SkeetzTeez Quarterly Report

Since the main purpose of this blog was to promote my cafepress shop, I thought that, now that we have been up and running for 90-days, I would take this time to review how things have been going. I don't expect many to be that interested in this but I do know other shopkeepers that check in from time to time and it kind of helps me evaluate things if I put them in writing.

SkeetzTeez has had 73 orders for 92 items. Volume has increased steadily each month, which is definitely a good sign, and I hope that trend continues. We have sold over $1000 worth of merchandise and I have made about $150. All of these numbers are extremely good as I have heard that most shops don't turn this kind of sales for six-months to a year. Although it's nice to make a buck or two it is not why I am doing this, which I will get into further, later.

I now have 153 designs available in the shop and, although this does include multiple variations of some, I still have close to half of that many that are unique. The biggest selling design, Big Brother and Big Sister, however, is a fairly common design. The second most popular design, McMaverick and Sarahcuda, is also somewhat common, but is at least a little different from most of the thousands of political stuff out there.

I need to keep up with completing and adding new artwork to the sight. It may be coincidence, but it seems as if sales are better if you are always updating the Site and with the holidays coming up, I want to make sure that anyone that is looking for something that I have, can be sure to find it easily.

Statcounter also tells me that SkeetzTeez has had 2,450 page loads from 726 unique visitors and 102 remaining visitors. Reports also tell me that this blog has had 249 page loads from 162 unique visitors and 35 returning. Between the two Sites we have seen hits from many countries besides the US and Canada, including Chili, Columbia, Hungary, Australia, Ireland, Portugal, Argentina, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Iraq, Iran, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and some place called Macedonia, to name more than a few. Pretty cool, huh?

Besides learning a little bit about html code, (which could come in handy some day) I am learning my way around the social scene on the internet too. There are several networks of cafepress people out there that I am now an active member. It is weird to say that you meet people on the Internet but I have come in contact with many others that have many of the same interests as me.

I am into Twitter and Facebook as well as this blog. I have lenses that get a lot of exposure on Squidoo on a strange variety of subjects such as Jorts Fashion, Shermer High School, the Encyclopedia of Immaturity, How to Make a Suck for a Buck Shirt, Urban Cougars, That's What She Said, the Urban Prankster Network, 110% and my newest entry Mix-Tape and I moderate a group that cross-promotes members' shops. 

I have mentioned the crossover blog several times and I (well... Mav and I) have the number one design on Teeblr, a T-shirt ranking Website. I have also been participating in a few other Tee forums and cafepress groups and, with my unexpected success, been a major supporter of the POD service in Web communities like Yahoo Answers and in real life too.

Overall, the whole experience of the last three-months has exceeded my expectations. (Look at that-- a sentence with three words containing the letter X.) I set out on this journey to find a creative outlet to comment on pop-culture because I still had something to say and, besides successfully accomplishing that goal, I had a whole bunch of fun along the way. No matter what sales are like or if I change a little piece of the world in any way, I hope that goal part, and even more importantly, the fun part--continues. I also wish that anyone else following along on the journey is enjoying themselves, too.

If you are a fellow shopkeeper remember: Exposure is the key! Check out some of these links to see how I am using guerilla marketing to promote me and SkeetzTeez!

If you are not a cafepress shopkeeper remember: Exposure is the key! Check out some of these links because... well because I need the exposure! ... and Buy T-shirts. Peace.

Let's Roll! 1.01

I have another feature that I think we can do fairly regularly. Let's Roll! will feature links to websites that I have found. Some of them I have found to be helpful tools for my shop at: http://www.cafepress.com/skeetzteez, some I may find to be interesting or informative, and some I find to be very creative or just too darn cool to pass up and I have to add them to my ever growing bookmark page.

If you have favorite links that fit into one of these categories or that you just can't live without, I would love to hear about them!

Oh, and one more thing. I want to be, perfectly, upfront about this. In addition to being helpful, or interesting, or cool, some of these sites may be, somewhat, profitable too. I am not saying that I am going to get rich from you visiting the site but I may make a few cents if you click on a certain link or do a search for something using the search engine on a particular page. In addition, I may make a portion of the profit if you buy something from one of the sites that you access from my links. It is all pretty interesting stuff, now that I am starting to learn about it. I will try to write about it, further, in a future blog posting.

