Luis Guzman in Zazzle Obama Tee

I came across this video on Joost yesterday. I think it must be really cool to get your t-shirt worn by a celebrity. I know Luis Guzman is not exactly an A-List celebrity but he is one fine actor and I would be happy if he were wearing one of my tees. Click on the image above to buy it at the Zazzle store. I think it is also available at Cafepress but I couldn’t find it. Below is the video from Joost where celebrities including Guzman talk about bad Christmas gifts.

Congratulations Zazzle

I’m sure I am not the only one who has noticed but I felt that this event shouldn’t pass without mention. Last night, while I was sleeping Zazzle passed the 10 billion product mark. To be honest, when I saw it the other day I thought it was going to be 10 million and I was pretty impressed but last night before I went to bed I noticed that it was in the billions instead of the millions. Now that is very impressive.

This feature of showing the number of products being sold in Zazzle is quite new but it is a pretty cool feature and one that I quite enjoy checking. I’m sure the Zazzle owners love to watch it too. I think Zazzle’s new quick create tool has contributed greatly to this increase and of course the raft of new features and products that seem to popping up frequently has probably attracted a lot of new shopkeepers.

UPDATE:  Zazzle have announced the 10 billionth product and the lucky person was able to receive a prize too. I should have stayed up all night uploading designs. Below is the t-shirt, a very cute number from the Cute Institute. You can read more about this topic at Business Wire. (Although I think I was the first to post this news.)

I/denti/tee from Edun Live

Edun Live was founded by Bono and his wife Ali Hewson to help improve lives in Africa. All the t-shirts are made in Africa by Africans. They have recently launched a new t-shirt website called I/denti/tee which sells t-shirts (Edun Live) with song lyrics that begin with “I”. At the moment there are only nine shirts but they intend to create many more and they are letting people make suggestions on their web-site. All the t-shirts cost $35 which is a little expensive for a text design t-shirt but it also includes 10 free tunes from iTunes. Any ten songs. That’s like knocking $10 off the cost and will be especially attractive for those who regularly download from iTunes. And yes, for those of you who are wondering, they do have permission to use the lyrics and they even pay royalties for every shirt sold to the respective artists. At the moment they are only shipping to the US but they are preparing for International shipping as we speak.

At the moment the following lyric t-shirts are available:

1. I love rock n’ roll
2. I still haven’t found what im looking for
3. I will survive
4. I used to rule the world
5. I’m a hustler baby
6. I’m wanted dead or alive
7. I’m the only one
8. I wanna dance with somebody
9. I go back

You can choose either black t-shirts with white text or vice versa. There is a hint in the FAQ that they may add more products to the lineup at a later date.

If you are interested in Edun Live but not so much in the I/denti/tee you can try the Edun Live store itself or the Edun Live store at Zazzle. In fact all designs that are on Zazzle t-shirts are available on Edun Live t-shirts. You can even add your own design if you want something unique. (It seems like I can link just about any post to Zazzle at this stage. It’s not intentional. It’s just that Zazzles fingers are getting into a lot of pies lately.)

EDUN LIVE: Blank t-shirts that help create jobs in Africa.

Microsoft Softwear T-Shirts

Microsoft have just launched a t-shirt line called Softwear. Pretty good name and perfect for a line of t-shirts from Microsoft. In the previous post I mentioned that Mozilla had launched a t-shirt store using crowdsourcing to populate their Zazzle store with designs. Microsoft seem to be taking a more traditional route and as typical with all things Microsoft have put a lot of money behind this venture. I really can’t see why though. It can’t be for the money as the income from t-shirt sales surely wouldn’t even cause a ripple in the pond of income from actual software sales. It could be another attempt by Microsoft to tell us that they are cool, like the recent failed Jerry Seinfeld/Bill Gates commercials. This time though, I think it is kind of successful. I’m not saying that suddenly people will think that Microsoft is cool but rather that they have produced some quality products and they have gotten help from someone who decidedly more hip than Seinfeld, Illinois rapper and actor, Common. You can even see a video on the Softwear website of Common talking about the tees. At the bottom of this post you can see a video of Common performing at the Microsoft Softwear launch party.

