This FAQ section covers all the basic storefront info you'll need. Choose a link in our accordion menu to get started!
How exactly do I get started?
Well, just click this button:
Create Your Store
If you are not already signed in, clicking the button will prompt you to
sign into your account
or
create an account.
Next you will be able to create a store URL, title, and description. You can also upload your own logo. Once your store is live, you can start adding designs!
To create a design, first
choose a blank item. Choosing an item will take you to the design center. Create your design and click the "Save" button.
When saving your design, you will be able to add a name and a description, and you will also see a share option. Choose "post to storefront" and that is it!
Why choose Customized Girl for my storefront?
The best selection of trendy styles.
We are Customized
Girl
after all.
We have to offer the biggest selection of customizable
women's styles
on the internet. Plus tons of great
accessories
like socks, hats, and more. Just all kinds of
amazing stuff!
Huge royalty rates.
You can earn up to 30% per sale.
We looked at the margin for each item and set the royalty as high as we could. Royalty rates range from 10 to 30%.
See which items earn the most.
Quality.
"I am beyond pleased at the quality of the shirts and the printing. I was bragging to people on the printing process just this past weekend at a race."
-Quote from
Pink Runner Girl
See how we do it.
Total customization.
Every design is customizable in our easy-to-use design center. Do your customers want to add their own unique spin? A name or jersey number or just something personal? It's not only possible, it's easy.
-Design from
Mom Means Business
It's free and easy.
"I do have an online store on
my website
but the problem there is I have to print a zillion shirts and mail them when they sell. I have boxes upon boxes of shirts just sitting here so your site is PERFECT! Thank you again!"
-Quote from
Team Destination You
Let's talk about other storefront platforms. There are two main competitors. One has a royalty rate of 10%. The other has a default royalty rate of 5%. (Keep in mind, our rates range from 10 to 30%!) Now, on this other site, you can choose to raise your royalty rate above 5%. But as soon as you do this, the price goes up too.
So on this other site, you have a situation where your item is on sale for, let's say, $30. But your customer might think: "Huh. I can just start from scratch, recreate this design, and get it for $25." At Customized Girl, we're totally avoiding this scenario.
This idea of removing any incentive for the customer to "start from scratch" is critical, because not all of our store owners are graphic designers. They don't all use Photoshop or Illustrator. Thanks to our design center, they don't have to! They create amazing stuff just using the Add Text and Add Art tabs within our design tool. And frankly, it is possible to start from scratch and replicate a design. But the customer never would, because there is no incentive.
This is all a way of saying:
You don't have to be a graphic designer to launch a storefront!
Of course, you graphic artists are welcome too. We're opening up storefronts to everyone. If you have a great idea for a design, you can make it in our easy-to-use design center.
Other reasons to choose Customized Girl:
- Use our embed feature to easily add your designs to your own website.
- Integrate with Google Analytics to easily see more data like visits and traffic sources.
- We offer a wealth of information for creating and promoting great designs.
- We launched our storefront platform in mid-2014 and total revenue from orders with storefront designs has totaled $5,274,456.07 (through Jan 2020).
So join us! You're doing great things. We're doing great things. Let's combine forces!
Create Your Store
Will my designs be added to the Customized Girl gallery?
We have disabled the Storefront & Gallery option. Right now you will only see an option to save your design to Storefront Only.
How do I get paid?
Two options:
PayPal
or a Customized Girl gift card.
To view and redeem earnings, go to
My Account
and then Redeem My Earnings
If you don't already have a PayPal account, you can
create one. It's easy and free. You will be asked to enter an email address.
Earnings move from "pending" to "redeemable" 30 days after the order is placed. (This is because we offer a 30 day return policy.)
Redeemable earnings can be claimed right away in the form of a Customized Girl gift card. Or you can use PayPal, once you have $30 in the redeemable column.
If you've only just built your store, your Earnings page will have sections explaining the Gift Card and PayPal options, but it will not yet contain the field for entering your PayPal address. (See this
link for more info.)
How much can I earn?
The royalty rate depends on the item. Right now, it ranges from 10% to 30%. We want to pay you as much as we can. Some items have higher margins, so we can offer a higher royalty rate on those items.
You will see the royalty rate at the bottom of every product details page (
example) and also on the save page. (When you save a design, you will see "The royalty rate for this item is X%")
Tip: if you want to find low-priced items with high royalty rates, start with our Fruit of the Loom short sleeve tees.
You can see the items with
highest royalty rates here.
NOTE: Storefront royalties are no longer be compatible with large group discounts.
Once the discount is above 30%, your royalty rate will start to drop dramatically for that order. If the group discount gets up to 72%, the royalty rate will drop to 1%.
Why this update? Starting in 2020, we're launching
much steeper group discounts. We've only had a few store owners place group orders through their stores. For those store owners, the end price will be effectively the same. But now the price savings will now be in the group discount category, rather than the royalty category.
Where can I see my earnings?
View your earnings by going to My Storefront and then
My Sales.
