Having been asked this question upwards of 200 times at the recent trade fairs in London and Birmingham, I guess it’s fair to say it can be put on the record that, yes, Spreadshirt is a UK alternative to Cafepress.
However, and naturally I would say this, in my view, Spreadshirt is a better alternative to Cafepress.
A few points to back up this thesis might be appropriate, you suggest?
Ok, here we go:
- better printing: try Flock and Flex print and try to deny it
- local currency: unbelievable as it may seem to some, we don’t all use dollars you know. Sterling, Euro, Greenbacks and several Scandi options available
- no customs charges within EU
- better customisation of your shop. With the Spreadshirt premium service, your punters need never know they are buying from Spreadshirt at all. Full integration into your site. A branded bar accross the top of your site!! You what?
- text personalisation: handy for slogans, just type your text onto your shirt and sell. No messing with designs for the non-skilled
There you go. Don’t go me wrong, Cafepress is cool too, but Spreadshirt is cooler.
Ami
Dave
The only down side I see to Spreadshirt that cafepress does is that Cafepress allows you to do digital prints on colourd shirts and Spreadshirt doesnt allow this unless you do an “offset print” which Spreadshirt also charge more for. The other thing I noticed while trying to find a suitable bussines to print my merchandise is that Cafepress offers more products and they LOOK like they are better quality from the images on their website, I havent orderd anything as yet from Cafepress or Spreadshirt, these are just the impresions I get from the websites. Cafepress do not allow back prints on alot of its merchandise and you will get charged by HM Customs for importing from the US. I write this because I hope that Spreadshirt take it in and make their service that little bit better.
I agree to the above comment, whilst Spreadshirt does seem to have a better layout and a much broader range of products to print on, i am disappointed that i can only print pixel designs onto white backgrounds.
There are even some products that wont let me print on them and they are white?!
I have got a lot of designs that look awesome against black as they are printed in white, pastels and silvers. However i cant use them and they dont look good on white shirts. Not everyone wants to by a white shirt all the time…remember black is slimming girls :).
I too hope Spreadshirt allow pixel designs on dark colours soon as i am currently forced to find somewhere that can accommodate my printing needs.
I find your design software a bit fiddly. Having used others, such as creativecraving.co.uk you should look at a simpler design tool.
Hi Ed, the prob with creativecraving is that there is no info what they put on the shirt. To create a software is one thing.
The challenge is to combine it with the printing technology.
Our fiddly software on on side is able to fit 100% to our technology where the quality is superior to everything you find on the market at the moment.
Even compared to Cafepress in the US.
I agree with you that on a quick glimpse the interface of craving looks much easier. But make the test an order a shirt from them and from our services.
After that you will understand why their Interface looks so much easier.