On being petty

Today I'm going to be petty.

I've resisted (somewhat) the complaining online about recent cuts in pay we graphic designers and artists have "suffered" at the hands of CafePress. Here's the story, for those who are not familiar with the set up.

We (the graphic designers, photographers, real artists, and such) design and create the words and pictures you find on items offered in our stores - in my shops, it's the designs on the mini bookplates, along with the interpretations of favorite booklover quotes or simple things like "Grumpa" found in my Nana's Alley shop. We spend hours doing the art, and rather than sell them in real world stores, we upload the graphics to stores on-line called POD's (print on demand) where they are sold for us.

It's a sweet deal - we provide the art and the POD business does all of the tiring stuff - the printing, processing orders, shipping, customer returns and problems. For many of us, the money that's come in has been anything from a little pocket change to a huge portion of our income. We've come to depend on it. In some ways, because I run my own business with bookplates, where I have to do all that tiring stuff myself, I think we the artists have become a bit spoiled by the POD folks!

However, it was a shock to us all this past April when we were suddenly told that any orders not coming from our own websites or links that we had were being drastically cut on commissions. Now, again, I don't think the commissions we are now getting are all that awful, having worked as a sales rep years ago, and then having overseen sales reps - 10% commission (to a sales rep) isn't bad. To an artist, however, I think it's something different.

Bear in mind, many of the artists selling their wares are awesomely talented folks. Their work is beautiful - many of them sell the real deal in the real world (framed and fancy stuff) and just use the POD's to supplement their income -- t-shirts, mugs, bumperstickers -- so having someone tell you suddenly that your artwork is only worth 10% commission has been a bit of an insult.

I haven't felt terribly insulted - my work is creative, and fun and I'm getting better at it, but it isn't exactly Van Gogh. Or Grandma Moses.

Not until this week, when I noticed what happened when a customer of mine,ordered one of my products (coming from my website), then cancelled that order, then reordered another similar product. She either called the second order in, or went in through Cafepress - I'm not sure what all happened but -- the folks at Cafepress decided that she was their customer now, not mine.

So, my commission got cut in half. I wrote and disagreed, but their basic response was, "too bad".

I am feeling a bit petty. CafePress has been very very good to me. And I'm sure they are just trying to stay alive, which I certainly want them to do.

However, what they are doing is .. peculiar at best.

Here's how it works.

Let's say an item is marked as at cost, $10.00 (this is what the seller would see - no doubt that's marked up, and it really costs a lot less - but let's leave that aside).

I can take that Item and decorate it, charge $14.00 for it and make a nice $4.00 profit. That's provided a customer buys it from my website.

If they do a search and find it through the CafePress Marketplace, the story is different, both for the customer, and for me.

The same exact $10.00 item may be marked for anywhere from $10.00's to $30.00 by CafePress.

Let's make it $20.00. Another customer buys the same exact item for $20.00, costing them $6.00 more than if they'd bought it from my website.

I get $2.00 commission.

You do the math.

So, my feel grumpy over my lost little commision may be petty but it's my pettiness.

I am not leaving CafePress, although a lot of artists have. I've found an additional POD, and I'm trying to convince customers to enter CafePress from my website (the search engines, may I add, are overpowered by CafePress -- do a search for any of the items I sell by name, and CP's entrance comes up long before mine)

Just begging, in all my pettiness, if you see something you like from any of my shops, please enter through my stores. And if you have to call in an order, please tell them your purchase was a Shop purchase. Make sure the price I quote is the one you get (if it's the lower one).

Alright. Done whining for now.

Peace!