Contrado is an aspirational fashion, home, and lifestyle brand; together with talented designers we've been turning their creative visions into high quality products, since 2002. All our products are handmade to order in our West London factory. Our facility encompasses all our printing, garment sewing and product manufacturing teams; this makes us a unique resource for makers and means your orders are produced to an excellent standard, usually within a couple of days. Our design, product development, customer service, marketing and production teams are all under one roof, so it’s quick and easy for us to communicate and keep you informed about what’s going on.
Our online platform showcases our product range of well over 200 products and this is where shoppers and collectors will discover your brand and artwork. You have complete control over the store build and product design process, whilst receiving advice and instruction from one of our expert Artist Relations’ consultants. We already distribute internationally, reach a global market, and have nine language territories to sell your work. We curate our marketplace to ensure visitors get the best designs and artwork and so you don’t feel like a drop in the ocean.
How does it work?
You design your products online and build your own branded online store. We help you market your collections and we handle payments through our checkout. We then produce and ship your designs; most products are ready to ship directly to your customers within 48 hours.
How do I get paid?
We pay our artists through PayPal, within 14 days of successful delivery of an order.
Who owns the copyright of imagery I upload?
You do, 100%.
When you make a sale through your Contrado store, you'll earn at least 20% of the ex VAT sale price. You set the price, so if you charge a little more, you'll earn a higher percentage of the sale price.
I have an established website, can I sell through there?
Yes of course, if you prefer to drive traffic and sales through an alternative store front, we'd love to help. We can ship in bulk to you or directly to your customer.
Do you offer wholesale pricing?
Yes, as a seller you get exclusive access to our wholesale discounts. If you want to sell at an event or want to get the best price per unit and carry stock; our wholesale system will help.
Can I use my designs elsewhere?
Yes, we have a non-exclusive licence agreement with our creatives, which means you’re free to use your work elsewhere.
Do you offer white labelling or private labelling?
Yes, with most of our garments you can choose whether you want to upload your own label or have no label at all, rather than have the Contrado label. Please be aware that the image you upload for your label will apply to the whole product and all of its options. Due to this we would advise not including information like sizing on your label image.
What business and marketing support do you offer?
We offer a broad range of support to our creatives. We understand every artist and each brand is different; we have many experts on hands to offer advice tailored to your approach. Whether you want to drive sales online, take your products to markets and exhibitions, or offer one-off bespoke pieces for your client base: we’re here to help you maximise your success.
Do I get a discount?
Of course! Our creatives receive between 20% and 40% discount on most of their orders, depending on which products they are ordering and how many.
What does the future hold for Contrado?
Many
exciting and beautiful things. We're planning to maintain our recent, rapid
growth and broaden our range of services and products. The best is yet to come!
One of the great assets you get with us is our ability to work quickly and efficiently. All our manufacturing is in one place and that means no sending of your work to 3rd parties, no supply chain delays, and a far higher ability to maintain QC standards. It also means we can manage our own workflow well. Generally, our products are made and dispatched within a couple of days.
Please note: because we work quickly you must be certain that what you have published for sale, or have submitted for print is exactly as you want it to look. There is little or no opportunity to edit it once a buyer has bought the design or you’ve placed your order. We will print what you’ve designed on screen; please double check everything and make sure it is perfect!
If you edit an existing product this will affect following sales, so if a customer bought one design before, then you tweak the same product in your design account, the newer version will be the next one for sale. That means you need to consider consistency, though it’s best to get it right first time. Fabric samples and test pieces help you refine the design, you can also speak to Artist Relations for advice.
Here you can add and edit your personal and business details.
We make over 200 products, so you’re spoilt for choice. These choices need careful consideration.
Go to ‘my products’ and click ‘create products’.
Our online design interface gives you a huge amount of control over the product design, which means you can design more freely.
Head to 'my stores' to create edit your store front.
The product page is a very important page, it is often where customers decide to make a purchase. You can control the price, title, description and product options here.
Before posting some products for sale, you’ll need to check, tweak and confirm designs for each size option.
