At the beginning of this month Cafepress introduced a Featured Designers err… feature in which some stores will be featured on the search results page. Some shopkeepers are getting preferential treatment…like me. As you can see below I am the featured designer for the search “offensive humor”. It’s not a bad thing and I guess the preferential treatment will be temporary which is only fair. But of course some designers will never get featured so that is no fair.

According to their blog post they are working on a submission process so I guess you will be able to apply to be the featured designer for a particular search. Below is an excerpt from the blog post at Cafepress:

We’re pleased to announce the launch of a featured designers spotlight, where our talented designers are highlighted in the Marketplace. Featured designer banners will show up for many popular search terms such as “kitten” or “navy“. To start, we have selected 30 designers to feature and plan to feature more in the months to come.

Here’s how it works:

* Shopper types in search term
* If there’s a featured designer assigned to the search term, a banner will display above search results
* The banner links to the designer page with relevant designs for search term

We are working on a submission process so we can feature more designers in other niches. More to come in the coming months!

I wonder what will happen when their featured designers opt out of the marketplace though. Obviously their designs won’t be displayed but perhaps the custom made banner will remain linking to empty search results.

A short while ago Zazzle made a blog post about this new widget that they created. You can place it on your blog or website to keep your readers up to date about activity on Zazzle’s blog and Twitter account. But why would you want to do that? Save the space for promoting your Zazzle store rather than promoting Zazzle’s blog and Twitter. In fact I had to stop following them on Twitter because of all the irrelevant garbage that was coming through and if I, a Zazzle shopkeeper, find it irrelevant you can imagine that your readers will also find it irrelevant.

Zazzle, please spend your time building something that we can use to grow our business.

I just received an email from Zazzle reminding me that there was an item in my shopping cart. I don’t remember adding it to my cart but I think this is a great strategy by Zazzle to increase sales. It didn’t work in my case but I am sure that even if people don’t buy the item in the shopping cart the email will encourage them to visit the Zazzle website again and they might see something else they like.

Spreadshirt always has a nice lineup of clothing items and the often add more although sometimes these items are only temporary. New products are great but if you are a serious POD business man you might not want to spend a lot of time adding products that won’t be in your store for very long. On the other hand if you market them well you may find a nice niche.

A short while ago Spreadshirt released a Summer Exclusive Line and they are pretty sweet and of course have a sweet printing area for customizing with your designs. They do seem a tad expensive though will all except the t-shirt having a base price over $30 and the tee’s base price is just over $20.

In addition to the Summer Exclusive Line Spreadshirt have released four new products which are more like what you would expect from a POD company. Well, apart from the skirt. I can’t imagine designing for a skirt but I’m sure some people will come up with some great ideas.

1. Women’s Double V-neck Shirt
2. Women’s Scoop Neck T-shirt
3. Women’s Drape Hem Skirt
4. Men’s AA Henley T-Shirt