There is an interview with Spreadshirt’s Jana Eggers on MyFox Boston. It is basically a promotion of Spreadshirt and there is nothing much to learn from it if you are already familiar with the POD world but it is good to see the people behind the scenes.

Jana Eggers is the one who corrected my post about Spreadshirt and PayPal.

This is not the Cafepress affiliate program which is still being run by Cafepress through Commission Junction but rather a separate referral program where we shopkeepers were encouraged to try and get more people to open shops at Cafepress in return for a share in the profits from the referred shops.

For each member you recruit to CafePress, you will earn five percent (5%) of the base price of every sale they make for a period of one year from their join date, excluding self-buys. For example, if you refer a friend and they sell five white t-shirts, you will earn $3.49 (5% of $13.99 x 5 t-shirts).

Actually, when I joined there was no time restriction which meant that if you referred some people who became successful shopkeepers you could have expected cash to dribble into your account for the rest of your life but a few years ago the time limit condition was implemented. Of course it upset a few people but these decisions always do but you learn to live with it.

I don’t know the general feeling about this news over at Cafepress as I just haven’t had time to browse the forums but personally it won’t affect me too much. I have been a member since July 2005 and have a few a referral links here and there but in all this time it appears that I have only referred 7 people who apparently sold not one single item as I have zero income in account under referrals.

The program will end on March 12th, 2009 and you will continue to earn referral commission on sales for the 12 months as per agreement. From March 12th though, you ought to change your links.

According to Cafepress, this program is being removed because it has lost its effectiveness and removing it will make room for other programs. The first part I believe. Cafepress has all the shopkeepers it will need at this point and new ones are coming every day. This program is totally unnecessary and is just costing them money. The second part seems to be just to soften the blow a little. I mean, really, how is this little program stopping other programs from existing? It’s not like it’s taking up physical space.