No, I Don’t Like Cafe Press.

Like many artists, I was excited when I found Cafe Press. About ten years ago, I was looking for a way to print and resell my art on products, and Cafe Press seemed like a dream come true. I was able to simply upload my image, have them print it on products, fulfill the order, and I would just sit back and collect the commission checks. I wouldn’t have to worry about building a website; I wouldn’t have to deal with stuff like inventory, production, shipping, customer service, credit card processing. Not only that, I was able to preview what my product would look like before I created it, and I could do that right online with their nifty software. Wow, such a deal! Who can resist that?

My first red flag came after my computer crashed and I lost a goodly amount of original art. As a digital artist, my life is literally residing on my computer. Although I have huge eight external drives today, in those days I was working off one shaky hard drive, and when it finally exploded I knew I was in deep trouble. I had to beg Cafe Press–and I mean beg, and even cry hysterically on the phone—to talk them into sending me a disc with my own artwork on it.  After many phone calls and emails during which my sanity hung on a thread, they finally did, but grudgingly.  I found myself thanking them with embarassing, sniveling, tearful humility even though in actuality what I was asking for was not unreasonable–access to my own art. As I look back on that episode, it’s really no surprise that this arrogance manifested in many other, more sinister areas.

As many artists do, the first order of business when signing up with Cafe Press is creating products and ordering stuff for themselves, as well as for friends and family as gifts. I was no different. When my delivery came, the excitement with which I tore into the box subsided quickly once I saw what was inside. Crap. And no, I don’t think I am being harsh here. The wall calendar and greeting cards were printed on crummy, low quality paper stock and the colors were as washed out as if the pages been tossed in a washing machine; the tile coasters were not terrible, but the colors were way off–blues were too green and reds were more orange than red, and the tiles had none of the subtle gradations in hue and levels present in the originals; the clock was made from the crappiest, shoddiest plastic and I immediately dumped it in the trash–it was more suitable for a political slogan than for a piece of art. Okay, I thought: I’ll stick to the tiles and mugs and maybe my customers will like it.

But the real surprise came when I received my first order. I was told a “Mary” from “Oregon” had bought some mugs. I was very pleased about the sale and I couldn’t wait to thank her personally. I looked at my customer information, but couldn’t find any way to contact “Mary.” No address, no phone, no email. Nothing. Not even a last name. Confused, I emailed Cafe Press and asked them to send the my customer information. “We don’t do that,” I was told. Company policy. Were they kidding? Evidently not, as they didn’t consider Mary my customer, but theirs–even though it was my artwork she purchased. This was simply outrageous. I couldn’t believe they were actually getting away with this incredibly unfair policy, but, seemingly they were. Let’s get this straight: the artist is Cafe Press’ customer, the only one. The end buyer is the artist’s customer. Period. This glaring, unethical lack of transparency is terribly unfair to artists, not to mention exploitative. But there was nowhere else to go, so I continued promoting and adding to my store, but with markedly less enthusiasm than before.

And then I received an email from a lady in Colorado. She absolutely loved the multiple sets of “Black Cats” coasters she had purchased six months before; could I possibly make them for her in another color? I started to write back–of course I can change the color–but then I realized I never received any notification (or commission) from Cafe Press regarding this order. I logged in, checked my stats to make sure. Nothing. I emailed the customer, asking her if she was certain she had purchased from my store. “Oh yes,” she replied, and attached her invoice. There it was, in black and white. I wrote to Cafe Press, armed with proof of their error, but did not receive a response.

After another customer thanked me for the “pretty mug” she bought, another order I was first hearing about, I logged into my Cafe Press account, and angrily deleted my store. I called Cafe Press to complain about what happened and to tell them why I shut my store down and what I thought of the way they ran their business. They apologized, insisted it was an honest oversight, and though I asked for a full accounting of my orders and due commissions, I never received it. However, I did receive a check in the mail about four months later–without any corresponding accounting.

Now, I doubt very much if Cafe Press needs to steal commissions from a couple of mug and tile sales to make a profit. It probably was an oversight, and an honest  mistake. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. However, this is the kind of thing that happens when you have zero transparency and refuse to give a vendor artist access to their own customer information–information they most certainly have a right to access. It’s also dumb business practice–nobody will promote their art the way the artist will, and to deny personal interaction between the artist and the customer—with the accompanying personal touch, news, sales, promos, works in progress, answers to questions–is undoubtedly costing them revenue. But hey, secrecy works for them, the artists don’t question/fight it, so it doesn’t seem to be hurting them.

When Glen and I opened Color Bakery in 2004, our goal was not only to custom print/manufacture my own work on quality products, but give other artists the opportunity to do the same. Cafe Press is the largest of an array of companies who offer custom printing and fulfillment services for gift and apparel items, but the fact remains that artists have precious few avenues to produce and resell their art on high quality items, items like glass and tumbled marble and fancy wood or metal serving trays, as well as items with lower price points.

It is a little frustrating when I hear from artists who are inquiring about the possibility of Color Bakery custom-printing their art on their products for resale, and they initially compare us to Cafe Press. If I say that comparison is akin to comparing a stick figure to a Renoir, people will call me arrogant. I’m really not being arrogant, I’m merely telling the truth: the breadth of our services, intensive personalization, customization capabilities, product diversity and quality is a million universes away from what Cafe Press does. I make it a point to work with the artists with issues such as color management, cropping, and product mix. I guarantee you nobody at Cafe Press sits at their desk fretting over a low resolution image (I’ll enlarge it); or taking a washed out scan and correcting the levels/removing the moire pattern; or making sure a rectangle crops into a square without compromising the artwork. In fact, I defy anyone to do those things

Bottom line? If someone is making and selling Obama tee shirts, Cafe Press is probably a great way to make some supplemental income. But artists who care about quality and the integrity of their work need to look around for other options.