Shirts for Conjoint?

[RalphORama]

Hey everyone, I saw and commented on this in the most recent news post, but I thought I'd make a thread here as well to get more opinions on the subject.

Basically, according to the meeting notes, there was some discussion on selling Conjoint-related shirts. Since I've had experience with selling community-related merch before, I thought I'd elaborate on the idea and make some suggestions. Here's what I said in the other thread:

I see the idea of T-Shirts were discussed, and I'd be happy to help out setting up a shirt shop for Conjoint.
I've done something similar for the last gaming community I was part of, we used Spreadshirt and recruited designs from our art board. Shirts were generally $20, making about $3-$5 each and had designs on them relating to community in-jokes and logos.
If we did the design recruiting thing I'd recommend accepting designs in a dedicated board, and figuring out a way to pay the artist ~ 50% of the profits from the shirts a month.

So I'm asking you guys: What do you think of the prospect of a CG merch setup? I'd be happy to get everything working and include all the CLs and whatever in running it.

[Leetgrain]

As in prev post:

I see the idea of T-Shirts were discussed, and I'd be happy to help out setting up a shirt shop for Conjoint.
I've done something similar for the last gaming community I was part of, we used Spreadshirt and recruited designs from our art board. Shirts were generally $20, making about $3-$5 each and had designs on them relating to community in-jokes and logos.
If we did the design recruiting thing I'd recommend accepting designs in a dedicated board, and figuring out a way to pay the artist ~ 50% of the profits from the shirts a month.

That would actually be pretty damn good. I'd love to help out with some designs. As would some others here. And with a ~50% cut it would definitely help everyone involved.

Would love to help make some shirts, both CG centered, and different designs.

[RalphORama]

Would love to help make some shirts, both CG centered, and different designs.

Sweet! Also, I should say that they don't have to be CG-related specifically, it could be used as a portal for CG members to get their designs out in the world and make a little dosh doing so.

[Christovski]

The problem we've had with shirts in the past is cost. 

Even $20 is a bit steep for something like a CG shirt, unless somehow we get ridiculously good designs that look so amazing people decide they want to pay $20 for it

[RalphORama]

The problem we've had with shirts in the past is cost. 

Even $20 is a bit steep for something like a CG shirt, unless somehow we get ridiculously good designs that look so amazing people decide they want to pay $20 for it

I do know there's a limit on how low prices can get on SS, but we could even sell some (or all) shirts for no premium (and thus little gain) for about $16 such as one of my favorite YouTubers does.

[crovv]

The problem we've had with shirts in the past is cost. 

Even $20 is a bit steep for something like a CG shirt, unless somehow we get ridiculously good designs that look so amazing people decide they want to pay $20 for it

I do know there's a limit on how low prices can get on SS, but we could even sell some (or all) shirts for no premium (and thus little gain) for about $16 such as one of my favorite YouTubers does.

We could also just set up a shop site from CG's website and use a printing company such as:

http://www.jakprints.com/all-over-shirt-printing/
http://www.customink.com/

If we use one of these and order something like 50 shirts at a time, we could get prices around $9-16 each shirt, and sell them for $15-20 each. I'm not sure what the prices for SpreadShirt are, but I found this: http://www.spreadshirt.com/volume-discount-vs-bulk-t-shirts-C6873.

So. Just some looking into we could use.

[RalphORama]

Customink is nice, but only for bulk orders of 30+ shirts.
I think we'd have to do limited runs of stuff to keep prices down, which wouldn't necessarily be bad, we'd just have to hit that 30+ mark to keep prices low.

That being said, if we could be at least 75% sure we'd hit that mark, I don't see the problem with doing sales like that.

[HerpDerpMike]

I think bracelets would be cool, I would definitely buy one.

Shirts seem a little too, expensive and I don't think many people would buy em. I wouldn't wear it personally .

Spoiler for Hidden:

I didn't read any of the posts above, have to go in like 5 minutes.

[Leetgrain]

I think bracelets would be cool, I would definitely buy one.

Shirts seem a little too, expensive and I don't think many people would buy em. I wouldn't wear it personally .

Spoiler for Hidden:

I didn't read any of the posts above, have to go in like 5 minutes.

Then is there really any point posting now? ¬,¬

You don't even know what will be on offer. And yeah, prices are a bit wonky, but this is what the thread's for, to find a good price range.

[HerpDerpMike]

I guess I should have waited but still..

bracelets would be 'mazing.

[Billy]

Customink is nice, but only for bulk orders of 30+ shirts.
I think we'd have to do limited runs of stuff to keep prices down, which wouldn't necessarily be bad, we'd just have to hit that 30+ mark to keep prices low.

That being said, if we could be at least 75% sure we'd hit that mark, I don't see the problem with doing sales like that.

Once we get a design and stuff, have people preorder shirts, so you have an idea of how many you'd need to get? If it's 30+ go with customink, if not go with somewhere else?

[crovv]

Once we get a design and stuff, have people preorder shirts, so you have an idea of how many you'd need to get? If it's 30+ go with customink, if not go with somewhere else?

I like this. Preorders would give us a sense of scale per shirt design, so we could get the best deal for each shirt.

[Leetgrain]

This'd work very well. Can't click on the links atm. But if you could find a template, us creative people could make some stuff. I'm willing to make some T-shirt designs.

[Kwaurtz]

I'd be willing to try out making a shirt design.

[RalphORama]

Once we get a design and stuff, have people preorder shirts, so you have an idea of how many you'd need to get? If it's 30+ go with customink, if not go with somewhere else?

Crovv posted earlier that Spreadshirt would do bulk orders for cheap, so if we could get at least 12 people to preorder, we'd get 15% off. After that, price would depend on colors, type of shirt, and shipping. I'll make a mockup with the CG logo to check costs, but after that all we'd need to worry about would be hitting the 12-person mark.

Hell, if we could get 50 preorders, the shirts would be like $7 each, before shipping.

Edit: Looks like shirts are about $18 apice if I individually make them with the CG logo, that'd be $15 each after the discount (before shipping and taxes). I did find the old Conjoint shop, looks like prices are pretty steep there. If we did limited runs with preorders, I'm pretty sure we could get prices way down.

Edit 2: Holy hell, I forgot how nice spreadshirt is. For a shirt designed on 100% pre-shrunk cotton and an image with a few colors, the shirts are only $16. Note that this is before shipping, but damn, that's cheap.
(Assuming you live in the US, shipping is $4.50, bringing the price for a shirt up to $20)

Edit 3: What about my shirt?

I'd be willing to try out making a shirt design.

Us creative people could make some stuff. I'm willing to make some T-shirt designs.

All I need for a design is a PNG or JPG that's about 1000x1000 (dimensions can vary, but that's what it should be roughly). It has to have a transparent background and you need to use 5 colors at the most. Other than that, go ahead and create some stuff, I'll throw it up on the shop to see what the prices look like.