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print on demand showdown: Zazzle vs. Cafepress - part 3

8th August 2008, 02:06 pm

Flysketchworkflow-2008.08.08 13.18.03

So after receiving my order from Zazzle and from Cafepress I came to some very inconclusive conclusions. The chart above outlines my findings. Overall, both services have their plusses and minuses. Next time I need to design a black or other dark colored shirt, I’d probably make a decision based on the graphics, and the number of shirts i was going to purchase, and if they needed customization at all, and what my budget was, and possibly time of the year the shirts would be worn primarily.
zazzle has a pretty nice interface, lots of customization options. They were definitely was faster… 7 whole days faster. Zazzle’s print quality didn’t suck, it just wasn’t “awesome”. They offer customization options and a wide array of garments to print onto. They give you tools to help promote the products you’ve designed, but they were more expensive.

cafepress’ print quality is bordering on awesome, crisp and clean. But the overall color coverage seemed to be less dense. You can set your own prices at cafepress, and the thoughtfully sent washing instructions. If price is a concern when doing a print on demand black t-shirt, cafe press wins here.

Overall, I’m not terribly confident on the longevity of these shirts from either vendor. I think they’re both fine, but they’re probably best as a prototyping device. If you have a client that you want to demo a shirt design to, either service might work fine, I just probably wouldn’t bet my branding budget on these as a final product.

In part 4, I’ll wrap up with a comparison of post-washing results from both services.

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2 Comments

  1. 3 Clothing:

    We took a pretty hard look at both Zazzle and Cafepress before we decided to go with organic cotton and have our shirts printed locally. We saw some of the same issues that you have pointed out. We just couldn’t risk the quality or risk losing rights to the designs. If you are just looking at t shirt design as a hobby then I would go with cafepress, but if you are looking to run a profitable business then I would have it printed locally.

    11 August 2008, 8:02 am

  2. Steve Cooley Fine Art » Blog Archive » print on demand showdown: Zazzle vs. Cafepress - part 4:

    [...] as you can tell from parts 1, 2, and 3 of my comparisons of Zazzle and CafePress in regards to their print-on-demand services on black and [...]

    12 August 2008, 6:23 pm

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