I suppose it could be useful, if one could make PDF documents of small selections of products which one could email to people or even print out.

However with over 16,000 products in my store and 538 pages. With the color cartridges for my Epson printer costing over 40 UKP about $60 USD a set and a capacity to print about 15 pages in my experience. From my calculations it would cost me 1434.66 UKP or $2259.35 USD to print one PDF catalog. Something tells me I'm not going to be printing many of these catalogs Even with much cheaper bulk printing it still wouldn't cost effective.

Of course the other problem is if one wanted to print these catalogs the images would need to be 300 dpi in order to achieve high quality printing which means the PDF files would be quite large and very likely too big to distribute by email and it's probably not a good idea to distribute high resolution images of one's work in any case. OTOH if the images were 72 dpi they would be too small to print.

So generally I don't think it would be particularly practical or cost effective means of publicizing one's store. I would think ordering some flyers or business cards from Zazzle would make more sense.

In some ways, although there are still catalog stores and companies which sell via mail order catalog, one could argue printed catalogs are a relic of a pre-internet, pre-ecommerce age, when that was the only means available for companies to sell on a national or multi-national scale. They were only ever cost effective for very large mail order companies because of economies of scale. I think one could argue printed catalogs will eventually become completely obsolete.

OTOH the Internet and Print on demand has made worldwide distribution networks accessible to any one. In many ways it seems a bit pointless to hark back to an obsolete technology which wasn't and isn't particularly cost effective for small businesses or individuals which the Internet is fast making an irrelevance. IMO one would be better off embracing the limitless possibilities which technology has given, than hark back to an obsolete highly limited technology which has no real future in a post Internet age.

Well my store is quite small compared to some. There are stores with 150,000 products and 30k or 40k isn't that uncommon I've got lots of catching up to do. With those kind of numbers it probably wouldn't be practical for Zazzle to provide PDF catalogs of entire stores. The server resources necessary to provide such huge PDF files would probably be prohibitive

However if one is thinking in terms of a smaller catalogs with 20 or 30 products max that might be useful. As you say there are people who don't use the Internet much.

That said they would still have to use the Internet to order anything and have a credit or debit card. So a paper catalog still wouldn't function as a traditional mail order catalog. So if people are living that far in the past, have no Internet access and an aversion to technology they are not going to be able to order anything from Zazzle and a paper catalog isn't going to change that.

But I dare say there is some point in having some form of printed publicity material for one's store even if it's only a business card. Of course since it would only be practical to print small catalogs it wouldn't be that difficult to make some kind of small catalog by copying and pasting images from one's store laying it out in a DTP program e.g. CorelDraw and publishing it to PDF oneself

Most libraries these days offer some form of internet access, which is always another avenue of accessiblity for those that don't have 'net access at their residence.

As far as the initial query, though, I would say it's a burden that wouldn't really provide a significant return on investment for Zazzle proper. Chalk it up to an operation expense (advertising) for any shopkeeper that decides to use the offline advertising method.

I can understand the advantages of emailing a PDF file (which also gives the recipient the option of only printing out the particular page(s) with things they are interested in). That alleviates a number of overhead cost areas.

Bottom line ~ I wouldn't think it would be in Zazzle's business interest to offer up something like that.

Who said anything about starting a drop-ship business ? Read what was said and not between the lines. I said if "A" which means "ONE" not a whole business. So someone that has internet service and buys a tee and you make say $3 off it is better then someone that you do a little extra for and say charge them an extra $2 so now you made $5 for an extra few mins work. And again read what was written, not what you want to see, I said order it and ship it to their address, in other words, order it from Zazzle and put THEIR address as the ship to. I really shouldn't have to spell it out. It was written rather simply, you have a habit of making more out of what was said. No you wouldn't want to do this all the time, I'm only talking about the occasional sale made this way, just incase you need clarification.

Unbelievable, unless I'm mistaken a drop shipment is when it's sent to you then you ship it to the customer. I specifically said put their address as the "Ship To" so it doesn't get sent to you, it goes to them. But then again I know I'm wasting my time because you'll read into this what you want it to be. Done wasting my time, you obvious know everything there is to know so yet again I'm wasting my time.

Fnolan - when you have something dropshipped to a customer for you - the product is never in your hands. Dropshipped means you are having the supplier send it directly to your customer for you

I was a proseller on eBay for 3 years with an account at 2 dropship companies. I advertised on eBay, collected the money, placed the orders and had the companies send the merchandise directly to the customer. That's what dropshippers do, as artberry said.

The whole point of a dropshipper is that you have no need to invest in and handle inventory.

Where did I say it was a "stupid" idea?

I just pointed out it would be a bit impractical with larger stores to provide a printable PDF file of all the items and expensive to print very large catalogs.

That's not to say it wouldn't work on a smaller scale or wouldn't be a useful feature.

It was then suggested paper catalogs might be useful for people who haven't got a computer and don't use the Internet. However I pointed out they would still need to access to the Internet and a credit card to order anything, to which you suggested a drop shipping arrangement.

I agree a drop shipping arrangement would work. But since you were suggesting doing it for a small number of people e.g familly, friends or acquaintances that would tend to negate the need for paper catalogs and mass distribution, because in that instance one could invite them round for tea and show them products on one's computer. Or even on a hand held device such as a Smart phone.

There's also the aspect although I believe Zazzle will drop ship. Since Zazzle isn't a wholesaler and prices are not particularly low. Whilst drop shipping may work in a small way to order things on behalf of family members, friends and acquaintances. I doubt it would be particularly worth one's while or profitable on a larger scale. Although there may be exceptions with Premium items such as framed prints.

Of course I'm assuming people want to make money and see their Zazzle store as a business or part of a business. But I dare say some people may have a different approach and not be so concerned with profit motivations and simply see it as a way to share their work, which is fair enough. But I dare say if someone is looking into the possibility of distributing PDF files or printed catalogs as a means of mass marketing I think it's fairly safe to assume there's a profit motive in there somewhere

Sorry you thought I sounded a bit negative. But if one is looking at possible ways to make money I dare say one has to be realistic and examine whether an idea is practical or not.

I know you were and don't blame you for not getting anymore involved. I'm not wasting any more time on this either.

I do apologize to the original poster for this post going way off track of what was originally being asked.