Sure, tell me where to go. I'll give an honest opinion. Great goal! When all you hear about is dead-beat dads, it's comforting to know that there are many fathers out there willing to do what they have to do in order to support their families.

Thank God!

I'd love to hear your ideas and what you have planned for cafepress. This is actually the first I am ever hearing about it. I had to google it to find out exactly what it was. Maybe you can do some brainstorming on PeopleJam.
LIke a quick survey.. what would you most likely buy a hat or a tshirt? What color do you prefer brown or red? Where do you shop online or the mall?

May give you a good platform if you can make it fun.. You can call it 5 quick questions or something..

good luck

Well, I have a handful of designs up and a few categories. Some are simple text-based designs, others are abstract 3D renderings I've made, and others (forthcoming) will have some characters and/or graphics drawn. I'm keeping a more detailed blog about my day-to-day experiences and what I'm doing on another site (but I'm not sure if I can mention that here). PM me if you'd like that address, I guess?

Anyway, since I was specifically asked, I'll specifically answer: my store address is http://www.cafepress.com/unseenthings -- the name (unseen things) is one I've used for a number of years when I was doing freelance programming, and I enjoy the irony of it now that I'm doing graphics. I'm a little torn about a few things on the shop, such as whether I should be putting my store/website url on each product and whether that would help or hinder sales, but that's probably a question more for the cafepress forums.

My shop certainly isn't the end-result I'd like it to be, but it's better than it was a week ago :) So far, I've been successful in adding my 3-5 designs a week, and I've made 4 sales, for a grand profit of $4. Which isn't super, but it isn't bad. :) I'm on my way to making back the $35 that 6 months in the store will cost.

Disclaimer... Some people may not agree with some designs or may find some slightly offensive... it's all rated G or PG (at worst), though, and if I wanted to make absolutely sure I wasn't going to offend anyone, I don't guess I could really say anything. I've tried not to be too polarizing with anything, but I also don't see the point in avoiding some things just because someone won't like it.

In any case, please check it out and let me know what you think! Thanks!!

I'll probably use the blog feature here as a summary once a week or so as to how I'm doing in relation to the goals I've listed here. My other, much more detailed blog of store-related activities, thoughts and designs, is now set as my homepage in my profile.

The name, "unseen things," doesn't seem to fit the products. I don't get it. Also, your target audience seems pretty random. I think you're relying too heavily on people finding your particular brand of dry humor funny because I don't know that a pregnant woman would buy an over-sized plain-white-tee for $25. The best products were the baby products. Stick to that, make the site more colorful and cutesy, and more geared towards quirky moms who are in the mood to spend cash for quirky baby items.

Maybe I don't know a thing, so do what you feel is right.

Yeah, the name unseen things doesn't really fit the products or make much sense in that context, I agree. It's the closest thing I have to a "brand" though without starting from scratch -- if you go to google and type it in, the first thing that comes up is my website. It's been around for quite a while, so that helps. I'm going to tie it into the store eventually (or maybe just put the store there) and it'll be a name that is a "brand" (so to speak) without being something that relates directly to the products (like Gadzooks, for example).

I'm pretty astounded at some of the base prices of items as well, but cafepress has been around long enough that I have to believe that someone's buying stuff. And apparently, putting some words on a t-shirt *is* enough to sell a few of them, though I agree that's not really a long term plan for success. I'm glad you liked the baby stuff. I'm planning to branch out more (which, I know, my target audience of "everyone" makes it hard to market) and I guess try a number of things and later focus on what seems to work best.

My *main* thing, I think, is going to be a line of characters with sayings (which is apparently always a better idea than just text designs) as well as maybe the 3D stuff (which I personally think is more suited to mousepads and coffee mugs and maybe prints rather than t-shirts, but we'll see).

The biggest problems I've had so far is traffic. One day, 10 hits, one day, 8 hits, and all the other days, it's been 0-3 hits. But people are finding my stuff through the cafepress marketplace (which means they're searching through categories or by designs) as well as google. Most of my store isn't in google yet, but hopefully they'll update soon. I'm using google analytics, so I can see who is coming from where and stuff like that which helps me know where people are coming from. I don't have the money to invest in advertising to bring people to the site, and honestly, I don't think the site is really in a great place to bring people to come and see it en masse just yet. I think if I continue to promote it in the various ways I'm doing now (and more) and continue to add designs, I'll hopefully begin to be more successful.

In any case, I do appreciate your honesty and your feedback, and like all things, I'll ponder it and consider it strongly. I'm certainly open to anyone else's feedback as well. And maybe in a few more weeks when I have things a little more solidified with categories and designs, I'll give out another call for feedback on everything.

thanks.

