CafePress have announced that their Volume Bonus system will change and become the “Shop Performance Bonus”, with one large difference, CafePress will no longer pay a bonus for Marketplace led sales.

Why?

Over the past few years we’ve invested lots of time and money into increasing Marketplace sales, and it’s been worth the effort; what was once just an “idea” is now an incredibly significant part of business for Shopkeepers and CafePress.

As a result of that success, we’ve now reached a point where the combination of Volume Bonus and advertising costs are exceeding Marketplace profits. 

The good news is, the tiers are changing from a maximum 22% to a high 30%.  There are now five tiers opposed to four, with the highest tier kicking in at an achievable $5,000.01 base sales.

Here’s my take on it - I guess the plus points:

It focuses the shop keeper to think long term about their business. It gives a shop keeper a greater incentive to build a better shop, to learn what it takes to run a successful e-commerce site.  In my opinion it will add greater value to the realm of CafePress shops and increase their longevity.

There will be plenty of other opinions, all valid from my point of view.  Lots of shop keepers run different business models, many totally concentrated their efforts on Marketplace sales (myself included at one point) because it was extremely effective and profitable.  This will hurt them most. But - remember - the volume bonus was always a bonus and was started way before the Marketplace existed.  Us old skoolers started with CafePress waay before the Marketplace and were, from the very start, inplanted with the words “market yourself”.

It does seem like we’ve gone full circle. But, now in 2008, CafePress are a different animal and can’t operate under the financial models they used to.

If you’re wondering how the new Bonus system will affect your cheque clicky here to use Jen Goode’s tool to generate a comparison between old and new.

Chin up everyone!