Starting an Online Business All-in-One For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Comparing Features to Find the Best Deal in Storefronts

More e-merchandising storefronts, such as CafePress, are popping up every day. For the most part, the features and benefits offered by all the sites are fairly similar. One site hasn't truly pulled enough ahead of the others for us to say that it's the one that will become the eBay of e-merchandising. Admittedly, many sellers prefer CafePress, but as that site matures and is considered mainstream, we see more interest in alternative or start-up options. In the following sections, we describe three sites that offer a few interesting alternatives.

Spreadshirt

Spreadshirt launched in Germany in 2002, but it has opened United States and other European locations for its base of operations (see Figure 5-8). Spreadshirt has established several avenues for you to make money:

• Open a shop: You can create a fully functioning store for free, with access to all Spreadshirt products and apparel. You upload your own images to create truly customized products or commission artwork from one of the Spreadshirt designers for a small fee. You set the commissions you want to earn for each product, up to $20, which is added to the cost of the item. (Spreadshirt sets the base cost.) Spreadshirt suggests that the best commission range for success is between $8 to $10, per product. Because Spreadshirt handles all inventory management, shipping, and other back-end functions for your store, you have zero overhead and can afford a smaller commission! ...