United Kingdom
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 our team. 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.
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.
Fill out the form on this page to create your account. You’ll get a verification email and once you verify your account, you’re ready to go!
We pay our artists through PayPal, within 14 days of successful delivery of an order.
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.
In short, yes. We do run promotions either temporarily or permanently on a product so it's sold for a lower price, which usually results in a higher amount of sales. This will result in a slightly lower commission, but should also increase your sales, so it won't massively impact your total profit.
The copyright to your intellectual property remains yours. You must be the originator of any image you upload to Contrado. If you use an image you do not own the copyright of, Contrado reserves the right to remove your products & stores.
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.
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.
Yes, we have a non-exclusive licence agreement with our creatives, which means you’re free to use your work elsewhere.
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.
Yes, with
most of our products you can choose whether you want to upload your own label
or have no label at all, rather than have the Contrado label. To set up
your brand name and logo, visit our branding section. You can even create a personalised thank you
message for further branding.
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.
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.
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 us for advice.
Creatives of all levels can sign up for a seller account and start a store with Contrado, we want to support you no matter where you are on your journey. If your store is public you can share and sell through your storefront.
Our marketplace is curated, and we review and add new stores regularly based on the quality of designs and content. As we have so many new stores and stores under development, you must have 20 products or more in your store for your products to appear in our marketplace.
Here you can add and edit your personal and business details.
We make over 450 products, so you’re spoilt for choice. These choices need careful consideration.
Go to your account and 'create new'.
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.
Our Product
Mockup Generator streamlines designing for you. After you’ve designed a product
to add to your store, you’ll get to a page where you can set pricing, write
product descriptions and add your design to any of our other 450+ products.
Simply click ‘Add’ for the products you’d like to add and they will instantly
be generated with the same design.
After you
add a product, click ‘Review’ to edit the design. Here, you can select or
change the background colour, pattern repeat style, and change the size of your
design. You can also view each panel of the product if it has multiple panels.
When you’re finished, just click ‘Confirm Design’ and it will be added to your
store.
By using
our Product Mockup Generator, you can design hundreds of products at once and
add them to a collection in your store.
You'll notice if you go to the 'My Stores' tab in your account and click 'Design Product' that there's a 'Limited Edition' tab. You can use this tab to create limited edition products where only a set number are available to buy. Once they're sold out, they're gone forever, promoting your most exclusive designs and creating urgency for your customers to buy. Each limited edition product comes with its own Certificate of Authenticity, giving your customers a premium experience every time they buy. If you have a Contrado store, you can either activate the limited edition feature for existing products or create a new limited edition product.
To start, head to the 'Limited Edition' tab in your account. You can start by customising the Certificate of Authenticity with your signature. A rendering of the limited edition product will automatically add to the left side of the certificate.
Then click 'Product Pricing' to access your bulk product price editor. Here, you can activate or deactivate the limited edition feature for any products in your Contrado store. As you activate it, you'll be able to set the limited edition price and quantity. Then, you can review the Certificate and finish activating your product. In 'Product Pricing' you'll be able to monitor the quantity of your limited edition products, and it will automatically update every time you make a sale.
Initially, the number of products you can design is limited. This is due to our standard of quality not quantity. You will receive an extra product for every product description with a green score on the meter.
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 ‘Fix Design’ 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.
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. Please note: Your products will require a green score in the
descriptions to be indexed and will not be indexed in search engines
automatically. 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. Content quality Look for a green light next to your product. Our traffic light system analyses your content for grammar, spelling, readability, active voice, duplicate content, title, and description quality. If you’ve got a red or yellow light, review these elements of your content. Once you get a green light, keep going! Use keywords in your product title Organize your titles with the product name first, then the description. This is the best way to optimise your sales. For example: Silk Cushion Geometric Lines. Have a bit of fun with the description and let your customers know how unique your product is. Search engines, like Google, look for keywords and key phrases on web-pages. If you want customers to find your bomber jacket you need to include a keyword like ‘bomber jacket’ in the product title and description. Key phrases are better than keywords. Using strings of descriptive keywords will help your product be found. In the above example, ‘silk cushion’ will get your page higher up the results than ‘cushion’ and ‘silk cushion floral’ is even better. 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. This means any descriptions that have been borrowed from other product pages (even your own) will flag up as duplicated copy. The simple solution is to write unique descriptions for each product, while this seems time-consuming, it can really help sales. 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. Content volume matters Not too much, not too little. You have about 70-150 words to sell your product. Search engines will skip your page if there isn’t enough copy to satisfy it so utilise all your space. Make sure to describe the product features, your design, the look & feel of the product if you’ve sampled it, and why a customer should buy your product over another. Don’t sell yourself short; you’ve got a quality product with a quality design. All you have to do is tell the world! 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 but don’t use slang or nonsense words. Sentences with less than 20 words are considered the most readable. Be confident, descriptive, and informative. Utilise active voice instead of passive. Don’t mention any contact information or website links. Triple check your spelling and grammar. Mistakes are the easiest way to lose a sale. 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. 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. 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. One key term is too lonely and three’s a crowd.
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:
Integrating your Contrado store with your Facebook and Instagram accounts enables you to create a section on your profile where customers can shop your products and be directed to your Contrado store. You will also be able to tag products in photos so that your followers can shop right from your posts.
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 be 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.
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!
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:
