A restriction to "members-only merchandise" is wrong, doubly so with current low membership levels. When you're talking about a 10k+ member base, then I can see a point to members-exclusive merchandise; this complementing a range of items available to the wider public.
I'm also against the 'at-cost' idea. For members, I would say a discount (in reality, lower margin), is perfectly acceptable. I believe most other charities that use mechandise to raise funds treat their members and the public in this slightly different way.
What I would look at is merchandise for the public, with a reasonable markup. Can WMFUK undercut the cafepress store? If so, then without coming across as mercenaries, an effort should be made to set up a store on the WMUK site.
Someone more familiar with the financial planning side of a business should give input on this. WMUK doesn't have the manpower to manage inventory and order fulfilment. What companies do other UK charities work with to do this? What sort of outlay and risks are involved?
I would take it as a given that this would be restricted to UK-only delivery to avoid trading on the WMF's toes, or that of any other chapters.
Brian.
-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Dalton Sent: 14 September 2009 14:40 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Merchandising
2009/9/14 WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@googlemail.com:
With only about 30 members the UK chapter is at a very early stage with a limited internal market. If you had 3,000 members you could get some economy of scale and order say 100 T shirts, but with a market of 30 you can expect the price per item to be exorbitant. Producing ties, mousemats, cufflinks and presumably monogrammed bathrobes for the minority of those 30 who want such things is at best a distraction and at worst a drain on resources. Not least because selling stuff at cost means you have to invest the capital to buy the stuff hoping that if you sell all of them at full price you will recover your capital. That ties up capital and sooner or later you will make a loss when you discover that fewer than ten of your thirty members want a mousemat.
That is an excellent point. Without a profit margin you are guaranteed to make a loss if you don't sell everything. Since, as a charity, we can't take significant risks that means we have to make very small orders, increasing the price even more.
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