All the tees have a very cool retro vibe. There are eight designs at the moment, four of which it seems were designed by Common. All of them are much better than Microsoft’s I’m a PC store at Zazzle. Unfortunately, I don’t know where they can be purchased or how much they are going to cost yet. If you know more about these t-shirts please leave a comment. Below are two of my favorites.

Mozilla Crowdsourcing T-Shirt Designs

Everybody and their dog (fox) seems to be opening a t-shirt store these days so I guess Mozilla decided that if they were going to jump on the bandwagon they might as well go the whole hog and emulate one of the more successful business models; the Threadless model.  The Threadless model allows users to submit designs for the chance to win cash prizes. Mozilla doesn’t offer the cash prizes and they don’t even print their own t-shirts but they have attracted quite a few good artists with some pretty cool designs. They sell their t-shirts on Zazzle.com which allows users to further customize their shirts and then select from a huge variety of shirts for men, women and children.

If you are not into designing but you still want to get your hands on some cool Mozilla tees, you can go directly to the Mozilla’s store at Zazzle to pick up a few items. You can check my forum for some great Zazzle coupons and special offers that Zazzle seems to be dishing out at an increasing frequency lately. There are currently 148 designs to choose from. I guess the proceeds will go towards keeping the Mozilla Foundation doing what they are doing.

Mad Men Art at Zazzle

I came across this wonderful art at Zazzle which was obviously created by a fan of the tv show, Mad Men. I love this show. I think it is the best TV drama I have seen for a while and I think that this artist (Dyna Moe) has captured the essence of the show in her art. Below is a poster of a cutout Joan Holloway doll. I imagine a lot of men having been imagining dressing and undressing this super sexy vixen. Probably a few women too. I think this paper doll is about as close as any of us will ever come to doing it though.

I guess there may be some copyright infringement going on here and these might not stay up on Zazzle very long but they are so cool I hope this is not the case. If you want to get your hands on one of these great items though I recommend not waiting. You can find out more about the artist at her web site, Nobody’s Sweetheart and find more of her goods at Zazzle.

For those of you looking for Mad Men t-shirts there are a few uninspired tees at Cafepress. Click on the Mad Men tee shirts below to check out the slim selection.

More on Zazzle’s UK Site

OK, so I didn’t do enough research before I made my last post about Zazzle’s recent news. I always seem to forget to check the forum announcements which is where they placed the FAQ about the new UK site. I do blame Zazzle partly because of their featureless forum though.

Zazzle’s new UK Site - FAQ

You should click on the link above to read the finer details but below are the points I felt are the most significant.

1. The items are still being distributed from the US but prices on the Zazzle.co.uk site are inclusive of VAT (Value Added Tax) and customs duties.
2. For shopkeepers, if you are earning your royalties and earnings in Dollars, and your product is sold on the Zazzle.co.uk website to a customer who pays Pounds, the earnings for that sale are converted to Dollars and paid in Dollars and vice versa.
3. At the moment the earnings for each domain will appear separately and to check you will need to log into the respective domains but they are working on a soon to be released consolidated account system which will hopefully also give us the ability to consolidate different stores rather than just .com and .co.uk versions of the same store. (I said hopefully because I hope so but I couldn’t find any indication that this will be the case.)
4. Referrals: This is a point I am very unhappy about as Zazzle are not living up to their promise here. If you refer someone to the zazzle.com but they end up buying from zazzle.co.uk, which I assume anyone ordering from Europe will do, we will not get the referral commission even though Zazzle clearly says “You get a 15% referral fee on every product sold, even if it’s not your content!” on their website (link). So we are immediately losing referral income here and when Zazzle creates even more localized sites, such as Canada and Australia we will also lose those commissions too.

