How CafePress' Admin Bot Shops Charge You Blindly

   Please stop creating these admin shops and listing products that are not added by me, the account owner.  You are putting products out for sale in the marketplace that are not configured for the best use of my designs.  The latest sale that came from one was black lettering on black apparel.   

   Yes, I see a royalty from that sale, however, I did not approve of that design for that type of apparel, nor does this shop fall inside my payment setting for a premium shop.   In addition to paying my yearly fee, I also would be responsible for a fee attached to this sale because the default setting for that shop is to only pay royalties on items sold (10%).   You are essentially selling my designs and charging me a fee for something I did not approve as the designer.  I have had to close several of these admin shops or make them private in order to stop this from affecting my sales. 

   I have stuck with CafePress since 2009 even though nearly every other Print on Demand site offers the same benefits with no fees.   You’ve stripped us the same royalties for marketplace sales as shop sales, halved our royalties for 3^rd party and fan portal sales.    I have been loyal to this site because of the benefit of the exposure and that scale is being tipped towards the negative ever more with these frustrations. 

   Please consider changing this practice as I am sure that while I am simply a small time designer and one voice among millions of designers who use CafePress, shopkeepers like me are how CafePress got its start and has grown.    While I don’t expect anything to come from this request, I must make it as it has been far too long for me to sit idly by and not voice my frustration.

Thank you,
AngryMongo

 Not the most eloquent of messages, but one that needed to be sent for a long time.   Yes, it's almost passive aggressive in tone.  "If you don't stop being corporate bad guys, well, then, I'll just shake my fist and yell really loud with no ramifications."  Quite frankly, if I struck any kind of nerve and CafePress just decided to say, "So long, we're closing your account because of x" I would be kind of happy.   I have sort of let my shop languish because it just generates a minimal amount of monthly income that I am willing to accept for hardly any work, while I focus my attention to more robust, up to date, and shops that don't charge me a fee like TeePublic or Redbubble.

  In fact, it's been a long slow hospice for my CafePress shop since they changed the rules to only give designers a flat 10% royalty on sales from the marketplace, whereas previously it was whatever royalty you decided.  And actually, that should read "up to 10%" because they nail you for sales that come through fan portals and 3rd party sales like Amazon.  Shop sales prices can't compete with Marketplace prices and no one in their right mind will pay more for something just because the designer gets a higher cut.  

  The latest trend is for CafePress to add these Admin shops to your account and pre-populate a handful of categories with select items and select designs under the guise of "We're trying out things that you may want to be aware of".  Nothing you actually have any hand in when it happens.  They do it and unless you constantly bird dog your account, you don't find out that something is wrong until you get a weird royalty email stating that you made a sale on a no name item.  You check the sales report and see that it came from the Marketplace, featuring a design that you already offer in your regular store and already pay a monthly/yearly fee to operate.  Then, on top of only getting 10% of the royalty, because these admin shops are default settings, you pay a 10% fee on your royalty for every item sold up to $10 a month.  So, $60 in shop fees, plus up to $120 a year for these bot shops they set up on your behalf.  

  The argument here is kind of moot because I continue to do business with them, but that's only because the fees have been about 3% of my sales.  It's an easy revenue stream that doesn't require a lot of work other than to guard every penny by shutting down these stupid bot sites.  Still, I should stand up to this kind of behavior, closing my shop and walking away.   Unfortunately, there are millions of designers using CafePress, losing me would hurt only me every month, when I don't see a paltry line item on my PayPal account from CafePress.


UPDATE 2/8/16:  CafePress did respond in kind.... but I already knew this would be there response, if any.

Thank you for contacting CafePress. To Opt Out of marketplace listing, go to the shop management page and click on your shop settings. at the bottom you will see a check box marked Opt Out of the Marketplace. Your designs will then be removed from the marketplace.
If there is anything else I can do for you, please let me know.

Please use this code in any further communication.
Best Regards,
CafePress

Well, I did those steps and lo and behold, today, a new order for an item in that Admin shop, which has been marked as opting out of the Marketplace.  Look at the quality of their product with my design.  It doesn't fit the product.  This is what happens when their bot stores add my designs to their products...  This is horrible quality product that goes to the customer and has my name associated with it.  AND I GET CHARGED A FEE FOR THE SALE?!?!?!

