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Just when we were thinking how wonderful Cafepress was being that they fought the GOP battle for the skopkeepers they lowered the boom on them! In time for the Huge election sales and Holiday sales, shopkeepers are given less than 8 days notice that their volume bonus awards for making sales will decrease – for some as much as 85%, making paychecks dive. Happy Holidays Shopkeepers!

Cafepress continues to promote to the shopkeepers to bring in traffic and the affiliate program stresses the use of banner ads driving the customer base to the marketplace.

In addition, recent changes to the marketplace have added huge “Add to Cart” buttons under each item listed when the customer clicks on a particular design when it used to be links to the shop that carried the design. Why you may ask? All in preparation for the latest development in “How to Screw the Cafepress Shopkeeper” by limiting the volume bonus money to ONLY sales that were added to the cart within the shop. I ask you.. With the use of these new “Add to Cart” buttons – where else do you figure the sale with originate but the marketplace? Do you Honestly think the customer will see the very tiny link under the design that says: From Whatevershop ? I think not.

You may wonder how this is affecting the shopkeeper ? Take a Close look! See the Cafepress Announcement here

At first glance this doesn’t look at all too bad UNTIL you take into consideration that the sales reports are so far skewed toward MP sales and not showing the TRUE Shop Sales- then it begins to make sense that all the complaining to the CP officials about the sales reports being off for the last year or so, have not been fixed. NOW you can see how this will benefit Cafepress and Screw the Shopkeeper.

When is this change effective?

This change will be effective August 1, 2008. Starting August 1, sales will be calculated with the new Shop Performance Bonus program, with the change reflected on the October’s commission check.

What is Cafepress Saying about this?

The Sales Source has been redefined so credit for a sale is given at the point an item is added to the cart. How is that different from before?

Before, credit for a sale was given at the point of entry, or where they first arrived at CafePress during a visit – from the Marketplace, Affiliate, or shop.

I am worried this change will affect my CafePress income. What is CafePress doing to help Shopkeepers most affected?

We understand this change will take some time to adjust and want to do what we can to minimize the impact. While Shopkeepers are learning how they can drive traffic to their shop, we will be offering a transition plan through the end of the year to ensure the small percentage of Shopkeepers who could be significantly impacted to offset a portion of the lost income.

Our analysis shows this does not apply to most Shopkeepers – those that will need assistance via the “transition plan” will be notified with each affected commission check, starting with the October 1, 2008 check (for the August pay period).

(Keep in mind NO ONE has mentioned what this supposed “transition plan” is)

For anyone wanting answers directly form Cafepress.. (I Highly doubt you will really get them though) Cafepress is hosting a chat on this very topic tonight.

“We will be hosting a Community Chat to address any questions you may have. Please join us Thursday, July 24 at 4:00 pm PT in the chat room.”

Hey Zazzle- Prepare for a huge influx of new galleries opening up!

UPDATE on CP Volume Bonus Chat:

Chat Room Unavailable

Hi Everyone,

If you are currently trying to log into the CafePress Chat Room and cannot, we are aware of the issue.  We are currently contacting our vendor for more information/ assistance.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Now why doesn’t this surprise me?

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