A bit more about Tee Bar

I have two Zazzle stores and a Cafepress store so part of the motivation for creating Tee Bar was to show off some of my own work.

The other reason is that Zazzle and Cafepress, both have affiliate programs, which means that if you follow any of the links on this blog and purchase an item, I get paid a percentage from the sale and so it made sense to post other designer’s work.

I also think there is a lot of pretty ordinary stuff on these sites and I thought a blog like Tee Bar could filter some of it out - I will not post designs which I think are sub-standard and I won’t even post designs that I just don’t like.

But here’s the thing, one of these companies recently made some changes to the way that royalties and affiliate earnings are calculated and in the process, they have inadvertently encouraged more.....um.... substandard designs.

Here’s how it works;

I might spend several hours or days creating a design which I upload to the site and then I set the royalty or mark-up percentage which is added to the base price of the product.

I take into account how long I’ve worked on it and set the mark-up accordingly - it’s usually between 15% and 30% - with simpler designs set at 15% and the more time intensive stuff at 30% - anything over that and the product becomes way too expensive.

Anyway, I found out the other day that, one of these companies will no longer promote products with a mark-up over 15% and quite a few people have either left the site or changed how and what they design.

What I’m saying is that, as designers, we face a bit of a stark choice, we can design for a 15% mark-up - not put a lot of effort in and add even more sub standard work to these sites but have it promoted for free, or we can spend more time and creative energy, ask for what we think our design is worth and not be promoted - and consequently not sell as much.

It seems that some other blogs and affiliate/aggregator sites are doing the same thing - choosing to promote cheaper product, when they could and probably should be promoting great product and design.

I have decided not follow them - I post my designs and other’s because I like them - not because they’re cheaper and more likely to sell.

Hopefully you like them too.