Not long ago, I mentioned that it pays to ask questions. Two days ago asking a simple question paid off for me in a big way.
I’ve been wanting to add additional shirts to the Girls Can’t WHAT? Gift Shop that carry a smaller design on the front. I’ve noticed that a lot of women’s shirts have smaller logos on them and I realize that some people are turned off by having giant images on t-shirts. In fact, a quick sweep through my closet shows that I am one of those folks who prefer smaller images on my apparel.
Adding these new items to my shop is no small feat. Even though the company I use has a lot of great tools for bulk editing a shop, they weren’t going to help me fully complete the task. They would get me part of the way by adding products in bulk to each section, but there was no easy way to sort the sections by product. After running through the process on a single section, I estimated the remaining sections to be about 500+ hours of work. Eeek! ~X(
After dragging my feet for a couple of months, I finally decided to post a suggestion to Cafepress to modify their bulk update tools to do what I needed to get the job done quicker. Within a few minutes, a fellow shopkeeper named Jim replied and pointed me toward some scripts he had created called cafewish that would do just what I needed. I was a little skeptical, but Jim assured me I would love it and offered me a free upgrade.
So I tested, tweaked and played with it for about an hour. Wow! It does everything I need and more. Now my estimated time is down to about 30 or so hours of work. Amazing! All because I asked a simple question. And the real test? Within a few hours of updating one of the more popular sections, I started picking up sales on the smaller design t-shirts.
So now that I have my work cut out for me, I will be systematically going through each section and updating it. Since I don’t have 30 hours of free time to just get it done, I will have to spread it out over the next several weeks. If you need a specific item before then, please drop me an email and I will update that section asap.
Now get out there and ask some questions!
5 comments
gretchen
Update…I have since hooked up with Zazzle as my primary vendor. Zazzle allows you to resize the image to your liking by clicking “customize it” and using the on-page tools to make it fit your style.
gretchen
Considering the title of this post is “It pays to ask questions” and you just asked me a question, I should probably tell you what it is…
A rock climber. ;)
Marci
A new design? What is it? What is it?
gretchen
So true – and the kicker is that now I have no more excuses to procrastinate getting them into the shop! First things first, tho, I have a new design coming out today. I’m getting ready to upload it to the shop. ;)
Marci
Great idea on the T-shirts. I never really thought about it, but I don’t have any large logo shirts. They are all small, subtle logos. The concept of asking is great too. We get all caught up in some pride thing and can’t ask for help, when it is really very easy. People want to help and are waiting to be asked. I have some responsibilities on my plate that I usually trudge through alone that I might just ask someone to help me with. They will get done faster and with much less grief!