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We’re tidying up our Marketplace

We’re tidying up our Marketplace

To make your designs more visible, designs that have not been sold for three years will be removed from the Marketplace in July 2024. Find out what that means for you and your designs here.

There are 16 million designs on our Marketplace right now. Every day, 8,000 to 10,000 new designs are uploaded. We’re thrilled with these incredible numbers. They make us very proud. They’re proof that Spreadshirt is a true Marketplace for creative ideas, sustained by its designers. At the same time, this vast quantity of designs has its disadvantages, too. The Marketplace has become too hard to navigate.

Why are we removing some designs from the Marketplace?

Our long-term goal remains to make the Marketplace a more appealing sales platform. It should be quicker and easier to find the designs that people actually want to buy. But how do we pull this off?

Simple: by boosting the visibility of in-demand designs. We do this by ensuring they don’t disappear among masses of designs that no one is buying.

That’s why we’re removing all designs that have been published on the Marketplace for three years without ever being sold. Our aim is to make it easier for people to find your designs – and help boost your revenue as a result.

What are the criteria for removing designs from the Marketplace?

First of all, most importantly: We won’t delete any of your designs. We only want to remove designs from the Marketplace that are not in demand. All your designs will still be available in your Partner Area.

Designs are being removed from the Marketplace based on the following criteria:

  • Designs that have been published on the marketplace for three years and
  • Designs that have not been sold in that time

What do I need to do next?

Nothing! This blog post is simply intended to keep you up to date with the planned changes. Your designs will be stored in your Partner Area until further notice and you can download them and back them up on your own devices whenever you like.

How do I find out which of my designs are being removed from the Marketplace?

When the market cleanup is complete, we will inform you of design deactivation again by email and a notification in the Partner Area. You can view the deactivated designs in the Partner Area.

Which designs are affected in particular?

There are all kinds of designs that refer to specific events and years: Christmas 2008, Back to School 2012, Best Bachelorette 2015, to name a few.

These designs are so specific that users didn’t purchase them back then and won’t in the future, since they refer to the past. Removing these designs will make the Marketplace easier to navigate, helping customers make decisions more quickly and easily and improving search results.

Will designs be removed from the Marketplace regularly from now on?

No, we are predicting that this cleanup will dramatically improve the visibility of in-demand designs. We’ve also continually updated the Marketplace guidelines in the past, which means that newer design uploads include many more designs customers want to buy.

This also means that the current guidelines for publishing designs on the Marketplace aren’t changing.

Got a question about our Marketplace cleanup? Check out the FAQs we’ve put together for you or ask your question in the forum

2 comments Write a comment

  1. A very unpleasant news!
    This doesn’t make good to original/unique designs, it seams you want to keep all that’s trendy, usual and well selling.

  2. Hello Spreadshirt,

    I have read your message regarding the Marketplace cleanup with great attention.

    I did understand the part where you mentioned, “There are all kinds of designs that refer to specific events and years: Christmas 2008, Back to School 2012, Best Bachelorette 2015, to name a few.”

    As for the rest, we understand that the situation is complex. There are indeed designs that do not sell for 2 or 3 years but can suddenly sell multiple copies, sometimes thanks to a single customer, and then begin to sell regularly. Additionally, some designs do not sell throughout the year but see a sales spike during particular occasions, such as Father’s Day or the end of the year (Q4).

    We have worked tirelessly for years to design and upload these designs, often at the cost of personal sacrifices, such as sleepless nights. Deleting them would mean nullifying all our efforts.

    Since Amazon entered the print-on-demand sector, particularly in France, and despite the decisions you have made, such as reducing our commissions to increase sales, we have unfortunately observed a drastic decline in our sales and commissions. I fear that this new decision may harm both us and you even further. Many customers arrive on the platform via Google, attracted by these varied designs, and then discover other products that they purchase. By removing these designs, you risk losing visibility on Google, which would benefit our competitors.

    As I mentioned, some designs sell very little, but sometimes they make a surprise sale. This decision could also impact Q4 sales, a period when unexpected designs often find buyers. Many creators are already discouraged from creating new designs due to the steep decline in sales on our platform. This decision could drive them to other platforms.

    I suggest focusing on improving our search engine optimization to enhance our ranking in search results and considering strategies to compete with Amazon. Study their strategies, understand why customers prefer them, examine their prices, product quality, manufacturing costs, as well as delivery times and fees.

    The continuous decline in sales discourages us and makes us fear the eventual closure of the platform. We understand that you are making decisions for the survival of the marketplace and its creators, which is commendable, but please also take our suggestions into account.

    Thank you for your understanding.

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