Our extended phone case kickoff is coming to an end this Monday (Dec. 5). If you’ve already added a few phone case designs to the site, thank you! Every new phone case product counts as an entry for the giveaway up to the maximum of 10 entries. The winner will be chosen and notified next week.
If you haven’t submitted anything yet, you still have time. You can convert an old design or send a new one.
There are rumors that retail stores have begun playing Christmas music and selling all manner of year-end paraphernalia. We give no credence to these rumors, but they must be acknowledged. Naturally, Cotton Bureau is deep into planning and executing our own brilliant plan to take over the world promote your many wonderful designs. We can reveal, however, that focusing on discounts was not an accident. We want you to have all the tools you need to spread the word. We’ll be doing the same on our end with the usual assortment of promotions, giveaways, and relentless social media pressure. There will be free shipping. There will be surgically-timed campaigns targeting those among us who wait until the very last minute to take care of shopping for loved ones.
In order to be as aggressive as possible this year (which is to say, still quite conservative by the door-busting standards of the greater internet), we’re taking advantage of our new discounts infrastructure to carve up the discount responsibility among multiple parties. Historically, site-wide discounts have been an all-or-nothing nothing affair, with Cotton Bureau taking the “all” and sellers the “nothing”. Honestly, that has severely limited our ability to grab shoppers’ attention with attractive promotions. We’d like to change that.
After accounting for costs, inflation, the rotational axis of earth, gravity, windage, and myriad other factors, we’ve come to the decision that a 50/50 split on general sales and promotions is the most equitable distribution, with the proviso that your share of the discount will never exceed 50% of your cut. As a concrete example, if Cotton Bureau ran a 12 hour and 21 minute winter solstice flash sale on December 21 for 21% off, a seller with the standard $5 cut on a t-shirt would be responsible for: $30 × 21% × 50% or $3.15. With the 50% cut cap, that would be reduced to $2.50 with Cotton Bureau covering the other $3.80 of the customer discount. Similarly, the math for a hoodie would be $45 × 21% × 50% or $4.73, reduced to $2.50.
We see enhanced site discounts as a classic Michael Scott win-win-win. Creators win with additional sales, customers win with better prices, and Cotton Bureau wins too, for having successfully mediated a conflict at work. In our opinion, promotions should be strategic, relatively infrequent, variable, and highly motivating. We hope that by nudging the site slightly more in the direction of customer-friendly discounts, we’ll be able to deliver a better experience across the board. As usual, hit us up with your feedback. We’re in this together.
The friends and family discount is back! OG Cotton Bureaucrats will remember the friends and family discount code tucked deep inside their accounts, reserved for only the nearest and dearest in your life. As of a few weeks ago, that code (the same one) is back, to be used at your discretion. Your code, should you choose to accept it, is located in the new-and-improved discounts section of your account. You should see it right away, but if you happen to have lots of discounts associated with your account, simply type “friends” in the filter box to hide the clutter.
Now, a few important notes regarding your friends and family discount code:
— The code is good for 10% off any item in your store. However much that turns out to be based on the item price will be deducted from your payout automatically.
— This code is private. It’s up to you to decide how much or how little to share it. We will never share your friends and family code.
— The code can be disabled, by you, at any time, using the new discount details view. Just click the discount code in the table, then find the “enable discount” toggle at the bottom to activate or deactivate your code.
— Speaking of the discount details view, you can see total uses, uses remaining, discount type, and a few other helpful details. More features and statistics surely to come in good time.
In addition to the friends and family discount code that is available to all creators, we were able to bring back an even more beloved discount type: free stuff.
Like the free sandwich card at your local sub shop, we’re punching tickets every time you make a sale. Make your first 10 sales? Free on demand t-shirt or phone case for you or a lucky person of your choosing. Get to 25 sales, same thing, another free shirt or case. Any on demand or pre-order campaign product in your collection is eligible, excluding only fleece. (We’re not made of money!)
