Very interesting blog. Yeah, you have a point on the community front. I guess it’s a challenge for Spreadshirt, Cafepress and the rest to give their partners more and more features that allow them generate a real community on their sites.

How would you see a small site like mine generate this type of community feel? By allowing visitors rate, suggest products. Add commmenting etc?

Firstly thanks for taking the time to comment its great to get some discussion going and the differing viewpoints make interesting reading. I was never trying to say that there is no place for Spreadshirt, they are fantastic at what they do, look how quickly they dislodged the dinosaur that is Cafepress. My point was more that the marketplace is incredibly crowded partly to do with the fact that Spreadshirt has made it easy to run a web store. In this new enviroment I was trying to promote the idea that good products might not be enough, that companies should be thinking about real stickyness achieved I believe through interactivity and community, This sort of loyalty I don;t believe branding alone can offer. I’m now setting up some interviews with Spreadshirt and I can’t to get their take on the industry.

I think that would actually be a bad thing – if you are the smaller brand/co and the backend company you are using tries to establish a direct relationship with your customer.