I started out with CafePress, and over the years I've made more money via CafePress. I have been on CafePress longer than Zazzle and have made more money because CafePress ALWAYS let you set your own commision (Zazzle only started doing it for the Christmas season 2007... CafePress had the option like 7 years ago.)
I esp love that Zazzle no longer only pays you just 10%. ugh! For years I've made next to nothing on Zazzle cause I couldn't set my own commision, but now I can set my own commision and I'm starting to make money now!
I love the new Zazzle Merch booth! Now I can create 10, 20, or 30 products at a time! No more creating one item at a time for me! (CafePress always had that option too. With CafePress you can create as many as 80 products all at once.)
Useing Zazzle's Merchbooth I created over 400 new products for my gallery this week alone! It used to be slow to create stuff, cause you could only create one item at a time, and for the longest time I only has 15 items in my gallaery cause I got so bored with the slow creation process, but since they added Merchbooth, now I have over 2,000 products in my gallery! I love it!
One problem I have had though, is on dial-up I could only load one picture at a time on Zazzle, because they use Java pop-ups to load images and they took over 20 minutes to load each picture. So for the first few years I used CafePress almost exclusivly, because it was so hard to load images to Zazzle's site. I got cable a little over a year ago, and since than I've had no problems loading images to Zazzle anymore, so if you have dial-up you might find CafePress a lot easier to use.
If you're just starting out I'd recommend you use CafePress first, because they are much more "user friendly" for the begginer. Zazzle has more steps and the instructions are not as clearly stated as CafePress' are. Once you've made a few shops on CafePess though, you should have no problems understanding Zazzle, because they are basicly the same.
It's to your advantage to have both, because while they both have t-shirts, cards, mugs and buttons, most of their other items do not overlap.
Zazzle has USPostal Service approved custom postage stamps and CafePress does not. Zazzle also has neck-ties, keyrings, and other items.
Plus CafePress has some pretty cool products that Zazzle doesn't have: ceramic tiles, jewlery boxes, dog shirts, clocks, pillows, etc.
I've found the quality of the items to be pretty much the same. I've bought T-shirts, buttons, mugs, mousepads, and totebags from both Zazzle and CafePress and both have super quality.
Shipping tends to be a lot faster with CafePress though. Usually I get orders from CafePress in less than 2 weeks, (3-4 days is average), but Zazzle I usually have to wait 2 or 3 weeks before I get the items.
The payout is basicly the same for each: Both require a minimum income of $25 before they well send you a check. Both mail out the pay checks at the end of each month. Both have a waiting period of 40 - 60 days after the order was made, to allow for returns, before they credit the money to your account. Both have the option to credit your pay towards your next order if you choose that option. Both pay you by sending a paper check in the mail.
CafePress only pays by check in the mail.
Starting January 2008, Zazzle now pays you via your PayPal account, if you have one. (Payments were just sent out last night btw, I just got my February payout of $44.36)
CafePress has a much better forum for members. The CafePress forum is pretty much the same as SquidU is for Squidoo, you go on and start threads and get advice from other members just like you would here for Squidoo.
But Zazzle's forum is more like Twitter or an YahooIM chat, and is really pointless to join, because it's just a single page with one sentance quotes flashing acrossed it everytime someone says anything, and so no post really makes any sence at all.
Zazzle has lots of promotion features, including giving you html codes for each of your products in both image or text (and the image code has three image size options). Plus they have a couple of differant style widgets that you can put on your blog or on MySpace that are updated live everytime you add a new product.
CafePress has only one promotional html code and it's a banner with a green star on it that goes to their homepage and not to your store or items.
So, as you can see, each has it's good points, and each has it's bad points. Both are good though, so I use them both.
Here are likes to one of each "style" of mine, so you can compare what they look like:
A Free CafePress Shop (layout can not be edited, they all look like this)
http://www.cafepress.com/GothSkullHearts
A paid CafePress shop ($54 a year) (layout can be edited like a blog or like MySpace profiles):
http://www.cafepress.com/copper_cockerel
A Free Zazzle Gallery (ALL Zazzle galleries are free, they don't have a paid account option) (the layou can be edited to what you want it to look like):
(I love pink and orange layouts, I guess you can tell, cause my CafePress, my Zazzle, my LuLu, and my MySpace are all that same color combo. It's kind of my sig color.)
Well, that should help you out some.
What's your take on this? I'd love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!
If you liked this post, than you might like what I say on my other blog too!
Want to read more? Check out my Squidoo Lenses:
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Create Your Own Writers Retreat
Need to Kill Writer's Block? Kill a Character.
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