KnowProSE.com Cafepress and Zazzle: KnowProSE Getz Zazzlish

Sitting around after my visitors left, and not quite motivated to continue working on OpenDepth.com, I fiddled around looking for something to do that was productive, especially since the job/contract hunt isn't very productive when everyone is on vacation. It must be good knowing that one will wake up and go to work doing something, and that life will continue from 2005 unabated. I never seem to have that at the beginnings of years; there's always something that is in the process of changing, some upheaval. This is not a complaint, simply an observation from one who leads a less than disinteresting life. :-)

The result is the KnowProSE.com Zazzle Design area. Yes, t-shirts and assorted other paraphernalia. Stuff like this can be useful for individuals, or NGOs that want to be 'self funded' (quite rare), or anyone else.

The Path To Zazzle

I'd started a Cafepress store for KnowProSE.com in 2002 - it seems like a lifetime ago - so I started to update it with some of my pictures when I found that the Basic store didn't allow for what I wanted to do just yet. I would need to invest financially on my designs - basically bet on how good these designs are - and I'm not sure. CafePress would require me to spend about $60/month to go beyond a 'basic store', which is free - but it is constraining for experimentation, since you can only have one product of each category. I learned this when I stuck the kitten on everything. It's a cute kitten, but there's more that is possible.

Sure, $60 isn't much, but when faced with paying $60 for something that has only shown $6.75 over the last 3 years (maybe mainly my fault since I didn't work on it), I started looking around and found Zazzle. While it doesn't offer as many things that you can put designs on, it's a good testing ground and maybe I'll make a few sales. Maybe not. I'll poke around with it and add more stuff (20 KnowProSE.com products so far. Creating the designs is extremely user friendly if you have an ADSL or up connection - I don't know about how it would work with a 56K modem.

The Intimidation Factor

Poking around Zazzle and Cafepress is somewhat intimidating. There are lots of cool things that people have designed - and if you're going to get into putting designs on things other than some simple logo, you should shop around and see what others are doing, what appeals to you, and what appeals to other people.

Balancing Love And Profit

Sales and design are more closely intertwined than engineering and sales; creating things for the love of creating them is Art, I think, and creating things so that hordes of people will throw money in your bank account is Marketing. I lean more toward the Art side, which is probably a luxury I can't afford. Stick figures tax my design abilities, but I can write... and sticking to what I know is a good idea. So I'm just transforming things into another medium, and maybe making a few dollars instead of moping and checking email when nobody is responding during the holiday season to applications and bids.

When I first started the Cafepress store, I was in a similar position - nothing ahead in the future, and the only inventory was what I can do. This time, though, I have more to draw on, plus more experience with the internet and business. I'm not looking to become an internet bazillionaire, and this isn't a 'get rich quick' scheme - it's just potential trickle income. And it's better than nothing. :-)

Where the marketing for Zazzle and CafePress fail

Neither has an RSS feed one can subscribe to and see what the latest designs are - for a store or for the entire site. That's somewhat odd. And while images are nice in linking to specific products, that's not done too aggressively which is strange - especially for affiliates who have to do all of the work if they choose to go the extra mile and do what, I think, should be the job of Zazzle/Cafepress. But it is what it is, and I've made my suggestions. Depending on whether I see a return on my investment of time and energy in that regard, I'll pursue it more aggressively. Right now it's a hobby with the potential for income, and since I do know quite a few creative and artisitic people, I'm interested in what perspectives come in the comments.

Rapid Prototyping - or, Screwing Up At No Cost

If you have an idea, why not try it out yourself? Especially if you're in a developing nation; maybe you can generate some revenue that you didn't know you could. Maybe there is something in your culture that can generate a trickle of income to you and your region. But that's the romantic idealist talking. The truth is that unless you try, you won't know.

Using tools like Cafepress and Zazzle allow one to quickly put out ideas and designs at no risk; if it doesn't work out you can leave it out there (maybe someday it will), or you can replace it with the next idea you have.

Perhaps the best part of these tools are that they enable dreams. Zazzle has a feature which allows people to customize your designs, which is unbelievably cool and almost seems to be somewhat open content in nature. It's worth a look at.

Conclusions

There are no conclusions. This is just another one of my continuing experiments that keeps me sane. There's no surety in designs, in t-shirts, bumperstickers and all sorts of other things. It depends, mainly, on who you are usually read by on the internet... and it also depends on what you are usually talking about. And rumor has it that there is luck involved, but don't trust rumors. If you decide to try something like that, or have been, it would be interesting to get feedback on that as well.

It's a productive way to spend time, in my eyes, so... Why not? :-)