Last year, when the print-on-demand corporation CafePress introduced higher prices for buyers and lower compensation for graphic designers, many outraged designers for CafePress reacted by declaring their intention to leave CafePress behind and take their activity elsewhere. The call went out: Boycott CafePress!
A year later, however, there’s no sign of decreased activity by designers. Between midnight and 8:45 AM on the morning of Thursday April 15, 2009, 11288 new graphic designs had been introduced for sale at CafePress. Between midnight and 9 AM this morning (a sleepy early summer Saturday), 15730 new graphic designs were introduced. That’s not a slowdown. It’s an acceleration.
I believe that even though these numbers seem high, do you have a comparison of the upload numbers Before the transition? Another thing to consider, Cafepress has exclusive rights to many of the most popular t-shirt subjects such as Twilight, New Moon, American Idol, and more- so even those shopkeepers who are placing all other new designs at Zazzle or other POD’s , they will place some designs at CP due to the exclusivity. In addition, it takes time to repopulate a new POD with designs that have been placed at CP over a period of years. The quality of designs at CP has dropped even if the numbers have not substantially dropped and many of the hobbyist designers have no idea what the impact is in the paychecks as do those Top Shopkeepers who depend on the profits for actual income.