CafePress, Inc. is an online

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 retailer of stock and user-customized

Mass customization

Mass customization, in marketing, manufacturing, call centres and management, is the use of flexible computer-aided manufacturing systems to produce custom output...

 on demand products. CafePress, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California

San Mateo, California

San Mateo is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a population of approximately 100,000 , it is one of the larger suburbs on the San Francisco Peninsula, located between Burlingame to the north, Foster City to the east, Belmont to the south,...

, USA

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and its production facility is located in Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

. In 2001, CafePress.com won the People's Voice Webby Award in the Commerce category.

Business model

CafePress.com sells t-shirts, bags, mugs, wall clocks and calendars. Customers can upload their own graphics design, logo or text, which will be added to the product by CafePress. CafePress.com also offers print on demand

Print on demand

Print on demand , sometimes called, in error, publish on demand, is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book are not printed until an order has been received...

 services for wall art and stationery. The site also allows the user to have a virtual CafePress "shop" including an online storefront and website hosting, order management, fulfillment

Order fulfillment

Order fulfillment is in the most general sense the complete process from point of sales inquiry to delivery of a product to the customer...

, payment processing, and customer service

Customer service

Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.According to Turban et al. , “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer...

.

History

CafePress, Inc. was founded as a privately owned company in 1999 by Fred Durham and Maheesh Jain. As of February 2006, the site hosts over 2.6 million online shops with over 200 million products. As of March 2011, CafePress.com has more than 13 million members and over 325 million products are available on the site.

In July 2008, CafePress acquired the specialist photographic art printing business imagekind

Imagekind

Imagekind is a commercial website that prints and sells images created by participating artists on-demand. It also includes a social networking and marketing site for artists and their customers...

., and in September 2010 acquired photo-to-canvas company Canvas On Demand to their platform of brands.

In June 2011, CafePress filed with the SEC to raise up to $80 million in an initial public offering.

Brands

CafePress, Inc. has six primary brands: its flagship brand, CafePress.com, wholesale division CafePress Pro, Imagekind, Canvas On Demand, Great Big Canvas and Canvas On Demand Pro. CafePress, Inc. also partners with other businesses to provide licensed content on their site, and power online custom shops for large companies, such as ABC, Urban Outfitters and Peanuts Worldwide.