Andy Mercer's Art Blog..... so there !: February 2009

Sunday, 22 February 2009

Red Bubble v Zazzle

I'm a Red Bubble fan. I love its youthful unfussy non elitist approach. It feels to me like some skateboarder's got together to create a "cool dude art site". Its still feels a bit like some "coding freaks" are running it from a basement with every art work on the planet rammed into a couple of red hot servers which double up as coffee warmers and are held together by smelly socks.. and bits a string. And you don't get customer service in the evening because they've all gone to the beach for a party. And they think its "koowl" that they've conquered the internet art world...
I know it can't possibly be.

The downside is that I think RB's print options are way too limited.. for anyone wanting to sell a quality product.

Red Bubble hasn't cottoned on to the norm in business of treating your customers like idiots.. and avoiding blame at all costs. They have even shared their RB's sales statistics broken down into "pie" charts. Their prints and canvas prints are surprisingly low when compared to T shirts etc.. which just goes to show that buyers (including artists buying their own work for exhibition) are not using RB. So for me they are missing a huge chunk of potential business.

At Zazzle (which I don't really take that seriously as an "art" site) they have a range of quality papers and sizes.. up to "pretty darned massive". If you could combine Zazzle's print options with RB's youthful irreverence I think BubZaz would clean up.

Andy Mercer's Art