Overnight Changes at Zazzle and Cafepress
This post is more for POD shopkeepers than customers. Little did I know when I went to bed last night that my world (the POD part of it anyway) would be changed. I have stores at both Cafepress and Zazzle so these changes are very interesting for me.
First I will talk about the changes at Zazzle (good news first). Zazzle posted on their blog about the Gallery Updates but they should have called them Gallery Upgrades (for the most part) in my opinion.
Firstly Zazzle has increased the size of the product images which is great. I feel that over at Cafepress the product views are too small and it is hard to see the design, so bigger is better. On the other hand the Zazzle product views were a pretty good size anyway and if I hadn’t been told I might not have noticed that they were bigger (15% bigger). What I don’t like though is the white border that now appears on rollovers. I think the white border would be OK if the inner image background color filled the whole square.
Secondly, the side bar has been made slimmer to accommodate the larger images. I actually think this doesn’t look so good. At least on my store. I also think it may have been unnecessary as there is some wasted space around the whole page and also the images could have been moved a little closer together without looking bad. If you have long section titles this means that they will run onto two lines and can sometimes be a little confusing. They have recommended keeping your section titles to less that 20 characters to prevent this occurrence but we shouldn’t really have to do that. Section titles are not just titles they are SEO tools.
Another cool upgrade is the ability to have a 100px high header which is great. The 200px header was excessive and pushed the all important products down the page, which is why in my store I put product and design images in my header. Pity they are not clickable though. Now that would be a real improvement. Also we now have the ability to put the sidebar on the left or on the right. That’s pretty cool. But which is better? I’ll let you decide.
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Another thing that has been mentioned in their post is the ability to make your store private which might be useful for some people. The ability to make a section private would be useful for many people though. And finally the the “Manage Your Gallery” top bar has been removed (thankfully) and the functions have been moved into the shopkeepers control panel. This will only be noticeable to shopkeepers, not shoppers.
Something that wasn’t mentioned in their blog post is the fact that the links to view all products have been removed from the page. You can still see all products by clicking on the “Products” link on the side but I think that the original links (above and below shop front images) were more likely to be clicked, which makes it more likely that someone will buy something from your store. (*edit I was told that this was a glitch and it is already back on-line).
As this post took longer than I had expected I will talk about the dramatic changes that happened over at Cafepress last night in the next post. If I missed anything or if you have any opinions or feedback please post a comment. Don’t forget to take part in the Sidebar Poll.
Zazzle and Cafepress in the News
Filed under: Cafepress, Political T-Shirts, Rude Retro, Zazzle
I have been a POD shopkeeper for a couple of years but I have just recently noticed that these shops and the shopkeepers are making the news more and more. Today I came across an article on CNBC which mentioned both shops again with regard to political t-shirts. It said that Cafepress, which is probably the largest POD company, say that recently 20% of sales are political merchandise. That is a lot of political merchandise. Cafepress also has a meter showing the per-candidate sales and puts Barrack Obama at about 60%. A quick piece of math will tell you that 12% of Cafepress’ sales are generated by Barrack Obama. Wow.
For a quick look at the best of Zazzle Barrack Obama T-Shirts check out my previous post.
On the CNBC web page there is also a video where many t-shirt vendors shirts can be seen but it definitely focuses on Zazzle and Cafepress. I also noticed a brief image of one of Rude Retro’s Client 9 t-shirts at the beginning of the video and as it doesn’t have an embedding feature I took a screen capture.
This is the second time that I am aware of that Rude Retro’s t-shirts have been in the news. The first time was also regarding Eliot Spitzer.
Attack of Literacy T-Shirt
There is a great new t-shirt over at Threadless today called Attack of Literacy. It is done in a very cool old fashioned comic book style and given a vintage effect. One thing that I am curious about though is who they are. The t-shirt states - “TWENTY RENOWNED AUTHORS OF THE CLASSICS STAR IN…”. I wonder who they are. I can recognize four (maybe). Later ones have been added from users comments.
- James Joyce (far left)
- Edgar Allen Poe (in front of and to the right of Joyce)
- William Shakespeare (2nd from the left in front)
- Ernest Hemingway (far right)
- Charles Dickens (right behind Shakespeare)
- Mark Twain (right to the left of scared victim)
If you know who the rest are, or if I have made a mistake please leave a comment. Thanks
The Office T-Shirts
The Office recently started back after quite a hiatus caused by the writers strike. This is a pretty good show with some great characters and some great lines. At first I thought I wouldn’t really like it because the original British version was amazing. Really amazing considering how painful it was to watch yet I watched the whole series twice, including the Christmas specials. Anyway, back to the point. The NBC version has been a huge hit, much more successful that the British version and it is a continuing saga. People use catch phrases from this show even when they have never seen it. To celebrate its return to the little screen I have searched for some t-shirts for the Office Fans out there.
