Re: #FreeBabylon5 Mars Red Shirts

[Ubik]

That point really can't be emphasised enough. I haven't used Tfund, but used to promote my band's t-shirts on the CafePress site, and the reality was (and is) that the base price was just too high in comparison with buying "normal" t-shirts from a "normal" store.

Even adding just $0.01 to the base price (essentially to round it to the exact dollar rather than leave it at $x.99) meant they were a good couple of pounds more expensive than you could buy better known bands t-shirts in the local shops.

A number of people over the years have said that they would have bought a shirt if they were cheaper, but I can't do them cheaper via CafePress because they are basically being sold at base price already, and have struggled to find a printer (locally or otherwise) who can do shirts to the quality that I want in the low numbers that I want.

That is the problem with print to order stuff ... your pricing really is at the mercy of what the printer chooses to charge for their part of it, expecially if you are looking to either make a profit yourself or raise revenue for charity.

I suspected as much. Perhaps once the campaign has grown some, and we are looking at bigger numbers, it will become feasible to do a low print run of t-shirts (or whatever promotional product). If this becomes the case, a kickstarter could be useful, then once the funds are in... you go to print and send them out. It may allow for a lower unit price.

But, this works for now and allows folks to support on a smaller scale.

[Triple F]

Just seems a bit strange is all. Green and Purple shirts go on sale at $15.55 and it’s said the profits will be split between the charities. A few days later the red shirt goes on sale, again at $15.55 and the same thing about the charities. All good stuff, two birds with one stone as it were. Get the word out about #FreeBabylon5, with the nice little bonus of raising awareness of, and a little revenue for, the two existing charities.

But…… to then say that they’ll not be available at such a low price again just makes it sound more like a commercial product than a charitable/promotional project. Just checked, at the current price of $15.55 the profit per shirt is $7.73.

27 red, 44 Green and 60 of the purple were sold, meaning $1012.63 profit to be shared between the charities, which is really great. But it’s not a high enough profit in such a short period of time!!? That’s the WTF bit I don’t really get.

I understand it instils a sense of urgency, I’ve got the right impression – but is it really necessary to do that, as you say this is a long haul fan based project, not a short term blitz.

That claim about not being available at such a low price again, I know for a fact, it’s forced people into purchasing the likes of various B5 books at a time they really couldn’t afford them. It’s a hard sell technique that doesn’t go down to well with a lot of people. You might not agree with that. They might not even say it, sometimes. But it’s the situation.

Take it as a (genuinely good intentioned) FYI type thing, or me just being a pain in the arse. One other little point, while your getting the likes of the web site organised (which of course takes time), there’s so many quick and easy posts to make on the FB page that could let folk know what’s going on with the drive – who’s posting articles about it on the wider internet for example. But over the last week there’s only been three new posts, all of them about those f’ing t-shirts. ; )

[Jan]

Don't know details as it's not my project but it seems obvious that they'd want to keep profits at the same level so if the base price goods up then the sale price is likely to go up.

None of my business because it's not my program. Just trying to help out with promoting it.

Jan

[Jan]

If anybody had posted what they'd done, I'd be shouting from the rooftops. In addition, I just started a new job so I've got less time to devote to this and volunteers aren't exactly knocking at my door. This is going to be a hard campaign to get people motivated so any ideas or volunteers would be welcome.

Jan

[Ubik]

I'm working on something Jan. About time I got active instead of complaining!