Important! New Shop Commission Model

Lena_Test_Spread_Group · February 5, 2020, 10:17am

Originally published at: https://www.spreadshop.com/blog/2020/02/05/control-your-prices-drive-your-sales/

March 2nd is the day! The new commission model gives you even more control over your Shop and your earnings to help you make more sales.

Let’s be honest: Could you explain how our commission model works? What about the design price, affiliate commission and volume commission? No? Then we have good news for you. We’re launching a much simpler and more user-friendly commission model for your Spreadshops that can help drive sales.

What’s so great about the new commission model? Here are some of its most important features:

You control your prices
Exciting new products
Clear & simple commission model

Let’s have a look at what’s changed for your Shop.

You Control Your Prices

Time to kiss the design price goodbye.

Until now, you’ve always set a separate design price for each design. Your commission was defined by the design, not by the product. We’re turning this logic around. Now you set the retail prices for your products yourself. You decide how much to charge your customers. You control your cut. The design price will no longer be available in your Spreadshop. Your commission will simply be the difference between the retail price and the base price: your margin.

Exciting new products

Our old design price system was too inflexible for us to carry inexpensive products in our assortment.

Once you set your design price, it applied to all products equally—whether they were buttons, basic T-shirts or high-quality premium hoodies. Under that model, we saw lower-priced products, such as buttons or mousepads, becoming too expensive to drive sales.

We want you to be able to offer more of these inexpensive products in your Shop. And that means it’s time to say goodbye to the fixed design price.

Nobody knows your customers better than you. The new commission model allows you to choose the best prices for your Shop and your customers: lucrative for you, attractive for your customers. At the same time, you’ll get to offer your customers a more exciting product range, including new items such as stickers.

Clear & simple commission model

You will no longer define your commission through the design price, but rather the retail price of your products. Your margin is the difference between the base price and the retail price. This makes pricing in your Shop much clearer and easier to understand, because you decide what your customers pay and what you earn off the sale of each product type.

This also opens up your Shop to inexpensive products whose low prices will help attract customers to your Shop – for example, a basic T-shirt for less than $20. At the same time, you can set a higher price for other products and increase your margin – regardless of the design.

In short: You now have full control over your profits and prices.

Flexible promos

Under the new commission model, you also have more control over the discount promotions and marketing in your Shop.

There will be up to two promotions every month. You decide if and when the promo starts. With the release of the new commission model, you choose the promo start date within 30 days yourself.

For example: Let’s say your Shop is all about cat memes. World Cat Day on August 8, 2020 would be the perfect day to start an advertising campaign. With new, flexible promos, you can strategically plan your promos around World Cat Day, advertise on your social networks and increase your sales.

Spreadshop pays the “free shipping” promo completely out of its own pocket. It has no influence on your earnings.

For all other promotions, we share the costs. You pay your share out of your margin. Spreadshop pays its share out of the base price. So for example, a 15% discount would reduce your margin by 15% for every item sold during the promotion period. Spreadshop will waive 15% of the base price for all of those sales as well.

Simplified printing costs

With the introduction of the new commission model, it will be easier and cheaper to place additional designs and text on a print area.

The base price includes printing costs for one print area. If you or your customers add additional printing areas, the customer will pay an extra $/€4.50 (6 CAD/7.50 AUD) per print area. This does not change your margin or the cost of the promos. We only charge for the number of print areas used, not for the number of designs on a single print area.

The only exception: if your customers use community designs in your Shop’s Customize Tool, the costs for those designs will be added to the retail price. This won’t impact your margin.

Sell more to earn more

Get rewarded for your hard work!

The more you sell through your Shops in a given calendar month, the more we reduce the base price for that month retroactively. This rewards you for your sales volume by automatically increasing your margin. This Performance Bonus is calculated retroactively per account for each calendar month. Find out more about the sales volume tiers for base price reduction and how billing works in this article.

What happens next?

You can already start setting the retail prices for all your products in your Partner Area. Go to Shop Settings > Prices & Promos > Retail Prices. You’ll find our suggested retail prices already listed, but you can adjust them as you see fit. You are completely free to set your own prices and define your margins. Take a look at the new prices right away, make adjustments and familiarize yourself with the new commission model. On March 2^nd, the adjusted retail prices will go live. You can change these at any time and as often as you like.