A line of characters would be unique, funny, and take care of the "colorful" stuff you need. Look to other sites geared towards mothers and baby items and see if you can do some sort of link-exchange. That way, people will stumble upon your site more frequently.

Your site looks like it's for men, women, and babies. I'd try three different sites, targeted specifically to each to ensure that baby products is the way to go.

You'll find your way, I'm sure!

Well, the problem with multiple sites is that each one will cost money! You have to have a premium store to put multiple images on a single kind of product -- e.g. many different designs for a coffee mug, or many different kinds of t-shirts or bibs... for a single design that you want on all products, you can open a basic store. But I can't afford to open a bunch of stores to see which ones are successful and which ones aren't. While it's definitely easier to market a "niche" store, I need to start with what I've got to see if the whole thing is feasible/worthwhile or not. A couple of other stores I've found that also run the gamut include http://www.cafepress.com/brainchildshop and http://www.cafepress.com/lingo_tshirts and http://www.cafepress.com/dlpcustom -- so I don't think my idea is totally off base :) The link exchange is a great idea, I'll definitely try that. I've been blogging about my cp adventures, but I don't think it's helping much. May just be a "matter of time" issue, though. We'll see! In any case, again, I appreciate your feedback and will definitely consider it all.

Hi, Great idea on starting this store! Those are great products. I think what you first need to keep in mind is what business you're in. You're not in products or e-commerce because that's cafe-press's business. Everything is automated.... That means your business is marketing. You have concepts here that you're selling, they're memes. So you're thinking about building more sites, but what you really need to think about is how to get people talking and how to start trends. The definitive book on this (in my opinion) is the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

Also, you have to focus. Right now your products run the gamut. There's really no central theme. I think the iPoo one is brilliant. The Chuck Norris one is kind of played out, and the 3-D designs are really nice, but have nothing to do with the others. If you really want to make money off of this, you'd want to use the cafe press store to do informal market testing, then pick a winner or two, and create a site just for them.

Richman: I hear you, definitely. But the Chuck Norris one (that I would've thought was played out by now as well) has been my biggest seller. Heck, it's been my only seller. And I've sold 7 of them in less than a month. That's not super, but by most "just opened a cafepress standards" it's above average. I know my products really run the gamut, but so far, all of my sales (and most of the interest in various products) hasn't come from people hearing about the site and deciding to come and buy something, but it's been from people on cafepress already looking for a specific item or a keyword search on google that brings up my store either in the search results or brings up one of my products in the "Products" section above the search results. Which tells me that people are going to be coming into specific areas because they're looking for something specific (like a zombie hunter mug) rather than coming to my store in general to browse around and maybe buy something. It would seem like, based on that, that my best bet is to create more things, and better things, and that leaving them all in one shop is okay. Someone might be offended if they come looking for baby things and see that I have zombie mugs (again, for example) and leave, but someone coming for a zombie mug probably won't care what else I have listed on the sidebar -- they're there to get what they came for, and they may not even notice/realize that I've got other categories. While this strategies veers away from the traditional concept of building a brand and a market and driving people to my site and strengthening my brand, it would seem like the most likely people to buy stuff (again, based on my limited experience) are going to be the ones finding me through the search engines or who are already on cafepress either browsing or looking for something specific (which also tells me that they're probably going to be willing to pay the more premium prices that are associated with cafepress).

I *am* planning on opening up similar stores with the same/similar products on zazzle and/or printfection (2 other sites that are similar to cafepress, but don't charge) and then I'll probably do more specific stores since they don't cost things as well as an "emporium" of all sorts of items (which is basically the way I view this store currently). I've also come up with an idea that ties the "Unseen Things" name to the store, though I haven't typed everything in relating to it yet.

I would disagree to some degree and say that I am *sortof* in a products business, though the products are the designs themselves, not the physical coffee mugs or t-shirts that they're printed on. Hopefully if they're good enough, people will find them and buy them. That's the theory I'm operating on anyway. While I do have (some) time to work on graphics and designs, I don't think I've got the time to get people talking and start trends, although I do see where you're coming from and I'll definitely check out that book. Hopefully if I continue to hit on current trends (such as the Chuck Norris thing, taking advantage of the Mike Huckabee interest surge presently going on) and if my designs are good enough (and most of them are not yet, by my standards) things will sell themselves, as people find them. While I know that's not a good strategy for selling a new widget of type "x", there seems to already be a market searching google for zombie hunter mugs and searching cafepress for political humor and finding my stuff.

I like cafepress a lot, but don't use the premium stores. Just the basic ones, with my own websites:
http://www.nyheartsme.com
http://www.willingtobelucky.com

The nice thing is you work once, building the designs, and then sit back and enjoy getting the checks.