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Post by El Zilcho on Sept 20, 2008 20:55:50 GMT -5
I would wear that fer realz.
The dudez should have some wayfarers on for added hipster points.
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Post by crazycstudios on Sept 20, 2008 20:59:03 GMT -5
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Brian
New Member
Posts: 22
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Post by Brian on Sept 20, 2008 22:05:04 GMT -5
Nope, just a DeLorean (See the DMC?) with bats flying out of it. From the item description ( Shirt is found here): pssh, i know it is a DeLorean i drive past my neighbor's house every day wondering how to hotwire the one in his driveway so i can time travel. I think the DeLorean cars were originally made just down the road from where I live. I can't be sure ... maybe I dreamt it but I've heard many a folk say that's the case. Time for wikipedia to enlighten once again.
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Post by Meghan on Sept 20, 2008 22:29:40 GMT -5
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Brian
New Member
Posts: 22
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Post by Brian on Sept 20, 2008 22:46:19 GMT -5
Mmm. I like them all but prefer the kittens... one. Very nice, Meghan!
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Post by sarahelephant on Sept 20, 2008 23:41:16 GMT -5
Ah! I love all of these ideas! I am so excited, this will be my 3rd SSLYBY shirt!
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sara
Full Member
Posts: 190
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Post by sara on Sept 21, 2008 21:10:38 GMT -5
OMG. I LURVE all of them Meghan! I like the first dino and the kitten best...you are really talented and they all look great! Awesome job!
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Post by ray m. on Sept 21, 2008 21:19:15 GMT -5
i like the color dinosaur
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Post by crazycstudios on Sept 21, 2008 21:30:37 GMT -5
I like the uncolored dino. The lack of a space suit makes it that much more fun, I think.
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Post by sarahw on Sept 21, 2008 23:11:01 GMT -5
Uncolored dino my fav too. I'd make the helmet a tiny tiny bit bigger, but of course I can't draw so I don't think it's really fair for me to complain
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Post by Meghan on Sept 21, 2008 23:21:02 GMT -5
hey thanks guys! these were just sketches so i can tweak things, sarahw i'm not really in a position currently to take charge of this whole operation. but if someone else does and would like any art from me, i can at least provide that much. if not, the project will eventually be put into place. (i'm really just banking on getting the website up before we already issue shirts for it lol) in the meantime, i'll draw up any other ideas that come to me. we really need to decide on a logo fer sure.
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Post by crazycstudios on Sept 22, 2008 12:57:48 GMT -5
Well, getting the website up and running is priority one. It increases the pool of potential shirt purchases, which makes placing an order easier.
Whoever takes charge of the shirt operation needs to 1) take the time to figure out how everything will work in the prepping the order, the placing the order, and have the time to subsequently ship the individual orders. (And should probably have the space to store the ordered shirts for at least a short time as part of shipping them out.) And 2) they need to be someone who the forum members at least would trust to handle the money and place the order since I don't think any of us is in a financial position to place an order for shirts without first collecting pre-order money.
Any other qualifications needed for the "job"?
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Post by sarahw on Sept 22, 2008 20:12:15 GMT -5
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Post by crazycstudios on Sept 22, 2008 20:45:10 GMT -5
I mentioned them before. I have been VERY disappointed in their quality in the past and they tend to be overpriced to boot. And while I also don't think we'd be trying to make a profit from the sale of shirts (I suspect any mark up on shirts would be for first, more shirts, second, any site costs, and third, band support), Cafepress has had some issue with sending people their checks. Which means we'd still have to designate someone to work with money.
In terms of quality, the last time I looked as a Cafepress shirt, I saw iron-on image quality. MAYBE a step above that. That fades extremely fast and is not worth $14.99 base for a white t-shirt (so not including shipping) in my opinion when I could go to Wal-mart, get the same white T-doo doo for $5 (or less), print out the image on iron-on paper at home, and make the shirt myself.
