marketplace things have been fine. Until this week...
Two straight days this week I received notification for sales from the marketplace for a total of 11 shirts. The designs were NOT tagged nor am I opted into the marketplace. I just don't know how I'm going to spend the $18 and change CafePress seems to think my work is valued to be. I sell 11 shirts and I get less than a Jackson?
How can this happen? Naturally I went off to investigate...
To see if any of your designs are tagged at all, type in your shop URL with the following modification:
http://www.cafepress.com/sk/yourshop
By doing that I discovered that visitors shopping the marketplace can easily wind up on that page, and even if you only have one design tagged they can discover your shop and purchase anything. Armed with the discounted CafePress marketplace cookie that pushes then through as a marketplace sale.
So... Shopkeepers check your status by using the URL with that /sk inserted and double check your designs. You may think you're unreachable from the marketplace and find out otherwise.
Kelly Ragland - "Rags" - has been a graphic artist since 1984, received an associates degree from the Art Institute of Dallas in 1990 and has been in the imprinted sportswear industry for over 14 years. A web designer and developer since 1997, Rags creates and maintains several web sites in various industries along with creative assignments, advertising projects and writing for industry publications.
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Update: After a full review of the designs in my media basket, I discovered that a handful of designs that had no tags were still designated in a category. Those designs appeared in the marketplace despite not having any tags associated with them.
Update: By opting out of the marketplace, you lose the ability to use CafePress modules on Squidoo as well as lose the ability to take advantage of (or promote) affiliate sales. I have expressed my feelings to CafePress regarding the issue and so should any other shopkeepers out there who feel they are unfairly taking advantage of our own marketing efforts while hampering them at the same time.
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