When you rely on a third party sites such as Cafepress, Spreadshirt, Zazzle, etc. to make and sell your designs change comes and it can hurt if you are not ready.Just this month both Cafepress and Spreadshirt have announced major changes to their product line-ups. While Cafepress announced that they were adding a bunch of new t-shirt colors, Spreadshirt announced that it was discontinuing mugs and coasters.

For large shopkeepers at Cafepress the added products are a blessing and a curse. It means more products but it also means for some of us adding new products to upwards of a thousand different designs. Time spent here can effect the time spent on other things like new designs, promotions, etc.

For shopkeepers at Spreadshirt that made more than their share of sales on mugs, it means losing a revenue stream that has to be made up.

This is the way of business. So always be ready and always have enough time set aside to deal with the unexpected.

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J.J. Jackson is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. and Cafepress “Top Shopkeeper”. He has been selling t-shirts on-line since 2004 and is the owner of the T-Shirt Entrepreneur, a site dedicated to helping people get involved in the T-shirt Economy. He is also the owner of Funny When Wet T-shirts, American Infidel Tshirts, Uber Gamer T-shirts as well as many other online t-shirt and gift stores.