Now, the quality of their printing may have changed, I honestly don't know. I just don't like the idea of sacrificing quality for convenience.
But, then again, if we can't figure out how we want to do this, it might be the easiest way.
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Post by jolie on Sept 22, 2008 21:25:21 GMT -5
Yeah iron ons sound pretty terrible... just wondering is there a maximum amount of money people will be willing to pay for these shirts?
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Post by sarahw on Sept 22, 2008 22:12:27 GMT -5
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Post by crazycstudios on Sept 23, 2008 0:38:35 GMT -5
Spreadshirt and Jakprints... I haven't heard of them before so I'll have to jump into research mode. Keep in mind that the rest of this post (prior to edits) is done without having looked at them at. I'll add my thoughts on them later.
American Apparel will be the shirt itself, they never do the printing (as far as I know). And they aren't even an option with Cafepress.
On mark-ups: Mark-ups, like I said, would only have those three reasons as I see it. And the only reason there'd be a reason to order more shirts would be if we wanted to give all visitors to the site an opportunity to get one. If we wanted to make the shirts a limited-edition only to those cool enough to be part of the discussion/initial run, that's another matter.
For a cost example: Let's say we do just a single order, (details of it could be hammered out later, like advertising on the main site). Going base price with Brunetto T-shirts, American Apparel, and a two color print would run $9.50 a shirt. To contribute toward the initial order shipping and the individual shipping costs, for U.S. orders at least, I would have to guess starting at $5*. So rounding it and charging $15 a shirt, including shipping, would in theory cover it (And would be cheaper than some of Cafepress's base prices). Also for Brunetto we'd need at least 18 orders. (I'd say 14 because I at least would be willing to chip in to get a shirt for each of the guys.)
Now, if we wanted to make the shirts available to more people, we'd either have to charge a little bit extra to order more shirts, do the orders in cycles, or use a print-on-demand/store service, the latter which would also decrease the work for shipping them out.
Pre-edit update: I did prelim look at Spread Shirt and Jak Prints. Spread Shirt I'm still looking into as it appears more complicated than Cafepress to set up a store (which would be the idea). I will say that with Spread Shirt, Digital Printing is the more advanced iron-on, maybe looks better, but still doesn't last that long. I suspect this is what Cafepress is using now. Jak Prints looks like we wouldn't have a store, it would be the individual shipping like with Brunetto unless I'm missing something. The prices look cheaper, but the listed prices are for per shirt at 100 quanity. They have a higher minimum, for which it would be $2 more per shirt (that is we'd have to order at least 25 shirts and $2 more per shirt than what is listed). Also, there's a $15 charge per color for first time printing. That is, using the 2 color example still, we'd be paying an extra $30 that first order to be split amongst us. A little over a dollar extra each. In the end making Jak Prints cost about the same per shirt for 2 color printing but with a higher minimum. It would help to know at least who they've printed for though (I couldn't find any specifics in a quick search, but this is just a prelim look) so I could see if I know of examples of the quality.
More to come as I look into these further.
Edit 1: Looking further into Jak Prints, I find no mention of a specific user of their services. Kind of disappointing, but oh well. (Head's up, the logos on the bottom of the pages are not customers, those are the products they use in their process.) Also, I'm not sure how much anyone really cares about this feature, but if someone wanted a babydoll instead of a unisex shirt, I'm not seeing the ability to mix shirts as part of the minimum. (To be fair, Brunetto didn't advertise this fact either, this was something I had asked about during a previous print job. I can understand a lack of posting this fact from a business stand point: if someone wants a lot of shirts and doesn't bother asking, they may order double the amount to get both styles.)
