looking for an online merchandise shop

eddypeck

eddypeck

Member
Has anyone got any experience of this kind of thing or can recommend a UK company.

I came across this shop http://www.cafepress.com/ where basically you upload your design and they'll print and sell your stuff directly, giving you a small mark up on each item sold.

I'm a member of a club and currently we front the cost of branded merchandise and make a small mark up on each item but are products are limited as you normally have to bulk order and hold the stock.

This sounds like a great idea but I'm a bit worried that this site is in the USA and the majority of club members are UK based. Even though they offer a GBP based shop and delivery costs to UK seem reasonable it doens't make much sense to ship the items around the world. Has anyone come across a similar service in the UK?
 
Thank you but the link I posted allows you to set up your own online shop to sell your own branded stuff direct. I don't think that Print Carrier one offers the same sort of service.
 
Thanks for pointing me to that but the about us page still says:

CafePress was founded in 1999 and is the recognized pioneer of customizable products. We are headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. Our manufacturing facility, also located in Louisville, is the hub for fulfillment across the United States.

But I suppose they must have UK partners/outlets/distributors. As I'm sure they wouldn't produce and ship from the US else they'd have to charge more than £2.50 to ship a t-shirt ??

However being an American company they have US oriented products. It's fine for most stuff but my thinking is to use the online shop for a car owners club, and some of the products we could makes use of, like Number Plate surrounds, would be American License plate frames.

It's looking like a reasonable option, but if I could find a similar UK service it would also feel nice to keep the wealth within our economy. The product prices could also be affected by the exchange rate?
 
It does look as though their number plate holder is indeed for US issue only, which kind of defeats the purpose of a UK site. The only other alternative that comes to mind is Zazzle, who have a UK HQ in Cork. They too do US license plate holders, so are probably US-owned company. I'm not positive but there may be legal a restrictions on number plate surrounds (this is the UK after all!). There's definitely restrictions on custom number plates and additional content displayed on the plate itself (country flags and manufacturer logos are ok, but a Playboy bunny logo not so much).
 
hi, thanks for your comment.

There's absolutely no legal issue with UK number plate surrounds... like so:

s-l500.jpg


But I know what you mean about messing with the actual number plates.

It is the only product on that cafepress site that would seem to be irrelevant, to the UK market but as I'm looking for a supplier for a UK car club it would be a handy product to have available.

Anyway, I don't run the club I just help out so I've passed all this on to the guys in charge now to get their take on it.

Thanks again.
 
There'll be plenty of places you can get custom surrounds made up, though you might have to meet a minimum order amount. Just ask around the club, take payment up front and buy the amount needed. Or have the club buy them and sell them on at a slight mark-up to members or something.
 
Oh, you`re right, my fault. To be true I didn´t met cafepress, yet. I´ve just assumed it would be a online print service. Can't tell you anything about US license plate holders, sry!
 
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