Erik has updated all Wikipedia merchandise at CafePress and added US$5 to the price of everything so that this can now generate money for the foundation.
But before I place a link to http://www.cafeshops.com/wikipedia on our fundraising page, I think it would be a good idea for some members of this list to purchase an item or two and report back on the quality of the service and item(s). It would also be interesting to hear from people who have bought things from CafePress before and learn about their experiences.
If we determine that CafePress makes quality products and gives good service, then I'll go ahead and link http://www.cafeshops.com/wikipedia on our fundraising page.
Knowing about other places that perform the same service as CafePress but who do so at lower prices and/or accept payments in other currencies, would also be nice. Of course we will have to be reasonably sure of their quality as well.
NOTE: According to Jimbo, we plan to eventually set-up a secure server to handle direct donations (this would be in addition to PayPal and probably one other service). If and when that is set-up we would be able to order bulk shipments from a variety of vendors and handle orders on our own. But that would require a staff to fill orders and storage area (two things the foundation does not have). Those two things might negate the cost savings of doing this on our own. So for now at least, we will probably have to depend on services like CafePress and deal with fairly expensive base prices.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Hi Daniel, Erik did a nice job of merchandizing and putting the logo on the items for sale. I'd suggest that the logo be as big as possible, none of this little logo on the upper right corner of the shirt, it looks out of center and too small to read when you walk up to someone.
I've had excellent results with CafePress with the Academia pro Interlingua and Volapuk Press stores. The quality depends a lot on the graphics you send them. If you send jpeg files with bleeding throughout you'll get it and magnified when it's imprinted. But a good quality PNG with sharp contrast will stand out well and print beautifully, has been my experience.
One more thing the "tile" with the page-being-edited graphic is a neat idea. I'd like a mousepad with the same graphic. !!!
Overall Kudos! Nice store! w/ regards, Jay B.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel Mayer" maveric149@yahoo.com To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 1:59 AM Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia merchandise at CafePress
Erik has updated all Wikipedia merchandise at CafePress and added US$5 to
the
price of everything so that this can now generate money for the
foundation.
But before I place a link to http://www.cafeshops.com/wikipedia on our fundraising page, I think it would be a good idea for some members of this list to purchase an item or two and report back on the quality of the
service
and item(s). It would also be interesting to hear from people who have
bought
things from CafePress before and learn about their experiences.
Jay-
Thanks for the kind words.
I'd suggest that the logo be as big as possible, none of this little logo on the upper right corner of the shirt,
Do others agree? Some people might prefer something more subtle.
One more thing the "tile" with the page-being-edited graphic is a neat idea. I'd like a mousepad with the same graphic. !!!
As far as I understand I can only create one product per type in the basic shop. We already have a logo mousepad which I think looks fairly nice. Of course if Wikimedia covers the costs I'm all for upgrading the shop, but I think we should test it with some orders first.
Regards,
Erik
From: "Erik Moeller" erik_moeller@gmx.de
Jay- Thanks for the kind words.
Well earned, nice job of merchandizing!
Some people might prefer something more subtle.
The crispness of the logo won't suffer if your PNG file is large enough. Also if you want a golf type shirt logo, it would be miniscule, anything in between looks a bit off, but that's only my opinion. If you're going for promotion and propaganda, let the logo be obvious.
As far as I understand I can only create one product per type in the basic shop. We already have a logo mousepad which I think looks fairly nice. Of course if Wikimedia covers the costs I'm all for upgrading the shop, but I think we should test it with some orders first.
Yes, I agree; the current mousepad looks very nice too. One idea is that you can change the image on the item monthly, this gives folks a reason to visit the site again and again to see what's new. You can have featured graphics, contest graphics, special event graphics, etc.
After the site gets going you'll notice it will pay for itself, specially if you're only charging $5 on top of the item cost. You may even want to hold monthly sales on certain items and have only a $1 or $2 profit instead, this will encourage the sale of that item and also give folks a reason to visit again and see what's on sale.
You can also buy in bulk for events. The minimum quantity is 15 items to get the reduced price. This may be a good way of promoting Wikipedia at functions etc.
Keep up the good work ;-) and Stay Wiki!
w/ regards, Jay B.
Erik Moeller wrote:
As far as I understand I can only create one product per type in the basic shop. We already have a logo mousepad which I think looks fairly nice. Of course if Wikimedia covers the costs I'm all for upgrading the shop, but I think we should test it with some orders first.
That's sensible.. We want this undertaking to make money. As long as reasonable expenses can come from the proceeds that should work. A significant up-front outlay of money on this woould not be wise.
Ec
Jay Bowks wrote:
Erik did a nice job of merchandizing and putting the logo on the items for sale. I'd suggest that the logo be as big as possible, none of this little logo on the upper right corner of the shirt, it looks out of center and too small to read when you walk up to someone.
Better still to have both options available. Some people like a more discrete logo on a shirt.
Ec.
Hi,
(...)
If we determine that CafePress makes quality products and gives good service, then I'll go ahead and link http://www.cafeshops.com/wikipedia on our fundraising page.
Knowing about other places that perform the same service as CafePress but who do so at lower prices and/or accept payments in other currencies, would also be nice. Of course we will have to be reasonably sure of their quality as well.
(...)
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
For the future promoting events taking place in France this year (already 3 events planned in 2004), it would be nice to have a Wikipedia tee-shirt in French ("L'encyclopédie libre"). How much would be the cost for say 300 pieces? And transportation cost?
Yann
On Mon, 2004-01-19 at 04:37, Yann Forget wrote:
Knowing about other places that perform the same service as CafePress but who do so at lower prices and/or accept payments in other currencies, would also be nice. Of course we will have to be reasonably sure of their quality as well.
(...)
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
For the future promoting events taking place in France this year (already 3 events planned in 2004), it would be nice to have a Wikipedia tee-shirt in French ("L'encyclopédie libre"). How much would be the cost for say 300 pieces? And transportation cost?
I ran across one other "custom T-shirts over the web" service, which is oriented toward large orders, rather than CafePress's one-off orders; I'm guessing it probably has better prices for large orders like Yann's 300 tee-shirts: www.customink.com
I tried a "quick quote" for 300 "Hanes Beefy Ts" brand (customink calls these high quality), white, 50 medium, 100 large, 100 XL, 50 XXL, one color printed on front/one color on back: this was $1695 (US dollars) ($5.65 per shirt), plus "free shipping" within the continental US (I didn't see a place to ask about shipping to Europe).
I have never purchased anything from customink (or cafepress); all I know is what's on the web page.
Carl Witty
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org