In this case I think that Cafepress seem to have installed a much superior localization system as it doesn’t look like affiliates will lose commission because people shopped in a different currency. Zazzle has only recently introduced their improved Zazzle Seller Incentive Program but now I bet a lot of people are going to lose the incentive to promote Zazzle items.

Referrals are domain-specific, so someone who clicks on a referral on a link to zazzle.com won’t get referral for purchases made on zazzle.co.uk because the user cookies are different for each domain.

Zazzle.co.uk Opens its Virtual Doors

Zazzle have opened up their UK site but there announcement leaves a lot of questions on the table. I am guessing that the products will be produced and shipped from the UK to all EU countries. I base this assumption on the fact that the FAQ says they will use the Royal Mail. If this is true it will save money on import duties that the British would previously have had to pay if shipped from the US.

For shopkeepers it seems to be a great new source of income as I’m sure many British people will be happier to buy from a store that sells it’s items in pounds rather than dollars. I noticed that for each of my .com stores there is already an equivalent .co.uk store so I don’t even have to do any extra work to set them up. You can check them out below. From what I have read in the forums our tracking is already included.

I also note that the sites are treated as one in terms of visits, tracking and such. My Analytics code is already entered for me on the UK site - the same as is tracking my US pages - and the number of visits is about the same.

http://www.zazzle.com/ruderetro
http://www.zazzle.co.uk/ruderetro

The UK stores are almost mirrors of the originals. I have noticed a few differences apart from the currencies though. For a start, you can pay for your items with PayPal which I don’t believe is possible with Zazzle.com. On the other hand it seems that you can’t get you commission paid by PayPal even though you can with Zazzle.com. It’s very confusing but hopefully these are just a few kinks that will be ironed out soon enough. It is a little worrying though as I really don’t want to receive cheques if possible. It looks like our royalties will be in separate accounts too. It means that I have more accounts to manage.

The sooner Zazzle consolidates the financial aspects of our accounts the better as they are already getting out of hand. If you had five accounts to monitor before you now have ten. If, as rumour has it, they open up even more domains it will become ridiculous. The volume bonus reports to still seem to be working from one account though.

It is nice that the volume bonus is combined with my US accounts (although the currency conversion seems to be off, unless one pound is all of a sudden equal to exactly one dollar - you never can tell these days).

Anyway, it’s all good and to celebrate the launch of Zazzle.co.uk Zazzle have announced a design contest with 5 prizes of £500 (notice the £ not $). It is only open to UK residents. Find out more at Zazzle.co.uk.

Zazzle Threads - EOD is here.

I just mentioned recently that Zazzle and Cafepress seemed to be involved in a game of one-up and today it seems more true than ever with the launch of Zazzle embroidery. To be honest I laughed out loud (that’s LOL for you 1337) when I saw this banner. Surely the Real is a dig at Infinistitch by Cafepress. Don’t you just love a bit of friendly rivalry?

Just recently I expressed my doubts about Zazzle adding embroidery products to their catalog but I was clearly wrong and I will try to be a bit more open-minded about unsubstantiated rumors in the future. Probably not though. Anyway, heads up to T-Shirt Chat for calling this. Although he did say that I was the first to call it way back when. So way back when I didn’t even remember. Then again I heard it from somewhere else (an embroidery blog I believe) so that wouldn’t even make me the first to call it.

Anyway, when Infinistitch was released quite a few people commented on my post about the fact that Infinistich wasn’t authentic embroidery. It was quite a heated debate as far as I remember but by the looks of it Zazzle’s embroidery won’t elicit such a  debate. It seems to be pretty authentic to me although don’t take my word for it as I don’t know much about embroidery.

When I first saw the embroidery page I was blown away by not only the number of new products but what the new products were. Yes, I admit it. I am a front zipper hoodie wearing type of guy. So what’s new? Lots. Of course you some of these are available as print items but for embroidery you can select from the following list.

