Popping The Red Bubble

[kerravonsen]

So, RedBubble have introduced fees, where they did not have any fees before. These fees apply to "standard" accounts, and are taken out of our royalties before we are paid, so that technically we aren't out of pocket. But the fees basically cut our royalties in half. The criteria for distinguishing between "Standard", "Premium" and "Pro" are given, but not really that specific.

Classifications are based on objective criteria, including account activity, success as a seller, and whether you follow the community and content guidelines.

I basically call bullshit, because my account is classified as "Premium" and it ought to be "Standard", because I'm not very successful as a seller, and also because I've heard that people who sell more than me, and have more uploads than me, are being classified as "Standard".

So I'm pretty pissed off, as is every single RedBubble artist I've heard from.

I really ought to have known RedBubble was in trouble when they started making their sales more frequent. Because discounts may bring in more sales, but they cut into profits. And do that too often and it starts to pinch. And now they are biting the hand that feeds them.

So, what am I going to do?

It is difficult to find another print-on-demand site which is better than RedBubble, even RedBubble as it is now. For Americans, not so much so, but for me in Australia, one of the big attractions of RedBubble is that they are actually based in Australia, so the being-paid thing is much less complicated. I don't want to have to fill in American tax forms in order to get my money.

On top of that, I have about 500 designs on RedBubble, and uploading 500 designs to a new site, one at a time, would be quite painful.

But I'm still going to look. Threadless looks promising, because they actually answered my questions on Twitter.

As of right now, I'm freezing my uploads to RedBubble. I'm not going to delete my account until I have somewhere else to go and I have all my designs uploaded. This is possibly unwise on my part, because, if it isn't sales which have put me into the "Premium" class, it is probably "account activity", and if I freeze my account, then I risk being put down into the "Standard" category. But stuff that, I'm not going to bow to extortion.

Whatever happens, my domain fluid-visions.com will always point to where my art is; I will redirect it when I move.

Comments

[imhilien]

It's a shame about Redbubble. :( My account there is also classified as Premium, but I don't have the sales to justify that. Will have to check out Threadless.

[fred_mouse]

oh, that is so frustrating about Redbubble.

[kerravonsen]

Yeah. Very disappointing.