Our General Terms and Conditions are also changing to reflect the new commission model (US, CA, UK, IE). We will inform you about the new T&Cs via e-mail. You don’t have to do anything to accept the new T&Cs.

For any further questions you may have about the new commission model, we’ve put together a detailed FAQ for you.

Adjust Product Prices on the North American Platform

Adjust Product Prices on the European Platform

You sell in the Marketplace, too? Then we have further information for you here.

Please refer to these blogposts for any other languages/locales:

Links for EU platform:

Links for NA platform:

CA-FR: https://www.spreadshop.com/blog/maitrise-tes-prix-avec-le-nouveau-systeme-de-retribution
CA-EN: https://www.spreadshop.com/blog/2020/02/05/control-your-prices-drive-your-sales
US: https://www.spreadshop.com/blog/2020/02/05/control-your-prices-drive-your-sales
AUS: https://www.spreadshop.com/blog/2020/02/05/control-your-prices-drive-your-sales

You’ll also find all the prices lists here:

Links for EU platform:

CH-FR: Prices FR CHF - Google Sheets
CH-DE: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eO5ykSbKidD4f9js1z4jEM20bXcc0Wdq6HavxiYRd8g/edit?usp=sharing
CH-IT: Prices IT CHF - Google Sheets
DE/AT: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15FEooTaDTcdoU4YW3tA10eMTEXHTNKkrCwlH2kmjXC8/edit?usp=sharing
FR/BE-FR: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BaKjf5Ml72rSHuih3tCXmrSaF8oudGc6RMeivPrVbGM/edit?usp=sharing
NL/BE-NL: Prices NL EUR - Google Sheets
EU/IE: Base Prices European Platform - Google Sheets
UK: Prices GBP - Google Sheets
NO: Prices NOK - Google Sheets
SV: Prices SEK - Google Sheets
FI: Prices FI EUR - Google Sheets
DK: Prices DKK - Google Sheets
PL: Prices PLN - Google Sheets
ES: Prices ES EUR - Google Sheets
IT: Prices IT EUR - Google Sheets

Links for NA platform:

CA-FR: Prices FR CAD - Google Sheets
CA-EN: Prices EN CAD - Google Sheets
US: Base Prices North American & Oceania Platform - Google Sheets
AUS: Prices AUD - Google Sheets

plzLOOK · February 5, 2020, 4:46pm

Hi Lena

I’ve just tried to change a few prices and no matter what I type in the “retail price” box, the second I move out of it the price automatically changes to the same as the “base price” and turns my margin to zero …

I’m running Chrome on a Mac - is this a known bug?

Lena_Test_Spread_Group · February 5, 2020, 5:00pm

I just tried it on my chrome browser on a Mac… and it worked. Did you update your Chrome Browser to the newest version? Maybe also try to refresh the page? Let me know if it’s still not working after these quick measures!

User_NA-e0f6ab35 · February 5, 2020, 5:31pm

Your new commission model states it will offer the same if not better commission. But it appears much worse in the new system.

For example on a Mens T Shirt (old price model)
Design Price £2.50 giving Selling Price £16.99
Our cut was £2.50 + £2.33 Affiliate Commission = £4.83

In the new model we would receive just £2.50, thats £2.33 worse per sale. Nearly 50% less.
To get the same now we would have to charge £19.32.

I am mightily pissed off after spending 3 months building this store and only launching 2 months ago.

Lena_Test_Spread_Group · February 5, 2020, 5:59pm

EDIT: The Men’s Shirt (ID 6) is now priced at £13.49. You would have to price it at £18.23 to receive the same amount (£4.83). But your customers can now add text or another design to the same print area to your product without costs increasing. Moreover, for many products the prices were considerably decreased. Maybe first have a thorough look at the new prices in the google sheet doc?

FlippinSweetGear · February 5, 2020, 7:06pm

I’m currently making $7.60 for a basic t-shirt at $19.99. $4.50 design markup + 20%.
With the new pricing, I’d have to sell it at $21.59 with a base price of $13.99 to make the same margin.
That stinks.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t continue marketing on FB and Google Shopping with those kinds of margins or increased price. I’m barely breaking even as it is after a few months going full steam. Perhaps a 20% bonus on sales from “embedded” shops would bring it back up to par for folks who are driving their own traffic. Otherwise, I suspect you’ll end up loosing in that space.