You will see your lifetime earnings, followed by a list of your top ten designs by sales, followed by a list of your last 2,000 transactions.
You can see your pending earnings and redeemable earnings by going to My Storefront and then
Redeem Earnings.
When can I redeem my earnings?
To redeem your earnings, go to My Storefront and then choose
Redeem Earnings.
Your earnings are "pending" until 30 days after the order is placed. The 30 day window is just in case a customer cancels or returns that order.
After 30 days, your earnings will move from the
pending
column to the
redeemable
column. You can immediately redeem those earnings with a Customized Girl gift card.
To redeem by PayPal, you must have at least $30 in the redeemable column.
Why does this royalty amount look odd in my earnings report?
Let's say you created a design and put it on a $30 sweatshirt, and that sweatshirt has a royalty setting of 15%. You might expect to earn $4.50 with each sale.
But keep in mind, we are always going to give you 15%
of whatever the customer pays for that item
.
For example, if the customer adds a design to the back, they will pay $37.50. If they get an 3XL too, they might pay $39.50. In that case, you will earn $5.93 for that sale. If they buy five of those sweatshirts, you will earn $29.63.
If they use a coupon code, or if their order qualifies for group discounts, the price-per-item will be lower.
Also, it's possible that a customer might love your design, customize it in the design center, and use the Swap Out Item tab to put that design on a different item, like a coffee mug. If that mug is $15.00 with a 12% royalty, then that is why you see $1.80 as your royalty.
NOTE: Storefront royalties are no longer be compatible with large group discounts.
Learn more here.
How do I put my designs in a certain order?
When viewing your storefront, you will see a little "sequencing points" field under each design. The default point total is zero. If all your designs have a point total of zero, and you want to get a design to first place, just add a number more than zero. Then click the Save Sequencing button.
We recommend leaving a numerical gap between your designs. For example, give your first place design 90,000 points. Give your second place design 80,000 points. Then, in a few weeks, when you add a new design and you want it to rank in second place, give it 85,000 points. This way, you can always fit any design into any slot.
This field allows for up to five digits, so the max point total is 99,999.
How can I organize my designs?
We always recommend creating unique designs and adding unique design names and descriptions to match. Write something thorough and creative.
Then, you will be able to use the search feature within your storefront to group certain designs by keyword. Let's say the person who runs the
TeesAndTanks store wants to promote their George Washington designs. They can simply search "washington" within their store,
copy the URL, and share it online.
Now, when you're saving your design, you will see two "share" options:
- Post to Storefront Only
- Keep Private
If you want to sequence your designs within your store, please see our
Sequencing FAQ.
Do my designs have to show up in my store?
No. When saving your design, you will see two "share" options:
- Post to Storefront Only
- Keep Private
If you choose Post to Storefront, your design must first pass through an approval process to make sure there are no copyright or other issues.
If you choose Keep Private, your design will not show up in your store or gallery. You will be able to find it by going to My Account > My Saved Designs. Also, your design will not go through the approval process, and thus will not be eligible to earn a royalty.
I just saved a design but I don't see it on my storefront?
Every design must be approved before it gets published to your storefront. We approve designs Monday through Friday between 8am and 5pm ET.
When approving designs, we basically just want to make sure your design does not contain any violations of copyright or inappropriate content. Please don't take things from the internet (photos, artwork, images, etc.) and upload them to your designs. The original creator of that art owns the copyright, and would not be acceptable to sell someone else's art on our apparel.
The only exception to this rule is artwork that is now in the
public domain. Most works before 1900 (or where the artist has been dead for 100 years) are in the public domain. To see some great titles currently in the public domain, check out our
Literature
subcategory.
You can see more info about why designs get marked as "not approved" over
here in our advanced user FAQ.
Please note, if you edit your design, it will return to "pending mode" and go live once it is approved again.
What if someone customizes one of my designs?
You still get paid. It doesn't matter how much they change it. If they enter the design center by customizing your design, and add something to their cart, you earn the royalty.
They can also save the design. If they save it privately, you will still get the royalties every time it is ordered.
We have processes in place to prevent another user from saving your design to their own storefront. If you do notice someone copying your designs, please contact us right away: CGstores@eretailing.com.
How can you offer such trendy styles?
Because we want to! We're Customized Girl. We have an obligation to offer the latest, trendiest styles.
However, that does come with a price. Please understand that some trends come and go. It's possible a manufacturer might, someday, stop making a certain style. In that case, your design will be automatically changed to "private". You can go to My Designs > Edit Design > Use the Swap Out Item tab to choose an active item > Save it.
It's also possible a manufacturer might stop carrying a certain color. We will try to put your design on the next-closest color for you.
Sidenote: because you might someday want to swap your design from one item to another item, it is a good idea to avoid putting too many "product details" into the "design description" field. On your design's page, we will automatically display up-to-date product info if you use the Swap Out Item tab. There is no need to duplicate that product info. Please use the "design description" field to describe the design, and not so much the product.