I would like to know how I can drive traffic to my shop. Does anyone have Ideas on how I can promote my shop locally. Also would it be a good Idea to create unannounced logo's for potential clients, put the designs on merchandise on my cafepress site and email them your website and see what they think. I know this is kind of going a little far. But does anyone think this is a good idea. Keith at cajun storks and more.

I probably would spend time designing something for someone that doesnt want it. You can try online advertising on several t-shirt ranking sites and also if you just search for free advertising there are a ton of discussions about it in these cafepress forums.

I've never sold to local stores, but I've sold to local softball teams. It's difficult. You have to master the intricacies of bulk sales. You get a LOT of input about changes to the image. It's difficult to replace items that you bought through the bulk sales process but the customer wants exchanged. And you're just so damned available. I prefer the arm's length distance of the Internet.