Editor's Note: I would be very interested in hearing any comments from readers of SkeetzTeez, so please don't hesitate to submit anything. All comments are reviewed, personally, by me before being posted for the public to read so if you do not want yours posted– just tell me so in the comment!

http://www.statcounter.com

Something happened last night that caused this blog to get more unique visitors in a few hours than in the whole previous month. I don't know what happened but, in a matter of four-minutes, there were readers from Illinois, Connecticut, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia, Canada, Hungary, Egypt, Columbia, Chile, Portugal, Ireland, Thailand and the Netherlands. I am also getting regular readers from St. Louis, Missouri, Olla, Louisiana, Redwood City, California and Marion, South Carolina. That is one of the coolest parts about having this blog– seeing where the people are reading from! 

Do not fear! I can't tell anything more about you than what city, state and country that your server is located and even if I could, I wouldn't know what to do with the information. If you have a blog or website of any kind, you can use the some product I do to track visitors. Go to: http://statcounter.com, register for free, download the code and paste it into your html code. You can then go back to the site to find out how many visitors you have and where they are from.

http://www.squidoo.com

This is one that is helpful, informative and cool, all rolled into a neat, little package. Let's see... how to explain this one. You register for free and then, immediately, start building your first lens (what they call a web page) using the provided modules featuring just about anything you can think of. The whole process is very user friendly and, dare I say, so simple that an adult can do it.

You will be amazed at the variety of subjects that lenses are created on. One of Squidoo's tag lines is "Everyone's an expert on something". I, for instance, started with a lens to promote my cafepress shop (http://www.squidoo.com/cafepress/skeetzteez) and now have a total of seven lenses on subjects ranging from "Giving it 110%" to "That's what she said" to "Jorts Fashion" and one Squidoo Group, the "Alliance of ShopKeepers on CafePress" (ASKCP) to cross-promote members' T-shirt shops.

Each lens has the potential to generate profits for the creator and, from what I am told, some people make a decent amount of jack from it (over 100 lenses owned gets you a title of Giant Squid). That would be nice but I am using it to increase exposure for http://www.cafepress.com/skeetzteez and I have seen quite a bit of traffic from it.

Please check out some of my lenses and then, if you would like to create your own go to: http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/referral/skeeeeeetz

http://www.humancalendar.com

This is entirely too weird to even begin to try to explain, but it is also too cool in a odd (almost scary) kind of way. You may have seen it before because, from what I understand, it is hugely popular, but for those who haven't... you've got to check it out. 

That's it for this week. I hope everyone has a happy and safe long holiday weekend. Why do they call it Labor Day if nobody works? I'll have to see how things go before I commit to writing on Monday or Tuesday. I will probably continue with my own blog policy: I'll write when I have something to say. Peace.

I have, absolutely, no idea, whatsoever, that picture of Ross Perot has to do with the rest of this column. I, simply, typed "Let's Roll" into Google Image Search and this is what came up. I thought it was funny and I figured that it was appropriate with all of the election stuff going on right now. Besides, that was a long time ago and most people have forgotten him or have no clue who the man is.

The Alliance of Shopkeepers on CP

I'm sure many cafepress shopkeepers have heard of Squidoo. I have mentioned it, myself, on this blog (not that anyone is reading this blog). Squidoo is an excellent resource for the CPSK. There is quite a large CP community and a ton of valuable information to the new or experienced SK.

As I have spent an considerable amount of time in that community in the past week or so, I realized that many of the group members were not using this tool to it's full potential. Too many SKs and lensmasters are trying to (here's that word again) exploit the technology for their own benefit when it would be so easy for them to partner up so everyone benefits equally. I am not trying to say that everyone is just trying to make a buck and just looking out for themselves but, in all honesty, I think most people are. 

Now... even though I am talking like this, who's to say that I'm not full of carp and just looking out for myself myself? There's not, but that's not where I'm coming from.

As someone that has been in the professional creative field for over 20 years, I think that is the way of most artists. Most designers welcome a good critique. They are driven by the competition. And when it all comes down to it, they are over confident enough to think that it really is no contest anyway because their stuff is the best by far.

So what I have proposed with the creation of this new group is an alliance– a partnership between all members of the group to collectively gain more exposure– to network and promote all of the shops so everyone benefits equally.

Its a really simple idea that could really take the members of the group to new levels... all on the simple concept of: You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.

If you would like to explore the opportunities of partnership go to: http://www/squidoo.com/groups/askcp