I've removed all products from the Admin shop, but they'll be back.  In a few months time, there will be more crap in there that I will have to remove, again.


UPDATE 2/9/16:  Now, they're just trolling me.

Thank you for your response.  I am happy to assist you today.
I am sorry to hear of your frustrations.  At this time I would like to suggest closing your Admin shop.  In order to do so, go to "Shop", click "Admin_CP7374716".  This will bring you to your "Manage Your Shop" page.  

On the right hand side of the screen you can click "Close this Shop".  This will close this shop all together.  You then would not have to opt out of the marketplace.  

When opting out of the marketplace, it takes away the option of customers finding any of your items on our website at all, unless they have your shop HTML.

I hope this information is helpful.

 OK, so I have done these steps before.   Within days, the Admin bot shops reappear.  So, I asked a stupid question of them.

If I close this shop, will another one be added in the future?  (Included screenshot with email that shows only one shop now exists)  I have closed it and should not see any more of these Admin shops appear in my account.

Thank you

Of course, I fully expect there to be a new wonderfully awful bot shop in my account within a few days.   This is how they responded to my message...

Hello, I will be happy to assist you with this matter. I apologize that you are having issues with the admin shops. Unfortunately, another admin shop will produce its self. You can opt it out of the marketplace and mark it as private. This way the items can not be sold in the marketplace and will not be found on search engines. I also recommend removing any products from the admin shops as well. This will only need to be done once and no additional admin shops will be added in the future.  
To mark you shop as Private follow these steps:

1. Log into your CaféPress account.
2. Click on the Shop ID of the shop you wish to edit.
3. Click “Edit Shop Profile”.
4. Towards the bottom of this page will be your Preferences. Check the Private box and Market place Opt out.  Click on “Save Changes”.

Are you kidding me?  We're back to opting out.  Yet, clearly, the opting out still allowed items to be bought through the Marketplace.  


Sigh.

UPDATE: 2/22/16
  Yep, they're trolling.  The steps above outline how I am to mark the shop private and opt out of the marketplace... which I had done.   Then, yesterday, another shirt was sold out of that shop.  The products just happened to appear. 

  Well, one other option presents itself.  There is a 500 section or folder limit on shops.  If I add 500 blank sections, I can force them to stop adding them.

  Shouldn't be this hard.

UPDATE: 2/24/16
  So, apparently, Cafepress' rule about maximum number of sections allowed on your shop is a lie.   I tried to do an end run around the bot shops by adding 500 folders or sections, maxing out the allotted number.  The hope was that it would stop them from adding their own, which clearly are still selling products, even though I've removed that shop from the marketplace and opted out of search engine indexing.

 Well, today, there were 503 sections in the bot shop, which means that they refuse to be stopped.  I removed the products from the newly created sections.  However, these new sections are automatic and not done by some lackey in their offices.

UPDATE: 3/28/16

I sent a new message to CafePress because it has been over a month since I opted out of the marketplace with this bot shop and still orders get generated in sections that they add above and beyond their supposed 500 section limit.   I can't be bothered to go in every day and remove products from new sections.  This shouldn't be what a shopkeeper has to do.

It has been over a month since I opted out of the marketplace with this store.  And yet, orders keep getting placed from the Marketplace.  See Attached.   Also, your limit of 500 sections does not seem to apply to this admin bot shop as there are 522 sections in the shop itself.

So, what gives?  I get a lot of apologies and understanding of frustrations, yet no indication of anything to actually fix this issue other than I have to manually go into newly generated sections over the 500 limit and remove all products, but as you can see from the attached, unless I go in every day, continually and remove products, orders get placed.

Fix this.  Stop adding items, sections, orders, whatever!

UPDATE: 4/4/16

Now, this is a new one.  Logging in today, expecting to delete more products from the Admin shop, I found a new wrinkle in the mess.   Someone removed the exclusions from my Admin shop, opting it back into the marketplace and making it public.  They also removed all of the sections that were there.  Lastly, there was a strange product in my shopping cart.  Seriously, something is loco here.
Here was their response:

Thanks for your reply. I am sorry for the inconvenience that this has caused you. We do not reset any shops unless the owner advises us. The sections and products in your store we also did not get rid of. No, changes are made to your store from us. Looking into what's going on with the Admin shops, you can close them at anytime. 
If there is anything else I can do for you, please let me know.
Your ticket code is [redacted]. Please use this code in any further communication.
Best Regards,

Their explanation of how they wouldn't have done such things is ridiculous as is their advice on how to handle this as even if I close that shop, in a week, another one will open.

