I love the holidays. I never outgrew the idea that the holidays are a magical time and I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by friends and family who feel the same way. My fiance and I put up our Christmas Tree after dinner on Thanksgiving; the commencement of our festivities. The next month is filled with holiday activities such as decorating, baking cookies, wrapping by the fire, and watching Christmas movies. I also love gift giving, but I don’t love the arduous task of finding the perfect gift. CafePress.com has made much of the gift-searching process easier for me, this year.

What is the site?
Cafepress.com is an online marketplace. Users can create store fronts to sell their merchandise by providing a design. The site provides all materials, produces the items, and ships them, then sends users a cut of the profits. Shoppers are able to browse and purchase the merchandise.

Shopping
CafePress.com provides a wide selection of products available with logos and sayings, including t-shirts, sweatshirts, aprons, mugs, stickers, buttons, underwear, hats, bibs, pet clothes, and more. Basically, if it could be personalized with a message, the product is available on the site. The fact that anyone can design products results in a vast selection of products representing every interest imaginable. You’ll find t-shirts for those who want to show pride for their area code, love for their favorite presidential candidate, hate for their least favorite candidate, support for just about any cause, and interest in any hobby. You can even find Epinions products!

I’ve never been so impressed by the available selection on a site. I’ve been able to find products with everything from obscure references to humorous video gamer jokes. I was able to find plenty of perfect gifts for my friends and family. One good friend is an unusual combination; a hard-core Dungeons and Dragons fan, who loves the game Everquest, and happens to be a professional chef. He will be receiving a t-shirt that refers to both hobbies, warning readers that he’s a level 10 cook with a +5 spatula of whisking. I’ve purchased a number of other gaming-themed shirts for my friends and fiance as gifts as well. For my cousin who is mid-way through her last year of law school, I found a “lucky bar exam shirt.” My father, whom is becoming more like George Banks from Father of the Bride everyday, will be receiving a long-sleeved shirt that says “Broke Father of the Bride,” with the word “Broke” crossed out. It’s great to be able to find a shirt referring to one friend’s job as a programmer, my fiance’s love of gaming, and my Godfather’s political leanings, all in one place. My favorite find was actually discovered by my mother. She purchased a shirt for my fiance (who is a huge Superman fan) that says “Groom” in the Superman symbol. He’s going to love it!

Navigating CafePress.com is easiest if you don’t know what you’re looking for. That may sound ridiculous, but browsing is much better designed than the search feature. Shoppers can display products by categories and subcategories that refer to the subject matter of the product. For example, I was able to find shirts related to my fiance’s favorite role-playing game under “Geek” in subcategories “Gaming,” then “Role-Playing Games.” For the most part, these are very well categories. It is obviously a time consuming way of shopping, but it resulted in some serendipitous finds for my gift list. Products can also be sorted by department, which separates the products by type. You can limit your results to women’s, men’s, junior’s, or kid’s apparel, stationary, mugs, sticker, and more. I used these parameters to narrow my search after browsing by category.

Searching isn’t as efficient, though I don’t think it is specifically the fault of the site. Typing in a keyword to search brings results that are mostly accurate, but some random products are often mixed in or sometimes related in a negative way. For example, if you type in “anti-(politician’s name here),” you’ll often get items that support that person, or the reverse if you type in “pro-politician.” The unfortunate side effect of an online marketplace is that some users do not take advantage of tags. Some leave it blank, as in the case of the cooking/gaming shirt I referred to above. I was unable to find the email with the link for the shirt when it was time to buy it. I attempted to find it by typing the most uncommon word on the shirt into the search box, “spatula.” Unfortunately, the seller did not use tags and I could not find the shirt for anything. I even tried using google to search the site for the phrase on the shirt. The person hadn’t taken advantage of the “Product Description” area either. I spent over an hour browsing the “geek>gaming” section in order to find the shirt before my fiance was able to locate the email (I was up to 2300 of over 5000 shirts). Some sellers use the tags irresponsibly and try to draw more users by putting in popular unrelated tags. The site doesn’t police the listings, so this is an unfortunate side effect of those freedoms that reflects poorly on the site.

I was quite impressed by the product pages. Upon clicking on a product, a page will load giving all of the details you need to make a purchase. Pictures are included of each product and you can zoom in on them to check the quality close up. There is information about the fit (fitted, standard, form fitting), even providing instructions on how to order for a looser fit. A gauge indicates how thick the fabric will be, which is elaborated on in the product description. Price, color options, and shipping times are also displayed on this page, along with an availability section that informs the shopper of whether or not the item is in stock. I liked the “You might also like…” feature, which is on the bottom of the page, because many of the shirt designs are available in different colors, fabrics, and styles. I like seeing all of my options before I make a purchase.

For the most part the prices are fair or a little on the expensive side. I didn’t encounter any products that I felt were outrageously priced.

Cafepress.com is very stable. I found no broken links and encountered no errors when browsing, nor did I have any problems while placing my order.

Ordering
Ordering was a simple a stress free process. Like most shopping sites, you simply choose a color and size, then click “Add to Cart.” The checkout process was also very easy. Everything is self explanatory; simply enter the requested information then click request. There are multiple shipping options available. I ordered 9 items in my last order and chose standard shipping for only $9.60. The next two shipping options were $27 and $55, which I thought was a bit expensive, though it may not be for so many items.

I have made a total of six purchases from CafePress.com and I have been completely satisfied with all of them. Immediately after the order is placed, I receive an order confirmation. Another one is sent when the item ships. Each time I have ordered, I have chosen standard shipping, and those orders were all received in 3-5 days. Each item was good quality and exactly as described. I can’t wait to give out some of these Christmas gifts, but my fiance absolutely loved the long-sleeved shirt he received for his birthday.

I cannot comment on the customer service as I had no experience with them. I suppose that is a good thing, just further testament to the smoothness of the transactions I’ve had.

Selling
This review is intended to be more of a shopper’s review of CafePress.com, therefore, I’m not going to comment much on selling at this point in time. I do not personally have experience with selling yet. Basically, anyone can go design t-shirts and sell them. The seller only designs the logo/picture/saying and uploads it to the site. The seller may then choose what the design should go on (mugs, shirts, aprons, hats, etc. or any combination of products available) then fill out the product information. Users can make free basic accounts, or upgrade to a premium account for as low as $50 per year, which gives the user the ability to produce an unlimited number of products. The site handles all of the production; printing your work on the item, shipping it to the customer, and handling any returns or exchanges, then sending the user a monthly check. Each item costs a certain base price and the user may mark it up as they see fit to determine his or her profit. A good friend who uses it said it really is as easy as it sounds.

While researching for this review, my fiance and I decided that we’re going to try selling on CafePress.com. I will update the review to add more information about my experience in a few months.

Recommendation
With a unique selection to fit anyone’s tastes, I highly recommend CafePress.com for all of your personal and gift shopping needs. For those hoping to make a little money, it is definitely something I recommend checking out (as I will be too!)