All Access To The Goodies

A viral marketing tool and a potential money-spinner. Suzanne
Power looks at the options and believes Spreadshirt can take
over the Cafepress mantle ===============

If you take away poker, dating, and naked ladies, custom
merchandising is the big success story of the Internet. The
ultimate combination of e-commerce and affiliate marketing,
millions of websites around the world turn to online
merchandising companies - both to market their URL and to
extract some cash from loyal visitors.

The key to the success of the industry is on-demand printing,
meaning website owners don’t usually incur setup costs and do
not have to carry inventory.

The business model usually works like this. The webmaster signs
up for free - or for a small monthly fee - at the merchandising
company site. Having uploaded his/her own designs - often logos,
catchphrases or drawings, the webmaster can then place these
designs on the range of products offered by the merchandiser.
Usually, the merchandise company places a base price on each
product, to which the webmaster adds his/her own commission or
markup. In some cases, the webmaster can then create a shop
which can be integrated into their own site.

The merchandising company normally handles credit-card
processing, printing, shipping, and customer service while the
webmaster incurs the slightly less arduous task of collecting
and banking the commissions.

Beginning to see why its so popular? Let’s have a look at some
of the industry’s big players:

Cafepress

The daddy of the bunch. Founded in 1999 in California, Cafepress
was one of the first companies to exploit the massive custom
merchandise market. It now sells products on behalf of over 2
million website owners, mainly in the USA.

For all its longevity and wide reach, Cafepress has yet to solve
many of the original problems that still bother its users.
Despite the clamour from customers, the company has yet to find
a way to offer black, or even dark, garments - still relying on
the old white and grey staples and a rather odd collection of
pastels. Nor has the company embraced internationalisation, and
website owners outside of the USA still baulk at hefty shipping
charges and US Dollar pricing.

The free Cafepress service offers limited functionality to
users, with only one version of each product allowed. For a
monthly fee, Cafepress allows unlimited selling. However,
excessive branding makes it rather difficult to integrate the
Cafeshop into the look and feel of an existing site.

Cafepress

Zazzle

Another California-based company that launched a similar service
to Cafepress in 2003 and has a substantial share of the US
market. Again pricing is only available in US Dollars. And while
Zazzle’s range of garment colours is stronger than Cafepress,
printing on black or dark shirts is still not supported.

Zazzle does not charge a monthly fee but webmasters will find it
rather more difficult to integrate their shop into the look and
feel of their own site.

Zazzle

Spreadshirt

This one looks interesting. Spreadshirt was founded in Germany
in 2002 and boasts over 60,000 partners across Europe, winning
the Hewlett Packard Business Innovation Award in 2004. Unlike
its American competitors, Spreadshirt caters for both European
and US customers, using regional shipping companies and allowing
webmasters to price products in Euros, Sterling, or US Dollars.
Shops can also be automatically translated into eight languages.

Spreadshirt has also solved the thorny “black shirt” issue,
offering over 50 products in a full range of colours. However,
it’s probably the different printing options that sets the
service apart. In particular, Spreadshirt’s “flock” printing -
creating a raised felt finish - produces a result much more
impressive than regular digital print.

Finally, hats off to Spreadshirt for managing to keep its
branding on the product but still allow webmasters full control
over the look and feel of their shops. Already a dominant force
in the European market, Spreadshirt could be set to give
Cafepress a run for their money in the US.

Spreadshirt US Spreadshirt UK

EShirt

EShirt is another European company - this time Italian-based -
providing an almost-identical product range to Cafepress ie no
dark shirts. Euro, US Dollar and Sterling pricing is available.
However, the only print option available is digital hot press
printing - not the longest lasting technique.

The most inconvenient aspect of EShirt’s service is shop
integration. You must register as a Tradedoubler affiliate
before you can even apply for an EShirt shop. And even then, it
is not possible to recreate the look and feel of your own site.

EShirt