Now, why would I undo all the work I've been doing to stop these sales from happening?   I emptied the cart, reapplied all the same exclusions, and changed my password.   Even still, there's some residual cookie thing going on because even though it shows empty, I still get a one item in my cart icon on each page.   You can see that all the sections are gone from the picture above, to here. 

2013 D-Bag Awards Round One: Thanksgiving Sale vs. Black Friday

Second heat in the race to ultimate douchebaggery!

Thanksgiving Sales vs. Black Friday

Retail nuttiness is afoot.  On the one hand we have the constant threat of encroachment on the family.  Thanksgiving shopping is almost as bad a word as Holiday when it comes to the fundamental nutters who think the decay of civilization begins and ends with the destruction of the family unit.   Stores that choose to open on Thanksgiving are blasphemous in their capitalist quest to get all your monies.  How dare they!  “We should be home with our family, not pumping money into the coffers of their evilness.”   Meanwhile, they shop online, play games and bitch about it all on social media.  What they don’t realize is that some people have no families and don’t mind working on Thanksgiving.  Not to mention, all of those other things they do mean that support staff probably need to be on hand to keep technology running smoothly, instead of being at home arguing with their dysfunctional families over why they haven’t settled down with the right member of the opposite sex. 

On the other hand is the continued myth that the best shopping deals are on Black Friday.   In the past, I’ve found that the prices vary on certain items.  In fact, I used to get emails about Black Friday deals and would compare the prices set for that day vs. the current price.  What I found was that in a lot of instances, the prices were better before and it was for newer models of the equipment being touted as a deal.   Black Friday is way for stores to clear out all of their old inventory from the past year or two.  Do you really think a store would make a crap ton of money on the latest and greatest items at a reduced amount?  No.  That LCD HD set that’s on sale… usually it’s last year’s model.   The manufacturer’s website doesn’t even show it anymore, I bet.  That Blu-Ray player?  You can find a better quality model at the same price three weeks before Black Friday.   Let’s also not forget how stupid people get when they have the stores ramping up the stakes.  “The economy is bad, the sales are good.  You need to save money because the government keeps taking it!  Come down to our showroom, punch another human being out and SAVE! SAVE!  SAVE!” 

Winner – Black Friday!

Shopping on Thanksgiving is bad.  I’ll concede to that, but who cares?   If a retail outlet chooses to be open, so be it.  Plenty of services have to be open.   Nobody bitched when I had to work a family buffet at a hotel on Thanksgiving three years in a row.  Where was the outrage?  Stay at home and cook you lazy bastards!  This is a stupid tactic by people that have nothing better to do than bitch about everything.   Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday, nor is it even a proud holiday at that.  You want to talk about illegal immigrants taking everything from those that belong in the country?  

“Families should be home on Thanksgiving, not in a store making money for the man" is not a good excuse.  Meanwhile, you’ve been watching football all day long while the NFL rakes in money.  Hypocrite much?   

As for the winner, it’s a tad ridiculous and even though there have been less than five deaths each year due to Black Friday, the idiocy that goes on is not worth the savings.  You’re being mind raped by the retail world.  Open your eyes.

The War On Thanksgiving

This has been heating up on social media and it’s beginning to piss me off.   I get it.  We shouldn’t be shopping on Thanksgiving.  We should be staying home with our families instead giving into the corporate machinations that drive greed and force retail workers to be on hand during the holidays instead of at home with their families who are probably hateful, drunk, and dysfunctional anyway.

The problem is that it’s not a perfect boycott.   Here’s why.

• Gas station attendants have to be on hand for you when you decide to pack up the family and go to grandma’s.
• Toll booth workers have to be on hand to collect on the turnpikes and expressways
• Hotels have to be staffed for you when you have to stay at the Comfort Inn because grandma has fifteen cats and you’re allergic.
• IT Analysts and System Admins have to be on hand for when Amazon or eBay breaks down because everyone who says, “I WON’T SHOP IN TARGET ON THANKSGIVING!” decides they will buck the trend by point and clicking their way through shopping instead of courting the brick and mortar versions of their favorite retailers.
• I could go on.

