Swag, swag, swag...


Sorry, shameless bounce.


Where are we on this? Do we have a go ahead for setting up the competition?
 
Sinclair C5 wtf is that? * Googles * :blink: * reads wiki * ... THAT THING IS AWESOME!! DO WANT!! WITH A MODIFICATION IT CAN GO 240KM/H!! I would totally buy that shirt, but someone needs to Photoshop Craig jumping it over something or maybe through a hoop of fire. And he needs to be holding a Pandora which he is delivering... OMG I just had an even better idea! He could be jumping over that volcano witch messed up the schedule a while back! :eek:
 
At least with spreadshirt you can set your own profit-margin per product.
 
vadsamoht said:
A Quick google search gives me the impression that most people are plased with their service, etc. My one worry, however, would be that there is only a 5% profit per shirt, and as most seem to be priced around $20, that's only $1 per unit.
Click to expand...

I think that if you go with any of these "handle everything" companies, there's not much more than $1-$3 or $5 profit if you bump the price up a bit. I generally see the shirts from them going from $20-$25. Penny Arcade, Armadillo Aerospace, etc. The flip side is, that except for the voting and setting up who gets what funds how when the competition is over, there's only a very little work involved setting it up. As ED pointed out earlier, at a higher profit margin where you just get a "run" of shirts and handle it yourself, then it's you running the ordering, shipping, etc. It's, potentially, a lot more money per shirt, but it's definitely a lot more work per shirt.
 
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wardred said:
vadsamoht said:
A Quick google search gives me the impression that most people are plased with their service, etc. My one worry, however, would be that there is only a 5% profit per shirt, and as most seem to be priced around $20, that's only $1 per unit.
Click to expand...

I think that if you go with any of these "handle everything" companies, there's not much more than $1-$3 or $5 profit if you bump the price up a bit. I generally see the shirts from them going from $20-$25. Penny Arcade, Armadillo Aerospace, etc. The flip side is, that except for the voting and setting up who gets what funds how when the competition is over, there's only a very little work involved setting it up. As ED pointed out earlier, at a higher profit margin where you just get a "run" of shirts and handle it yourself, then it's you running the ordering, shipping, etc. It's, potentially, a lot more money per shirt, but it's definitely a lot more work per shirt.
Click to expand...
Yes, I came to that conclusion myself earlier in the thread. My main point was to contrast this against SpreadShirt, which seems to be the best option offered in this thread so far, one of the reasons being the following:

Spreadshirt Website said:
Potential Commissions

  • Ability to markup the items to whatever you want over the Spreadshirt base price. So if the base price of a shirt is $15 and you sell it for $20 then you make $5 profit.


Link
Click to expand...

And with the quantities we would be ordering (well over 100, I should think), then the base price for one of the shirts I looked at drops to ~$10.
 
vadsamoht said:
Yes, I came to that conclusion myself earlier in the thread. My main point was to contrast this against SpreadShirt, which seems to be the best option offered in this thread so far, one of the reasons being the
Click to expand...

Cool, then you've done a bit more digging than my generic feel for these things.


My ideas for the rules would be similar to the ones for the game competition:


Last day to submit: April 1st. :-b Voting starts then.


Last day to vote: April 3rd.


Could see making this April 10th. Winner announced April 4th or 11th.


Must have something that obviously refers to the OpenPandora. That something can be an inside joke.


Having the Pandora logo and/or picture of the Pandora somewhere on there is highly suggested, but not a requirement if there's some other obvious reference, at least to insiders.


1 T-shirt wins the contest, and based on the success of this contest, others could be run.


You may submit as many designs as you want, and vote for your own shirt, but you may only vote for 1 design.


1 vote per user.


The winner gets - I initially put out there %10 of the proceeds. I could see making it 15% or 25% if everybody thinks the winner should get more.


OpenPandora gets the rest. Would probably need a little language to make this official since the company is getting the bulk of the profit.


Is there anybody who WANTS to be in charge of this? If nobody else does this, I'd be willing to put in some effort to see it done. The community participation bit of things is one of the reasons I am interested in this project. Let's say the first date to make submissions is the 15th to give whoever actually takes this beast on time to get it done right. Something along the lines of: OpenPanodra has the rights to print the WINNING design on any bit of merch they wish, designer to get %15-%25 of proceeds.


ED, Craig, this comes a bit closer to your business, in my mind, then the coding competition. You'd be getting money from it, it'd be, potentially using your logos, there'd be some simple royalties - initially handled either by the person setting up the competition and/or the service they setup the competition with. I can't see going through with this without your official okay, so if you'd rather us not do this, or simply rather do this yourselves at a later date when you're not trying to get thousands of pre-orders out the door, let us know and we should call an end to it for now. If you like the idea and want to see us go for it, let us know too! (Yeah, I like contests, but I don't want to step on anybody's toes setting them up.)


I put %10 for the design winner out there off the top of my head. Does anybody think it should be more? 15% 1/4?
 