I get that the company is trying to increase revenue from shop sales, but unfortunately it’s not going to be from me.

snozip · February 5, 2020, 11:26pm

Not only are important products more expensive, but now the reward system is also worse. Since they are applied in the following month.

The base price of products will be lowered the month after a pay period during which you’ve met a volume tier.

Everyone has an increase in sales volume before Christmas and now the reward will apply in January, the month with the lowest sales. What a sneaky way Spreadshirt has found to lower our commissions.

plzLOOK · February 5, 2020, 11:50pm

Thanks Lena - I updated Chrome to the latest version and it all worked fine.

I agree with the other comments regarding prices, while some have gone down, the margins on t-shirts have pretty much halved at the same retail price.

Lena_Test_Spread_Group · February 6, 2020, 8:25am

This isn’t true. You must have misunderstood. The performance bonus works just as the Volume Commission does. At the end of a month it counts all of the sales within that month and the base prices get recalculated based on the Tier you’re in for that given month. So if you have many sales in December you will also very much profit of it within Decembe Hope this clears things up. More information can also be found here:

Lena_Test_Spread_Group · February 6, 2020, 8:35am

ChilliFox · February 6, 2020, 1:31pm

Hi, Can the commission be automatically set to profit not ‘not profit’… am sure the former is the default status of most shop owners…

Lena_Test_Spread_Group · February 6, 2020, 1:59pm

It’s not the default. If you previously had switched off your Affiliate Commission and only worked with the Design Price then you are automatically set to non-profit. But our developers just had a look and the non-profit option isn’t switched to default

User_NA-e0f6ab35 · February 6, 2020, 2:02pm

The Men’s Shirt (ID 6) is now priced at £13.40

Your information is incorrect, its not its showing at £13.40, its showing as this price £14.49

See this screenshot from my user area:

Lena_Test_Spread_Group · February 6, 2020, 2:19pm

Hi there, there seems to be a bug in the shop admin. We are very sorry and working on a fix. The correct pricing is the one in the google sheet and the one I mentioned: Prices GBP - Google Sheets

User_NA-e0f6ab35 · February 6, 2020, 2:36pm

Okay thats a start, I still think the statement in the announcement that this new system will enable better base prices is not borne out. For most people T Shirts are the mainstay.

However way you work out the figures, a base price of £13.40 is making Spreadshirt much higher cost than many other On Demand suppliers.

In our case we are selling band merchandise, we cannot simply up our prices to compensate as there is an industry level people will pay unless its a stadium selling act.

Fact is in the old system we made £4.83, now we will make £3.50. Thats not great.

I think as a company you have to be careful not to lose many shops who will simply go elsewhere in these very volatile times.

ChilliFox · February 6, 2020, 2:37pm

Hi Lena,

ok cool… may be good to let all partners know, as having just design price does not mean you would like nothing from your sales So, might be good to set it as off in all cases. btw found a bug where unless you delete pound sign as well and refill with new price, it sets it back to zero!

User_NA-e0f6ab35 · February 6, 2020, 3:01pm

Also can you clarify something. If I am selling to European customers and I set up a second store in Euros, the prices to me are in Euros. This works out better as the cost to me in £ is lower and means I can set better prices for € than if I let the conversion happen by locale.

Is this okay, can I do it this way? I presume we will be paid in Euros and PayPal will convert them?

Lena_Test_Spread_Group · February 6, 2020, 3:08pm

It was just fixed! Sorry again!

Lena_Test_Spread_Group · February 6, 2020, 3:10pm

Of course you can open a second store with prices in €
If you opened your account on partner.spreadshirt.co.uk then you’ll receive your payout in GBP!

User_NA-e0f6ab35 · February 6, 2020, 3:20pm

Okay, what will the conversion be based on though? I seem to remember you EUR to £ rate was pretty terrible.

No point going through all that if its bad…

Currently €5.50 commission = £4.50, what is the rate you use?
For the UK store we would receive £3.50