Look, I spent three years working on New Year’s Eve, Easter, Mother’s Day, and Thanksgiving in a hotel where the biggest problem was I had to cater to other peoples’ families instead of sharing in the holiday with my own.  It sucks, but it’s life.   Declaring with a graphic and a like that you won’t shop on Thanksgiving while doing other things that require support staff to handle your other activities is just hypocritical.  How about stay off social media on Thanksgiving.  Some poor IT person at Zynga or King or Facebook  has to be on hand because you’d rather stay home and play Candy Crush or Famville instead of shopping at Walmart.   And… some intern at Twitter has be on hand when you tell the world, “Gassing up at BP and turnpiking it with my fam instead of shopping at Target.  Suck it Wall St!”

You know, some people have no family.  Some people don't want to be around their family on the holidays, so working that day at time and a half pay might be something they enjoy or at least look forward to.  And you're robbing them of that because YOU feel YOUR AGENDA is the way it should be.  

Do I think stores should be open on Thanksgiving? No.  Black Friday?  Definitely, NO!  But it's not my problem.  It's not my place.  If people want to be assholes and corporations want to be greedy.  That's their business.  It's the framing of the argument that I take such issue with in this case.   Where do we get off high horsing our views and being placated because of it?  What entitlement crap gives us anymore say in this matter.  Vote with your dollar and don't shop.  But don't shame others into believing they're horrible because they do.  You're just as bad at other things that require support staff so don't act all high and mighty feeling that your own beliefs are solid and infallible.  Mind your own business. 

Oh, and don't read this on Thanksgiving.  Got it?

Get In, Get Out, Get Robbed

I hate using cash.  I absolutely hate using physical bills to pay for goods and services.  Why?

CLEANLINESS

I’ve worked in retail, entertainment, and food industry jobs where cash was usually the only option for paying.   A microscopic look at the bills put into your hands by customers would make the monsters from Pacific Rim look about as threatening as the Care Bear Cousins.

SPACE

My wallet is akin to something George Costanza would carry.  I stopped putting my wallet into my back pocket years ago to keep the scoliosis at bay.  Also, my card sits right next to my “loyalty” card for whatever store I’m patronizing.   I don’t need to flip through the various folds of my wallet looking for bills to cover the cost.  Not to mention the change you get back having to be organized on your person.  Coins go in a pocket… small bills go in a pocket… large bills in your wallet.  

SPEED OF SERVICE

You have to find the bills.  You have to count the bills.  You have hand over the bills.  They have to count the bills.  They have store the bills.  They have to count out your change.  You have to organize the change.  (see SPACE)

ACCOUNTABILITY

After working where I’ve worked and patronizing where I’ve patronized, using cash leads to errors.   It can either be unintentional or purposely erred on either side of the counter.   When you use a credit or debit card you are creating a paper or electronic trail.  You can physically see the transaction from your institution to the vendor.  If there is an error, it can be seen and dealt with at the POS, or if anything else, you are protected (Well, you should be), by the financial institution transferring the money.    It can take awhile or be an inconvenience to deal with, but so is losing money and/or identity theft.

So, I told you all that to tell you this.   My 74 year old father-in-law uses cash about 80% of the time he pays for anything.  The exceptions are utility bills, credit card bills, and taxes.   Whenever I happen to be out with him, and he needs to get gas in his car, I usually do the pumping and paying.  Yesterday, we stopped at the GetGo in North Huntington, PA.   I pumped the gas and the total came up $54.00.   He handed me the fifty.   Then he handed my four singles.  I placed all of the cash in my left hand and  folded it up.

I walked to the store about 8:05PM, and as I approached the counter, a lady in a green shirt, carrying some groceries approached the same space from a blind aisle.

We sort of did this weird standoff thing where neither one of us moved.   Usually, I would have let her go, even if I was the next person in line.   It just so happened that we had dropped my wife, who was feeling under the weather, off at the store to get some cold medicine and with the rains yesterday, I didn’t want her waiting outside at the store for us to come back and pick her up.     So, I jumped in and handed my cash to the cashier, thinking this would be a quick transaction.   I was trying to practice some Utilitarianism or Vulcanism by fulfilling the needs of the many vs. the needs of the few… or the one.