The embroidery option does sound sweet but is even more expensive, which is too bad. (My mom has a small embroidery machine, maybe I can design and get her to embroider a SSLYBY hat or something. Or even better, MC Migrainehead! Haha)
But yea, like I said in my initial research, I'm not seeing too much of a price difference with Jak Prints and Brunetto and there's no change in work required to ship shirts out. I wish I could see a Jak Prints shirt without ordering a sample pack (of which the "apparel" part of it could just be a picture, although unlikely as it would be a stupid move because I can't learn anything from that) so I could more fairly compare the quality of the shirts.
Further look into Spreadshirt starts now.
Edit 2: Spreadshirts: Okay, so the base price for shirts are about Cafepress prices. That is to say $16.90 for American Apparel base price (no shipping). The good news is that it should be higher quality at least. The bad news is after typing that sentence, I looked at the price after adding an image (and even just text). INSTANTLY over $20 per shirt. I mean, it was $3 just to add 1 color of text. More so for an image of one color. Um... maybe I'm being quick to judge here but I'm thinking I'm dropping this one now. That's a bit high for my taste.
* Whoops, I just looked up USPS pricing. Priority mail has increased or I just forgot. That would be $4.80 for the Priority Mail and $.70 toward the original shipping cost from Brunetto (or whoever we find). First class package mail would be cheaper (especially for International orders). I'll need to find a scale, but at most we're looking at $3.21 if the shirt weighs less than 13 ounces. As for individual contribution for the shipping from Brunetto, maybe that would balance it out to be about $5 a person (or even less!). So right now I'm tempted to say that we maintain the theory of $5.50 (the rounded price) shipping. If there's change, choices are it going towards envelopes (and in part to shirts for the guys if we want to do that) or being placed in the bag with the shirt (although change may increase the shipping price... PARADOX!). ... ... Okay, unless there's some major hike in shipping costs between now and the time we get this going, I think we're good (pending weight check). We are more likely to have change with the shipping costs. A lot of math has been done. For the International orders people here (well, we have International members, I don't know how many want a shirt), your shipping cost will probably be a little more. On the plus side, your money is more than likely worth more to begin with so it's still cheaper for you.
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Post by crazycstudios on Sept 23, 2008 18:05:29 GMT -5
A double post presenting additional information!
Best envelopes for shipping shirts tend to be the poly envelopes. The problem here is finding a balance of quantity and cost that would fit out needs.
(Those sentences were the additional information... there originally was more behind the idea but it sparked this tangent in thought below.)
What pisses me off, and is kind of the reason I haven't jumped up to volunteer to head this merchandising adventure (as willing as I am), is that I'm a good 6 months (at least) from having everything in supply to run a functioning store (one of the goals with my comics). I've realized I forgot to include packaging as part of the shipping costs. So the way I see it, that lack of in-supply resources means that there's a chance that there's going to be need of more money spent by either the shipper or a higher than $15-a-shirt price tag. There is still a chance that the $15-a-shirt price tag will, in fact, cover all shipping and packaging supplies, this really comes done to shipping costs and left over change.
I apologize if my ranting here is somewhat confusing, I'm just working my way through the logistics of it all while still making sure everyone knows what's going on. (I haven't even begun to try and work out the money collection stuff due to the possibility still existing we'll find a good print-on-demand site. That's a whole other long posting. One of the reasons for the long posting is so that the ideas are laid out for people to respond to and present alternatives.)
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Post by Meghan on Sept 23, 2008 18:37:38 GMT -5
yea it's helpful to write everything down to make things make sense for yourself. right now, i've been reading it all, but i haven't sat down and actually let it sink in yet however, if i do end up becoming in charge of this endeavor, would you mind helping me make sense of it, carl? it seems you have the clearest idea of how most of it functions, especially if you are in the process of setting up a functional store.
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Post by sarahw on Sept 23, 2008 18:51:45 GMT -5
Yeah, that's a lot of info to let sink in. You could always start a shared Google spreadsheet to keep track of all the choices and the costs analysis and share it with Meghan and whomever.
Got a reply back from my friend Alex, and he gets his done at the LA Airline store in downtown LA, so that's really not an option.
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