You don’t have to be a fan of the Office to know the line that has become one of this shows catchphrases. I find it quite funny that this took off because really I find it only mildly amusing. It is funny only when people don’t really understand the joke like when Michael was talikg to the lawyers at the end of season 2 or 3. I forget. I would also like to know what Ricky Gervais thought of this development. Ricky Gervais was one of the creators of the original show and he went to create extras where his character went on to make a sitcom. And while he (the character) was making the sitcom he said that he that he didn’t want to have catch phrases. He said he thought they were tacky or something like that.
The design in the middle is available at Lucky Threads and is the image of what a Schrute Buck might luck like. It would take too much time to explain and the last on the top is the Dunder Mifflin Company T-Shirt. That is where they all work.
The expression Dinkin’ Flicka is a very cool expression that only a brother can understand. Wink wink.
Free Coldplay Single
Coldplay are not going quite as far as Radiohead with this idea but free is free. For one week, you will be able to download the new Coldplay single from their web site. On their website it says:
from Tuesday, 12:15pm UK time
for one week only
you can come here to download
a free copy of a new song
called Violet Hill.
Below are some t-shirts from Allposters.
Sinful Clothing
I have seen this company being promoted with Google Adsense and I thought I’d check it out. There are some amazing tees in there. Of course the fact that they are on hot models probably helps but as you can see, the detail of the design is awesome. They have a very gothic vibe but I don’t think they would alienate those who are not really into the whole goth scene. You can purchase the their t-shirts from a link from the Sinful Clothing site or if you want to use PayPal you can find a great selection of their tees at a site called Solis.
The bottom left one is my favorite and if you look closely you can see the fat Buddha and a swimming carp. Very Japanezy.
Snorg Tees $5.95 Mystery T-Shirt
Snorg Tees are doing a bit of a clearance sale and while it is nowhere near as good as the Threadless $5 T-Shirt sale or the Nerdy Shirts $1 T-Shirt, it is still a bargain. Unlike these two t-shirt stores, with this sale from Snorg Tees you can’t choose the t-shirt you want and they are, well, sub-standard. That could be part of the charm though. They say anticipation is greater than realization.
Above are sample of what could be wrong with the t-shirt. That could be that there is a small hole, the tee was printed on the wrong color, the print has a slight flaw or it is a dumb question mark t-shirt. Although it is growing on me. Below is the blurb I received.
Grab Bag Shirts Are Back! $5.95
The grab bag includes discontinued designs, misprints (limited edition prints!), shirts with a small hole (vintage worn look!), shirts with a question mark on them, and shirts with an errant spot on it (again, vintage worn look!). You choose the size, and for $5.95 we give you a random shirt from the grab bag in that size. Most of the flaws are hard to find, and we’ve posted some obvious examples. There are limited amounts available in each size, and once sold out a size will be taken down from the site, so order yours today! Due to their limited nature, Grab Bag shirts may not be returned or exchanged.
To find the t-shirt just go to Snorg Tees home page and scroll down to the bottom and click on the question mark.
Busted Tees Sale April 23rd
Just thought I’d let you know that Busted Tees is having a sale. April 23rd, all t-shirts are $12. Don’t delay.
The Big Lebowski T-Shirts
I have to admit that The Big Lebowski is one of my favorite movies. It is one of those movies that I can watch over and over. I can even watch parts of it and still enjoy it. So I decided to get a collection of Lebowski t-shirts together. The first two are from Zazzle and while there are many versions of Little Lebowski Urban Achiever T-Shirts floating around this one is quite fun. The second is a great spoof of a Leonardo DaVinci sketch although I wonder if DaVinci would have been amused.
I love this picture of the Jesus (not to be confused with Christ) licking the bowling ball. Jesus played by John Turturro was one of the greatest characters in the movie. The second is of course John Goodman who played one of his more menacing roles and still managed to be funny.
The first t-shirt here is a crude one from Deez Teez. Needs no explanation and last but certainly not least is a zombie version of the Big Lebowski crew humorously entitled Dawn of the Dude. You can find it and some other great shirts over at Go Ape Shirts.
Hot Chick in Dick Cheney’s Sunglasses
As unlikely as it may seem there was a rumor going around about a photo of Dick Cheney on a fishing trip where there was reflection of a naked woman in his glasses. Below is the photo in question with a little supporting evidence that it was not really a woman but actually his hand. On the other hand, if you look closely at the two t-shirts below it seems pretty clear that old Dick is having a bit of a party.
