Cheddarblog

The Swiss_Mouse offers a money making idea in this post.

CafePress offers two different mechanisms for making money.

First you can open a store, design your own products and sell them.

You set the markup price and you keep the profit. CafePress handles EVERYTHING else for you!!! They obviously host the website, they handle payments, they handle shipping, they even handle returns. All you do is the creative work and collect the cheddar!!! OH, get this. The basic site is free, but limited to one type of each product. A more advanced site has a fee attached but if you are making money, it’ll pay for itself.

If you aren’t creative, you can always just use a link to CafePress and get referral income. That is right, money for nothing. Just keep your referral link in your signature, place it in posts or post it on your website. You will receive a percentage of anyones sales that signs up using your link. WAIT!!!! The Swiss_Mouse hears your shouting “Pyramid scheme”! No, it’s not. You will get your percentage. Unfortunately, CafePress changed their scheme last year. Now you will only receive that referal income from a person who signed up under you for a period of 1 year. Previously….it was perpetual.

This is from their own site:

For each member you recruit to CafePress, you will earn five percent (5%) of the base price of every sale they make for a period of one year from their join date, excluding self-buys. For example, if you refer a friend and they sell five white t-shirts, you will earn $3.49 (5% of $13.99 x 5 t-shirts).

Is the Swiss_Mouse telling a fib? Reluctantly, the Swiss_Mouse will share with you his own referral income figures for the last year:

2006

March $19.95

April $12.59

May $12.32

June $25.19

July $14.35

Aug $21.88

Sep $3.81 (This is when the new policy went into effect)

Oct $6.49

Nov $8.06

Dec $12.10

Jan $5.63

Would the Swiss_Mouse lie to you? Hey, it’s not a million, but it is a tasty slice of cheddar (and look..the Swiss_Mouse is lazy….you could make a larger wheel of cheddar, if you are creative).