Work-at-Home Solutions: Cafepress.com Vs. Artsnow.com

While many people have done well with online auction sites, some are discovering the ease with which custom shops sponsored by online companies provide extra income.

CafePress.com is probably the best-known custom tee-shirt and gift marketplace on the Internet. And while their site is relatively easy to navigate and their Help pages are fairly thorough, there's a newer, up-and-coming "knock off" surfacing on the Internet that may well be giving CafePress a run for it's money. These companies both offer you your own business by sponsoring your business' web site, doing all the printing, shipping and handling all payments. They both send you the profits once per month. CafePress sends a paper check through the mail, ArtsNow pays you through PayPal.

Once opening an account with either site, you customize the way you want your site to look. Then, you upload your designs into your "media cart" on each site and select which products you would like to make available with those images. You adjust the images on each product to your liking and, once satisfied, you decide at what price you want you products sold.

ArtsNow.com, a company located in Hong Kong, is offering more services with a larger variety of products with more custom service plans than CafePress currently does. CafePress offers second-side printing, for instance, for a $3.00 surcharge that is automatically added to the retail price of your product. There is no second-side printing surcharge with ArtsNow.

Here is a brief comparison of both companies.

Fees

CafePress.com Set Fees

ArtsNow.com Varies according to store type.

Free Store

CafePress.com Free: 80 products available to put in your store.

ArtsNow.com Free: Highest base price for each product charged, over 200 products available to put in your store

Ability to Promote Same Product Multiple Times

CafePress.com Free Store: No. Once you place an image on a "Value T-Shirt", for example, you may not put another "Value T-Shirt" up for sale using another logo.

ArtsNow.com Free Store: Yes. If you would like to sell exclusively heart-shaped watches, you may upload as many images as you like and put them on as many watches as needed.

Premium Stores

CafePress.com Does not offer varying store types/programs. Store is either free basic shop or paid premium shop.

ArtsNow.com 30 day free trial for all Premium Stores. Premium Store Fees: $4.95/month-$39.95/year ($3.33/month)

CafePress.com $6.95 per month, $18.95 for 3 months, $34.95 for 6 months, $59.95 for one year. Base prices for products do not change.

ArtsNow.com VIP Domain Stores enjoy lower base prices, a registered domain name (www.yournamehere.com). Fees range from $9.95/month-$99.95/year. ( $8.33/month)

Super VIP Stores enjoy even lower base prices and have the "Powered by ArtsNow.com" footer removed from their web pages, can have custom pages inserted into sites, free forum for users, able to sign up members under your Super VIP store (wwww.yournamehere.com/theirstore) and earn commissions that way as well. Fees: $99.99/month-$999.95/year. ($83.33/month)

Reseller Program enjoy the lowest base price of all stores. Drop shipping program available using your store's logo rather than ArtsNow as return address name. Fees range from $19.99/month to $179.95/year ($15.00/month)

Requires PayPal Account

CafePress.com No

ArtsNow.com Yes

Accepts PayPal

CafePress.com No

ArtsNow.com Yes

Collects Payments

CafePress.com Yes

ArtsNow.com Yes

Shipping Charges

CafePress.com Passed on to the customer at check-out.

ArtsNow.com Free. ArtsNow charges any shipping/handling fees that you as the owner care to charge. This means you profit 100% of the shipping price.

Ships Worldwide

CafePress.com No

ArtsNow.com Yes

Tech Support/Customer Service

CafePress.com Comprehensive. Customer Service help online and may be contacted by phone from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. EST Monday through Saturday. Can wait for up to 15 minutes during peak times to speak with a representative.

ArtsNow.com Minimal. Customer Service FAQs are skeletal at this point and phone support is available from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 a.m. EST. Customer Service personnel have very thick Asian accents and can be hard to understand.

Communication

CafePress.com Excellent: Monthly newsletters keep shopkeepers informed of what's hot and when to have seasonal merchandise ready.

ArtsNow.com Poor: When you open an ArtsNow Shop, you really are your own boss.

Reliability of Web Site

CafePress.com Excellent

ArtsNow.com Excellent

Image Storage Space

CafePress.com Unlimited, but may be thinned of unused media occasionally.

ArtsNow.com Unlimited.

Sample Base Prices

CafePress.com Tote Bag: $12.99, Dark T-Shirt: $18.99

ArtsNow.com Reseller Tote Bag: 8.99, Dark T-Shirt: $10.99

VIP Store Tote Bag: $9.99, Dark T-Shirt: $12.99

Free Store Tote Bag: $10.99, Dark T-Shirt: $13.99

Commissions Earned From Customers Making Their Own Products

CafePress.com No

ArtsNow.com Yes

Promotion of Site Provided

CafePress.com Excellent. Very easy for much of your profits to come by way of the "Marketplace" (i.e. customers shopping CafePress.com and searching keywords). CafePress generates a LOT of daily traffic.

ArtsNow.com Fair. ArtsNow is still new enough that not much traffic comes from a central "Marketplace". Requires more advertising and promotion by Shopkeeper (i.e. you drive traffic to your site)

If you do intend to open your own custom gift shop on the Internet, be aware that the set-up time involved had better be enjoyable to you because the up-front benefits are few-to-far between. Keep in mind that it does take time for your designs to become visible. After having my CafePress shop open for 4 years, I've been receiving commission checks although the site has largely gone unchanged for a good deal of that time. In other words, the work in initial set-up and time spent adding images last year are still paying off for me now, even though my life is much too busy to add much more at this time.

I've only just opened my ArtsNow shop last month and am looking forward to seeing what I can do with it. I'll keep you posted on how much continued work it turns out to be.

In any event, I recommend turning your creative ideas into .PNG format and trying a free shop for a while. Like you couldn't use a couple of extra bucks to put in the gas tank every now and again? Ready for the shameless plug? Okay, if you do decide to open a shop at CafePress.com, please use www.cafepress.com/sdstoreroom as a referral. If you decide to open a shop at ArtsNow.com, please visit www.nursesstationonline.com and sign up there. And best of luck to you!