Selling merchandise?

[maxbeaver]

Hey guys,

A while ago i had a niche site set up with the basic affiliate advertising and content. I also had a cafepress 'site' where i had designed stuff related to my niche and put them on clothing etc for sale off of cafepress.

This time, however, i want to be more professional about this. Basically i want to have a section on my site dedicated to selling clothing and merchandise with my designs on them. But when the user clicks into that section, i don't want them redirected to cafepress.com for example.

Does anyone know of any good providers that let you have a customizable storefront you can host on your own website? (im not talking about porn DVDs and the like, more clothing and apparel, mouse mats, mugs)

Or am i asking too much? Should i use a storefront and shopping cart script and just have my own storefront, and upon purchase, i send that order to a supplier who then prints the work and ships it to the customer? If so, does anyone know the best method of doing this? Perhaps even automated?

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

[mynameisjim]

CPShop

http://www.marty.net/go2/site/view/marty/101

Allows you to use Cafepress for all your fulfillment yet brand/build the site however you want and host it on your own.

Check out page is still Cafepress though.

[maxbeaver]

Thanks mate. Sounds pretty much what i am after.

I also found a link to cafescript after looking at cpshop. Looks slightly more professional.

Does anyone else have any ideas? It doesn't necessarily have to be cafepress.

[mynameisjim]

Do you want other print on demand services or fulfillment services.

There are companies that will screen your shirts, pack them, and ship them but not on-demand meaning you will need to order a quantity ahead of time. One site is

http://www.printmojo.com

I know the guy that runs print mojo and he's pretty cool and helpful.

[Cozy Monica]

I'm curious as to how well this type of merchandise sells for an adult site. I've thought a few times about starting up something like that for my site.

[Hammer]

For a fee you can also build a custom CafePress site. http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/shops/premium1

[maxbeaver]

Thanks guys.

printmojo seems a cool idea if you were selling a fairly large quantity and made your own storefront (separately). But i think for starters that could be too risky and/or overkill.

Hmm Hammer, last time i checked CP's premium store, all it allowed you to do was customize your storefront, it still resides on CPs website though. I want my customers thinking they are buying my products, not cafepress's.

At this stage, might have to give cpshop or cafescript a burl.

[LincolnLog]

I use spreadshirt for a lot of my stuff, and i think you can generate code for embedding product into a page.

[sunfunbill]

If you want it more like your own store you can use
http://www.oscommerce.com/
It's a free open source store and shopping cart, very popular. You could inteigrate it into your site. But unless you do your own designs yourself (something I did once) you still need to find someone to print your stuff.