Pet Calendar

So… every year with Cafe Press is an adventure.

And not in a good way.  They are nearly impossible to deal with.  Let’s just say that if you call 5 times about the same issue, you get 5 different answers.

So this would be a very long post if I shared all the ways that Cafe Press leaves beth and I wanting to pull our hair out.

This year is no different, except that it’s worse.

They had the calendar setup available when we started on the calendar, but now they say they aren’t doing calendars this year.  Then they said they were.  Then they said it was just a problem with the template availability online and they would email us the template.  Then they wrote to say, no, they aren’t doing calendars.

So this is the year that we are switching from Cafe Press to (hopefully) Zazzle.  As far as I can tell, the base price for the calendar itself, which was $15 at Cafe Press, will be more like $20.  We used to make $10 on each calendar for the pet rescue.  In order to make $10 now, we would have to charge more like $30 for the calendar, and I don’t know if we want to do that.

Feedback request #1

Would a $30 calendar price keep you from buying a calendar or buying as many calendars?

Feedback request #2

There is no option for what I would call a “folding” calendar instead of the binding below.  So we have only the choice of binding at the top (which I think is the best choice) or the binding that would be in the middle (between the pet pics and the calendar).

We are thinking of going with this calendar style, and will happily take feedback on that.

Obviously, the pets would show up in the blank space at the top.

Presumably Zazzle is able to accurately print the days of the month in sequence.
So that would be an improvement over recent years with Cafe Press!

It also appears that we get holidays.  Also an improvement over recent years.

Feedback request #3

This (giant) hiccup with Cafe Press has obviously and regrettably delayed the entire process.

Will that change the number of calendars you are likely to purchase?

UPDATE at 3:15 pm

After a hot tip from Another Scott, I googled Lulu, and they DO have print on demand and they DO allow you to send the funds directly to nonprofits!

I also called Albatrossity and he gives them good marks.  He said the calendars are about $25 and he makes $9 or $10 on each one, and that’s pretty close to what we got at Cafe Press, so that’s great.

So now I’m just waiting for beth to get home in a couple of hours so we can talk about this, but I can’t imagine that we won’t change course and go with Lulu.  We’ll see!

Pet Calendar Update – Important Info and Feedback RequestedPost + Comments (33)