As I waited for confirmation from the cashier, I turned my attention away from the counter and other people.   Let’s just say it.  I did a quick scan of my Powerball ticket from Saturday.   At that point, the cashier repeated the purchas price and I confirmed. She then said, “You only have $4.00 here.”

I stopped.  I looked in my hands.  I looked around.   I looked back at the counter.  I had five bills in my hands.  I know I did.   Knowing that I was now impacting more peoples’ times, I grabbed the four dollars off the counter and explained that I would be right back.  I needed to tell my father-in-law to go pick up my wife and that I would deal with this.

He left and I retraced my footsteps back to the store.   He would have seen my path to the door from his vantage point.   What the hell just happened.   I expressed that I had no way of not having $54.00 in bills in my hand but that I would deal with this separately, and paid for the gas with my card.   I then went on my way of walking from the GetGo to meet my father-in-law at the front entrance of the Giant Eagle in rain.  He had already picked up my wife and I got in to the jeers of “You are truly an idiot with money” from my wife and my father-in-law saying, “’I’ll pay you back.”   I think at some point, I may have used some unflattering words about the situation.  Karma will find me for that I’m sure.

I called Customer Care when I got home and they put in a request to view the tapes.

Today, I received a call from them and they went through the video while I was in the store.  You can see the following.

• I approach.
• The other lady approaches.
• I put money on the counter.
• I turn my attention away for a brief period.
• The lady in the green shirt bends over, out of view.
• The cashier counts my money, twice, expresses confusion.
• I take the remaining bills and leave the store.
• The lady in green completes her purchases and leaves.
• I return and talk some more.
• I then pay with my card and talk with the cashier.
• I leave.

The fifty dollar bill never made it to the counter.  Somewhere between me lifting my arm to place it on the counter and the money actually laying on the counter it disappears.

So, what happened.

I know what I think happened and I know what I would like to believe happened, but truthfully, it is not something I could prove*… So, as my wife, wonderfully pointed out, I am an idiot.   It’s true.  There are plenty of instances where this kind of thing is clearly demonstrated with me and pockets and receipts and cash.  She found a $100 in our driveway once and was overjoyed until she realized it was the one I dropped.

So, in the end, I applaud Giant Eagle/GetGo for their process of responding to and reviewing this incident.   I am also glad that I did not accuse the cashier and that through review of the tape, a little bit of my faith in the youth of America has been restored in that she did not take my father-in-law’s cash. I accept that I am an idiot that not only did not win the Powerball on Saturday, but am now out an additional $50.00 because I had to check my non-winning ticket.   What I do not accept is that someone could have stolen that fifty for whatever reason.  

Speculation breeds conspiracy theories.  They were pissed that I cut them off because they had two handfuls of stuff to buy.   They were a low life that planned to go buy drugs or alcohol with the ill gotten gains.   They bought an extra pack of donuts with the fifty.  Like I said, I made some disparaging comments about them after it happened.  This is my karmic retribution.   I can only hope that they truly needed it more than myself.   I am willing to be out fifty dollars if it helps someone get by another day in their own worse situation than myself.

But, I hope that fifty somehow made its way from a hooker and is now giving someone else syphilis.  The kind that looks and acts like those things from Pacific Rim.  Then again, my hand has been itching since yesterday.

This is why I never use cash and use lots of soap.

*Seriously, if you are the person who took that fifty off the floor, I sincerely hope you needed it.  I have documented time and time again how I try to do the right thing.  I have put my time and satisfaction second when it comes to those less fortunate or the elderly in a lot of occasions, usually to the amusement of my readers.   If your situation is dire and that fifty was a miracle to you, then I accept that and will kindly say, "You're welcome. I hope you can pay it forward."

If you took it because you are just a horrible person, then fine.  Live with that. I will.   Just know that you were seen on the tape and if you used your Advantage Card, that was also seen by the cashier and their system.   You aren't smart enough to beat the system of record in this century.  You got away with a small victory, but the loss prevention department is reviewing all of this and I hope it was worth it.  Bravo to you.