I'm thinking of using this site for selling merch online (primarily t-shirts). Thoughts? Experiences? Alternatives? DISCUSS!
Thanks 
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Austin, Texas
Low quality end product. They do digital prints, if I recall correctly.
I think you'd be better off talking to a local screenprinter and looking into something like bigcartel.
Also, it's been a long time since I used Cafepress, so maybe it's different now.
EDIT:
Also, do you already have your own designs ready?
The draw to Cafepress for a lot of people is the simple in-site designer, but if you have a professional design (or are capable of doing a professional quality design yourself), it's kind of pedestrian and limited by comparison.
I'd recommend talking to some design buddies and maybe hiring one of the artists in the community to make something really stunning, if you don't already have your designs together for the final product.
Last edited by Telerophon (Sep 18, 2012 3:40 pm)
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Amsterdam, The Netherlands
I've been using Spreadshirt for some projects. Decent alternatives (for what i understood) are Zazzle.com, society6.com and what Telerophone said (big cartel).
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Los Angeles, The Kingdrom
Thanks for the input guys! My main thing was to find a site that would produce merch with our custom artwork, sell, and ship all with no upfront fees (rather, we'd just get a cut of the earnings ). Cafepress seems to do that but my main concern was the quality of the product vs. what people would be paying (some t-shirts were running about 30 bucks and hoodies for 50(!?) ). Their site also kind of has a cheesy and ameturish layout that's a bit unsettling. Big Cartel seems like they'd only help sell but not produce (I lack the fundulations to buy blank t-shirts and pay someone to make them for me) although I may use them for more custom/less generic items in the future. Society6 and Spreadshirt look legit; I'm going to research those two a little more.
At the same time, if anyone has used or bought something from cafepress recently let me know what your thoughts are! 
Last edited by 1000needles (Sep 18, 2012 5:11 pm)
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Sander von Focus wrote:
I've been using Spreadshirt for some projects. Decent alternatives (for what i understood) are Zazzle.com, society6.com and what Telerophone said (big cartel).
im with sander, spreadshirt is the way to go.
they have a wide variety of products, printing methods, and ways to set (or not set in my case) commissions.
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Brunswick, GA USA
You may be better served finding a better quality shirt and learning to screenprint, if you will move the right amount of them.
Results can be sold via Brandcamp and such. If I think about this stuff too much it makes my head spin.
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Austin, Texas
Yeah, I've seen more than a few bands screenprint their own shirts. If it matches your aesthetic it is a pretty cool option because you essentially make each one unique.
I don't know much about spreadshirt, but I've done merch design for some nonprofits in my area and gotten them estimates from area screenprinters. I know we've gotten American Apparel single color prints for as low as $8 a shirt at I think 50 shirts. That's really not bad at the end of the day, if you think you can move fifty shirts at $10 or $15. 
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Austin, Texas
xero wrote:
Sander von Focus wrote:I've been using Spreadshirt for some projects. Decent alternatives (for what i understood) are Zazzle.com, society6.com and what Telerophone said (big cartel).
im with sander, spreadshirt is the way to go.
they have a wide variety of products, printing methods, and ways to set (or not set in my case) commissions.
Wow, that's a clean looking little store you've got there.
I'm just curious, but what's the legal situation with reproducing the LSDj logo and the NTRQ logo on soft goods? I thought the LSDj one was trademarked/noncommercial, and I've never known about the NTRQ one.
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Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Yeah, homemade printing is the best. Although the services e.g. spreadshirt offers in dealing with returns, payment and delivery really makes things easy.
If you really intend to sell lots of shirts a combination might be a good idea. Like run of the mill shirts from spreadshirt, and 'limited editions' with homemade silkscreen.
A homemade silkscreen printer is not that hard to make, just buy some screens, and do sth indy style like i did here: 
Printing in multiple colors requires some tight carpenter skills, unlike my effort up here
And feel free to hack your spreadshirt shop with the stuff i did here. Some javascripts and css solutions to get rid of the unneccesary stuff.
Last edited by Sander von Focus (Sep 18, 2012 9:21 pm)
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detroit
im with chunter on this. just screen yr own shit for a mad fraction of the cost. and you can put multiple designs on one screen saving your pocket book even further.
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Los Angeles, CA
Cafepress shirts look like iron on transfers you could make at home. Horrible quality at a high price.
Zazzle's prints look REALLY good, but both shirts I bought thru them, after a couple of washes the prints started to peel off. I've never heard any one else complain about this so maybe I was just unlucky. But the problem with them is that their shirts are too fucking expensive for anyone to ever want to buy one.
Screen printing at home is the way to go. The original run of Wizwars shirts were done by my homie Ingrid, whose dad had all the supplies we needed in his shed to actually make the screen ourselves...but even going to local company and having a screen made is cheap, and you can buy a couple dozen no name brand shirts in the fashion district for $30-40 I think it was.
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Austin, Texas
Zazzle's prints look decent, but they are digital prints last I checked, so they don't had the fade resistance of a quality screenprint, or the unique inverse dye qualities of something less typical like a discharge print.
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Los Angeles, The Kingdrom
Wizwars wrote:
Cafepress shirts look like iron on transfers you could make at home. Horrible quality at a high price.
Telerophon wrote:
Low quality end product. They do digital prints, if I recall correctly.
Yea, I just finished reading a slew of bad reviews about Cafepress. Everything from poor customer service to inconstant/shitty prints was mentioned. Such a bummer that they don't do legit work. The products they offer are quite extensive (who WOULDN'T want to be able to sell thongs with their band's/act's logo on them )
xero wrote:
im with sander, spreadshirt is the way to go.
Conversely, I'm really liking Spreadshirt. The layout of site is great, has good reviews in terms of the quality of the product, and the products are more affordable than cafepress (surprisingly). Plus, everything is handmade which is nice.
Everyone on this forum wrote:
Just do it yourself.
Ideally, I would like to be able to go DIY and keep a good chunk of the profit. However I'm afraid I just wouldn't be able to invest the time into doing that effectively at the moment plus, again, scratch to start it up is tight around these parts.
Sander von Focus wrote:
a combination might be a good idea. Like run of the mill shirts from spreadshirt, and 'limited editions' with homemade silkscreen.
This will probably the route I'd be shooting for. I'll keep you guys posted on my experiences with spreadshirt. If you see another post titled 
things probably didn't go too hot.