Diane “Tanith” Blackman: Shopkeeper and community member since 2003
Diane’s Shop: dogplay
Read more of Diane’s informative tutorials at tutortanith.com

Giving up?

You have been operating a shop for a while, you haven’t made the sales you hoped for and you are thinking about giving up. How do you weigh whether to continue?
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Shannon Stephan: CPV, Shopkeeper and community member since 2005
Shannon’s Shop: donorawareness

Link Exchanges Work

So many times we hear about the importance of having a CafePress store without “leaks”. If you don’t know what a “leak” is, generally, it is just a link outside of the CafePress domain or your shop. When working with affiliates, they want to ensure that the cookie for their affiliate commission is not lost and leaving the CafePress domain risks them losing their affiliate commission for any potential sales. Also, there are a number of shopkeepers that want to do everything in their power to keep their customers in their store; even if that means not giving the customer what they want in order to warrant a return visit to your store.

However, links are the foundation of the Internet and actually help generate traffic, increase Page Rank, and help your customers find what they are looking for. The key is to remember that you want to build a successful link exchange and there are ways to do so.

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Jean Roth: CPV’r and Shopkeeper since 2002
Jean’s shop: Rotem Gear

Part Three: Must Haves and Must Do’s at Your Vending Event

In Part Two I mentioned signage and branding, but your display can take this much further to attract customers and make them want to hang around. Here’s some food for thought to get your creative juices going — see if any of these work for you.

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