1. Basic T-Shirt (11 colors)
2. Basic Long Sleeve T-Shirt (11 colors)
3. Ladies Basic T-Shirt (12 colors)
4. Ladies Long Sleeve T-Shirt (8 colors)
5. Classic Polo Shirt (4 colors)
6. Long Sleeve Polo Shirt (8 colors)
7. Ladies Polo Shirt (Fitted) (8 colors)
8. Ladies Long Sleeve Polo Shirt (Fitted) (4 colors)
9. Basic Pullover Hoodie (12 colors)
10. Basic Zip Hoodie (7 colors)
11. Ladies Pullover Hoodie (3 colors)
12. Ladies Zip Hoodie (3 colors)
13. AA Fleece Zip Hoodie (8 colors)
14. Classic Sherpa-lined Zip Hoodie (2 colors)
15. AA Thermal Fleece Zip Hoodie (6 colors)
16. Basic Sweatshirt (5 colors)
17. AA Pullover Fleece Hoodie (7 colors)
18. Ladies Sherpa-lined Zip Hoodie (2 colors)
19. AA Fleece Zip Jogger Jacket (8 colors)
20. AA Fleece Track Jacket (7 colors)
21. Flexfit Wool Blend Cap (15 colors)
22. Basic Adjustable Cap (18 colors)
23. Distressed Chino Twill Cap (8 colors)
24. Grocery Tote Bag (5 colors)

Wow, now that I wrote the whole list down I’m even more impressed. For those that are curious that is a total of 182 items if I have done my sums and research correctly.

Of all the items, the ones I am most excited about are the zipper hoodies, of course, and the distressed chino caps. I have a similar hat at the moment but it would be nice to be able to make my own.

The thing I am least excited about is the tote bags but then again I don’t think dudes are all that interested in bags.

I also have to add that the thing I am most confused about is the military caps. I see them but I don’t see them.

This all seems great. We have real embroidery and a bazillion products to put them on. It seems to blow Cafepress out of the water so why didn’t they come up with this? There is a catch of course. You can’t simply apply any image you design to these products. There are guidelines that you must follow. But even that is not the real catch. The real catch is that it might cost you a lot of money to just add the design to your products. I tested one design and it would cost me $55 just to convert it to an embroidery-ready format. I decided not to make it. The bigger you design is and the more stitches that are needed the more expensive this conversion fee will be. So this will be a major factor in stopping shopkeepers from loading their stores with these products.

I really don’t think many shopkeepers are going to profit from these new products although I am sure a few will. I have a feeling anyway that these products are not really geared to us shopkeepers but rather to shoppers. I think there are plenty of people out there who will be willing to fork out a bit of cash up front for the conversion fee if they are buying the products themselves. I think they will be wildly popular with clubs, companies and sports teams as embroidery just looks so much classier than regular print items.

On the other hand Zazzle have provided us with a few ways to avoid the conversion fee, one of which is to just use text with the supplied test editor. The fonts are limited but it the selection is varied so you will probably find something you like. The other option looks like it is for shoppers only. You can use some of the 15,000 designs they have already uploaded.

I quickly created an Obama 08 cap which you can see at the Rude Politics store. It was a pretty painless procedure. I love the video feature for the embroidery products too.

Anyway, I think it is fair to say that EOD (Embroidery on Demand) is here. Well done Zazzle. I wonder what else you have up your sleeves.

Zazzle Goes To The UK

A little birdy told me that Zazzle are about to open a UK branch. In the Internet world that might simply mean creating a new domain Zazzle.co.uk. That’s about all the information I have and I have to admit that it wasn’t a little birdy that told me. This information was grabbed from our friends at T-Shirt Chat.

To be honest, this news is more exciting even that the amazing rebranding job at Cafepress because if Zazzle set up their store in the UK I think it is likely that Zazzle shopkeepers like me will see an increase in sales. I don’t know when it’s going to happen or any details unfortunately. But stay tuned.

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