And it doesn’t end at 25 sales. We’re also sending free item codes out at 75, 100, 150, and every 50 sales after that. Earlier this month all sellers received emails containing their earned codes for 2022 (maximum 10 codes). Going forward, however, there’s no limit. You’ll get an email every 50th eligible sale. Codes are also visible in your account, just like the friends and family discount. If you missed the email, be sure to check to see if you have any free item codes waiting for you. Free shirts and cases are 100% on us, including shipping.
While we’re excited about the improvements to discounts we were able to add this month, we’re far from finished. If you have particular feature requests, you know where to direct them.
This is not a drill. A phone case is only as good as the phone it’s… encasing, so we want you to have nothing but the best.
We are giving away a brand-new iPhone 14 Pro to one Cotton Bureau designer.
Starting right now and ending 11:59 PM ET on Monday, December 5, create one new phone case, get one contest entry. Create two new phone case products, get two contest entries. One entry per design, maximum 10 entries (no limit on the number of new products you create though, go wild). The winner will be randomly selected and contacted the week of December 5th.
These cases are phenomenal, but they’re pretty boring without your equally fantastic designs on them. We want to see people with them in their hands this holiday season. We need your help to do that, and we’re willing to bribe you. We’re not above a little bribery.
Go forth, create new products and convert the old. One is silver and the other gold.
(If you need help — or have questions — just email us. Operators are standing by.)
Once upon a time, the only thing you could buy on Cotton Bureau was a t-shirt. Like literally a t-shirt. One t-shirt. If you were the person selling this t-shirt, you would grab the link and send it to your people. You would say something like, “Here is my t-shirt! It’s available in any color you want, as long as you like black. Please buy it now, because it will be available for just two weeks.” Or whatever. Nobody would show up on your profile page only to be immediately overwhelmed by the sheer number of always available products you had for sale.
It was a nice system, people liked it. But for reasons good and proper, our little Cotton Bureau pre-order machine has mutated, growing sideways, outwards, and in more than a few odd, unpredictable directions: sweatshirts here, stickers, hats, totes, and posters there, phone cases everywhere. Thus, we present searching, sorting, and filtering for stores. Just like the home page, anyone browsing your catalog can now (we hope) find exactly what they want.
Suppose we spin the wheel of mystery. The wheel lands on Adam Selby’s store. A quick tour shows the new sort options up top: newest, most popular now, and random. Down the left hand column (or just below the sorting if you are on mobile) are filters for category (apparel or phone cases) and availability (on demand or pre-order). Jumping into a category reveals additional filters like color, material, and cut. Search has also been added. Perhaps your outie likes Severance.
While we’re talking store improvements, it’s worth noting a few small bug fixes / philosophical changes. Out of stock or otherwise unavailable items are now listed last, and stores with more than 50 products are paginated to making loading snappier.
Don’t forget, people can also sign up to be notified when you release a new product. It’s in that little box on the left or in the expanded profile on mobile.
Standard Cotton Bureau stores weren’t the only ones to receive an upgrade, however. In addition to the features mentioned already, premium accounts like Letterboxd are now able to choose one (or more) products to feature. Behind the scenes, premium and standard accounts have been brought closer together in the code, which allows us to develop new features for both more efficiently. Premium accounts gained the new product subscription box this round, but free accounts may see features begin to trickle down.
Everybody has been talking about our new phone cases, saying things like “these are great” and “how did you do this???” We like to let our work speak for itself, but… we agree. These are great. The print color, quality, and vibrancy is 🤌. If you haven’t added a phone case (or 10) yet, what are you waiting for? Existing products can be migrated in two minutes or less, and we’re standing by to help if you have any questions. Heck, we’ll convert them for you ourselves if you want, just say the word.
If you haven’t stopped by the home page in the last few weeks, you’ve missed out on a few of my lowkey favorite changes. The featured product carousel is new and improved with more accent colors, and the default product list is a randomized collection of our favorite designs over the years. It’s a tough list to crack, but we’re adding more every week. Show us what you’ve got. We want to feature the very best.
Such a lovely question. The answer is… well, you’re going to have to wait and see. Holidays are approaching muy rapido. If all goes according to plan, we’ll be leaning into that with our next update. See you in four weeks 😉.