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wardred said:
I put %10 for the design winner out there off the top of my head. Does anybody think it should be more? 15% 1/4?
Click to expand...

I actually think it should be less, but that's just me. The main reason for this is that (1) this is for OP's benefit, not our own, and (2) because a large number of the ideas (e.g. OP logo n front, "two months " on the back) are not really that original.


Perhaps the prize should be a free copy of the shirt? (Plus bragging rights, of course.)


I'd be happy to run this, but I still would like to get an OK from ED/Craig first.
 
wardred said:
/me gladly abdicates this to vadsamoht. Time to see what I can do in 2 months for a game.


Looks like we may end up with a mug instead. :-b
Click to expand...
So... At the risk of labouring the point, we now have official permission to run a contest, at least for the mug? I'm not quite certain that Craig's post was entirely serious, but if so, excellent!


EDIT: Just a heads up, it doesn't look like SpreadShirt will do mugs, and if we go to e.g. CafePress we will probably make about $1 per unit at the most. Also, it would mean that we would be more or less 'locked in' to whatever site we choose, because people are going to want to browse the one store, not a dozen different sites for pieces of merch.


EDIT2: CP does not allow you to sell their mugs onlilne, merely bulk order. Zazzle has v. high shipping ($6USD to US, ~$17USD to the rest of the world). Will keep looking.


EDIT3: OK, had that bit about CP wrong. They offer an online store with a 10% commission (~$1.40 / item). Shipping is ~$5 US and $7 rest.


EDIT4: Quick google search turned up printfection, which may be our best bet. It would allow us to set our own profit margin over the mug base price (currently $10, but if we email them we would be able to get it lower), and shipping is ~$5 US and ~10 rest. Seems to be the best option for mugs so far, though I think Spreadshirt would be a much better option if we ever do shirts.
 
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In all seriousness I think that the inside joke idea should be out because more people will but them if they are tasteful. I like the logo, it is very innocuous and would make a great mug. If we have the ability to make more than one design then it will be ideal because we can make both silly and serious designs. I would like to be able to justify my shirt/mug as a purchase, but that is just my opinion.


But... I really want to have the Craig riding on the Sinclair C5 on a mug though...
 
XxionxX said:
In all seriousness I think that the inside joke idea should be out because more people will but them if they are tasteful. I like the logo, it is very innocuous and would make a great mug. If we have the ability to make more than one design then it will be ideal because we can make both silly and serious designs. I would like to be able to justify my shirt/mug as a purchase, but that is just my opinion.


But... I really want to have the Craig riding on the Sinclair C5 on a mug though...
Click to expand...
I agree that wide-appeal stuff may net more money and interest in the long run, however many posters have also said they would buy the logo/two noths or something similar. But that's why we're thinking of making it a competition, so that the items that have the most willing buyers (whatever design it is) gets produced first, as a test to see if this merchandising thing is actually worthwhile for OP.
 
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If I may ask, why are you all trying to zero in on a single product? You are aware that there are no additional costs for more products on offer with services like cafepress or spreadshirt, right? Of course, if you are going for the process of having a batch of them pre-printed (which lowers the price / increases the profit margin) it will increase initial costs.

vadsamoht said:
EDIT: Just a heads up, it doesn't look like SpreadShirt will do mugs, [...]
Click to expand...
I looked at their editor, it seems only the american page (spreadshirt.com) has no mugs, the german (.de) and the UK (.co.uk) one both have mugs.
 
Marsu said:
If I may ask, why are you all trying to zero in on a single product?
Click to expand...

Marsu,


I think it's because mainly when this has come up in the past, mostly - totally unscientifically based on recollections of half read forum threads - people have asked for T-Shirts of things, and one product is something that's manageable in a short amount of time.


Craig likes the idea of him on the Sinclair on a mug. Maybe it should be opened up for more things. Maybe it'll just be that. And button based suspenders. :-b


Not going to happen unless we have OpenPandora's okay.
 
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Marsu said:
If I may ask, why are you all trying to zero in on a single product? You are aware that there are no additional costs for more products on offer with services like cafepress or spreadshirt, right? Of course, if you are going for the process of having a batch of them pre-printed (which lowers the price / increases the profit margin) it will increase initial costs.
Click to expand...
As Wardred said, the main reason for only doing one item is because in the past people have wanted to do so many different things that nothing ended up getting done. Assuming that, for example, the mug competition goes ahead and sells a decent number of units, then we will probably open up more competitions for shirts/etc. later on. If the sales flop, then we'll just wait until OP ends up producing merchandise themselves - having 'proved' that community based production won't work.


And thanks for the heads up about the other verions of SpreadShirt! Must have missed that...


EDIT: it appears that while you *can* buy mugs on SpreadShirt, you cannot make your own designs for them.


EDIT2: I literally just refreshed the page and the button appeared. I swear! I'm not crazy!
 
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