Not many shops stock 150 million products. Cafepress not only manages this amazing feat, it adds around 45,000 new ones every day. This is only possible, of course, because the products don't exist until someone orders them. Your T-shirt, poster, cap, bag, book, mug or whatever is produced and shipped on demand.
But that is only half the Cafepress story. The other half is that its business is based on that old Web 2.0 standby, "user-generated content". Instead of buying a T-shirt printed with someone else's design, you can create your own. And if it's really good, you might even make a bit of money by letting Cafepress sell it to everybody else.
If you fancy trying your hand, you can set up a small business using Cafepress to collect the money, produce the goods, mail them out, and handle customer service. All you need is access to a computer and some graphics software that can save your design in, for preference, the PNG (portable network graphics) format. The site provides web space and has a Learning Center to help you get going.
Cafepress, founded in a garage in 1999, has now grown to the point where it has more than "6.5 million independent shopkeepers and members in addition to syndicated and corporate stores", including geek favourites Dilbert and Wikipedia,
But I don't expect most people are in it for the money. Cafepress products started to take off as promotional items, sold from websites such as MP3.com. Its speed of reaction also proved ideal for people who wanted to capitalise on events both on the web and in the real world. If you picked up an "internet meme" such as the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you could soon buy the T-shirt.
Presidential elections are a great time for sloganeering and cartooning, and therefore also for Cafepress. If you have a point to make, you can get it on your chest. Barack Obama must be worth a fortune.
Cafepress has steadily expanded its product lines. It now prints designs not just on T-shirts, shorts, tank tops and thongs but on stickers, badges and magnets, a variety of hats and bags, baby bibs and even housewares. That category takes in mugs, aprons, wall clocks, tiles, pillows and pet bowls. Cafepress also prints books and manufactures CDs.
One problem with the site is finding stuff, but you can search for keywords or browse by topics such as Animals & Wildlife, Military, Music & Instruments, and Religion. There's also a Careers & Professions section that runs from accountants to writers, with a rich set of offerings for computer programmers.
Another problem is that Cafepress hasn't expanded beyond the US. It mails products overseas, but this adds to the price. There are discounts for shipping two or more of the same item, but this increases the risk of customs clearance and import charges. This will no doubt get users searching for local sites that take a similar approach, such as spreadshirt.net and creativecraving.com in the UK.