CafePress vs Zazzle Website Traffic

I was doing some research on Alexa.com and decided to see what's new in the CafePress vs Zazzle battle.  I was kind of surprised to see what the website traffic picture looks like these days.  While Zazzle isn't doing all that much climbing, the two seem to be headed for a neck and neck race since CafePress's traffic is obviously on the decline. What this means? I'm not 100% sure. what I'm more interested in is why CP's traffic seems to be tanking over the last few months?

The Million Dollar Question = The CafePress Marketplace

Well, you'd think it was the million dollar question if you saw how many times a day someone posts something along the lines of "I just added my design, how long until it shows up in the marketplace?" or "How do I get my designs to the front of the marketplace?" or....well....you get the point.

The ever curious CafePress marketplace. It's huge, it's successful, and the question is, how do you get your designs to sell from there when you're competing with millions of other designs? You upload a design, add all the appropriate tags, make some great products, and then you wait....and wait....and wait.........and wait..........and still, nothing. So you go to the marketplace and start searching for your design. You put in one of those great tags you used for your image and yet, you still don't see your design. Page after page, you click, and look, and click, and look, and you don't see it. So you go to the CafePress forums and say, "My designs aren't showing up in the marketplace. Something is wrong, the system is broken."

Is that true? Is the marketplace broken?

No, It's not.

So we're back at square one. The million dollar question...how do you get your designs to show in the marketplace (in a good position of course) so that you can sell tons of shirts and make lots and lots of money.

The answer? You can't.

Almost every time someone posts this question on the CafePress forums, I leave the same response. I'm tired of writing it out, so I figured I'd once and for all write it out here on the BurnTees blog. Remember, this is my personal opinion. It's not fact, it's just the way I feel about the whole thing.

You mainly sell your designs from two places. Your site and the marketplace. Of those two, there's only one that you have any control over, and that's your shop. You have NO control over the marketplace. You don't decide which designs show up where, what gets featured, which shops show up on the front page...nothing. In your own shop however, you decide on the layout, you write your own descriptions, fill in your keywords and do everything else to make your shop look and work the way you want. So, why waste time worrying about the marketplace?

Here's how I look at the marketplace and I think this is how you should look at it too. The marketplace is one giant affiliate. It's a separate entity that's interested in making money by selling other people's designs and hopefully they sell some of yours for you as well. The nice part? You don't lose 15% of your commission every time they sell one of your shirts.

You wouldn't try to locate an affiliate and say, "why aren't my designs on your site?" So why question the marketplace in the same way? Instead, spend your time working on your own shop. Drive traffic to YOUR site. Why focus on the marketplace where you're competing with millions of other designs? If you drive traffic to your own site, you have a much better chance of selling one of your own products and isn't that the point?

In the end, my feeling is this. Sales from the marketplace should be viewed as a bonus, not an expected thing and not something you can work to improve. If you view it as a bonus or an affiliate sale and nothing more than that, I think that you'll be better off in the long run.