The Kodi Team is interested in opening up a web shop to sell branded merchandise with our logo on it where the users can purchase branded items and have them shipped directly to the buyer.
We currently have a unused Cafepress, which we'd like to shut down and move to another one that we can have both a US and EU store.
We've reviewed:
Cafepress
Zazzle
Spreadshirt
Printfection
Does anyone have any other web shops that we could use? Any experiences?
Thanks!
2 questions:
What do you mean by "branded merchandise"? Just shirts? Shirts and coffee mugs? Mouse pad? Dog collars?
The merchandise diversity you guys want is important to understand what pre-made web shops are suitable.
Why don't you talk with someone knowledgeable and already running such a thing?
From the top of my head,
http://swag.raspberrypi.org/ comes to mind.
I'm sure RPi Foundation good folks are available to share some know-how. Their orders are fulfilled by Pimoroni.
One of XBMC's developers works for them... Dom, can you help?
I'm available to help implement the web solution, if needed.
BR,
h.udo
http://www.yordise.com (I'm part of the LFS community for a long time. Vic, the dev that got this venture underway, is a great guy and commited to his projects, I can only recommend giving it a try)
(2014-10-11, 17:48)h.udo Wrote: [ -> ]2 questions:
What do you mean by "branded merchandise"? Just shirts? Shirts and coffee mugs? Mouse pad? Dog collars?
The merchandise diversity you guys want is important to understand what pre-made web shops are suitable.
Why don't you talk with someone knowledgeable and already running such a thing?
All of that sounds good. Our main focus is shirts but mugs, lanyards, mousepads, etc. What cafepress sells essentially.
Pimoroni appears to be someone who is 'helping' RPi, not a company which is designed to do web shops.
(2014-10-12, 02:04)ursli Wrote: [ -> ]http://www.yordise.com (I'm part of the LFS community for a long time. Vic, the dev that got this venture underway, is a great guy and commited to his projects, I can only recommend giving it a try)
Is this company in existence? We can't find any other web shops that use the besides LFS and they haven't updated their store since 2009.
Kib also found:
http://www.themerchandisecompany.nl/ so I asked him to contact TMC since he's dutch.
(2014-10-12, 10:24)RockerC Wrote: [ -> ]Are there any shops that offer free international shipping like many online Chinese stores do today?
We're looking for a web shop that does fulfillment/shipping, and using China isn't ideal since it takes weeks to get anything from them and the quality can be questionable.
I have bought a couple of shirts from zazzle and they were both really good quality. The neck didn't stretch and the print was embedded not one of those plastic ones that flakes off. They also have quite good regular specials too.
(2014-10-12, 11:11)keith Wrote: [ -> ]Is this company in existence? We can't find any other web shops that use the besides LFS and they haven't updated their store since 2009.
Kib also found: http://www.themerchandisecompany.nl/ so I asked him to contact TMC since he's dutch.
I've asked Vic and it looks like he indeed doesn't plan to go any further with that venture, good luck with your hunt for the new merchandise shop.
If I can make a small question.
International shipping? How much is that ontop average? What quality can you expect?
Teespring charges $12 for international shipping (US -> EU). Acceptable for a $20 shirt? Yes, but only because it's XBMC's shirt. For a mug? Not so much. Unless we're entering fan-boy territory.
That's way expensive, The tee costs 20 /2=10+2=12 shipping fee Thats 52% of cost of tee + tee itself $20 == $32 For a tee that costs $5r ready, some profit for retailer and then remainder for XBMC... no,
I make a direct donation for $15 and I get a feeby vector to use as a printable design
... Go print my own around the corner complete for 10 and I bet you made more profit. That I like best. be Job done.
We are trying to find better options than Teespring, especially for international folks.
I looked at Zazzle in the past and didn't like them, but I will re-evaluate them. Thanks for the input guys. Keep it coming!
Don't get me wrong, @
keith.
I gladly paid the $32 (~€24) for the shirt. But that's only because we're talking about Kodi.
Another thing to take into consideration is that many EU countries have funny laws about items from abroad.
Apparently they are "randomly" selected to inspection and folks end up paying another 20% import tax + VAT.