Our system checks your products' designs when you add them to your store. If it’s not ready for sale, check the ‘Design Errors’ tab to find out why. Below are a few common issues:
Our pattern design system makes it easy for you to upload a single tile and create seamless patterns across fabrics and other products. Your customers can then choose the fabric type, set the size and purchase from you.
We want you to be successful, and that means you need sales. We selected you after all, so lets make it happen by ensuring your on page information works, that it sells and informs, persuades and entices readers to buy your amazing product and designs.
The titles and descriptions throughout your Contrado store are really important, as they are read, not just by potential customers but also by the search engines. The search engines 'robots' will crawl and read your pages to work out if the content is worthy of listing in their search results. You need to help your store be discovered by customers searching to buy products. You do that by writing good titles and copy.
This section will help you be a copywriting wizard.
Know a new best friend: Search Engine Optimisation.
Although its name, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), may not sound too exciting, it’s worth learning the magic behind it. SEO is one of the most powerful tools you’ll have for increasing your pages’ traffic and it doesn’t need to cost you anything.
Here are a few tips to help make your copywriting go from a poor party trick to a spell binding, jaw-dropping show-stopper.
Your product titles need key terms
Search engines, like Google, look for keywords and key terms on web-pages. If you want customers to find your bomber jacket you need to include ‘bomber jacket’ in the product title and description. Key terms are better than keywords. Using strings of descriptive keywords will help your product be found; ‘Silk cushion’ will get your page higher up the results than ‘cushion’ and ‘floral silk cushion’ is even better.
Don’t go too crazy
You only need two to tango. Only use two key terms per product page, make sure they are relevant to the product. One is too lonely and three’s a crowd.
Try some role-play
Imagine you are a customer searching for your product. What would you search in Google to find it? This role playing is the best way to think of appropriate key terms.
Use key terms in the descriptions
Key terms should appear in the descriptions as well as the title. They only need to appear once or twice, so don’t stuff the descriptions with the same terms, and take care to write as naturally as you can.
Content volume matters
Not too much, not too little. Search engines will skip your page if there isn’t enough copy to satisfy a page reader. Though don’t write too much as this will send the customers who find your page to sleep. It has to fit the page, look good and be enticing to read. That takes a bit of effort, but really is worth it.
Use your own voice
These are your products and your store: you are the best person to speak about your work. Use your natural tone of voice whilst writing, but don’t use slang or nonsense words. Be confident, descriptive, and informative. Let the customers know how great your designs on this product are, how they were made and someone should buy them. Triple check your spelling and grammar. Mistakes are the easiest way to lose a sale.
Different products need different copy
It sounds obvious but don’t copy and paste; search engines will ignore sites which have many pages with the same words duplicated. Copywriting can be a joy - find your creative urge, it's your baby, so tell people how the product is worthy with your design. Take it in stages you’ll quickly get it. Boil it down, polish it, and go back and revise again. The best person to tell the world about your designs is you, so make the effort here - it is worth it.
For full information about wholesale accounts see here.
As a Contrado Creative you get access to our exclusive wholesale pricing. It’s all automated and means you can order you own pieces for discounted prices, whether you’re looking for a few samples to take to a photoshoot; supplying a client or retailer; or taking your products to sell at a market, pop up or exhibition.
The best person to tell the world about your artwork is you. We promote our artists through many digital marketing channels, SEO, PPC, social, influencers and PR. There are many channels available through which you can spread the word about your store and sell your products:
The digital preview in the design interface is a fantastic tool to get an impression of how your product will come out. However, they are not exact representations of the finished piece and the product may vary slightly.
Please ensure the artwork you upload is as you want it to print. Any glitches or errors in your file may not but picked up when you print your product or a customer orders it. Designers are responsible for checking the artwork they upload to the products they design.
We try our best to reflect these variations in our product preview so that customers have the best idea of how the finished product will look and we always strive to achieve colours most true to your artwork. Materials of particular note that will affect the colours of your print are:
Please also read important information on colour variations here.
If you’re unsure which fabrics to choose, or offer for a product, it’s highly recommended that before ordering any full products that you order samples of your artwork on these fabrics.
If you have any further questions, which aren't answered by this guide, then please don't hesitate to get in touch with Artist Relations:
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