Important Store Decision

[Tami]

Staff feedback on this topic is [b]mandatory[/b]

We used to have a Premium CafePress store...this meant that we could customize the store look and integrate it with our own websites. However, I closed the store for a few reasons:

1. It cost me 10.00/month to have the store space
2. They don\'t yet print on dark shirts
3. The hoodie offering didn\'t have enough variety
4. There wasn\'t enough design input from staff

CafePress has added alot of new products, and are apparently going to be offering more...and they are (according to them) still working on the dark shirt solution which will meet their quality standards.

Please take the time to look through the products they are currently offering...take a close look at them all, because they are offering some decent products which I believe we could sell if we had the participation for designs.

Remember, they look after all printing, shipping and payment collection for us, all we have to do is decide on the products and provide the designs. We would also be able to sell the products in our office/store location once it\'s open. Note: there are some products which are not listed for the general public; these include books and cd\'s. They are apparently offering (or soon to offer) full colour, bound books which means we *could* sell coffee table digital art books or photography books, and we could have them sell our stock images cd\'s, etc.

Here is the site listing what\'s available:

[url=\"http://www.cafepress.com/cp/customize/\"]http://www.cafepress.com/cp/customize/[/url]

If we DO decide to open a store again, it will take a commitment from each and everyone of you to provide product designs because that store will HAVE to make money. I will probably con...erm....recruit...uhm...ask for volunteers to help put the products up in the store (this can be very tedious, as it has to be done with CafePress\'s online product designer and unless they\'ve changed things, it has to be done one...product...at...a...time) but once the initial offerings are done, it\'s just a matter of updating as new designs come in. Just like with everything else around here, the initial builds take the longest and the most effort.

By now you\'re probably asking well...if I make alot of stuff, will I get paid for it? Yes of course you will. We will work out a percentage scale where a small percentage of the product profit will go to helping to pay for the store; the rest will be paid directly to you.

If I remember correctly, CafePress either charges a credit card for the store space or takes it out of any money which is made that month, then the rest is sent to us. I can\'t remember if they do this by cheque, direct bank deposit or by PayPal. Whichever method it is, you *will* get paid.

[url=\"http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/help/\"]http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/help/[/url] /smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':)\' />

[ner0]

I think the idea of having a store is great, so long as we get enough feedback from other staffers to show that there\'d be enough interest to make a good few products etc...

I\'d be willing to design things every now and then /good.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'(Y)\' /> nice to see cafepress taking less than 10 mins to load too <_< /blum.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':P\' />

[Shydragonchic]

I would be willing to make several designs...a few with \"in jokes\" that our regular users would understand, and a few with Shy\'s warped sense of humor that might have some general appeal. I might even be able to deal with some of the initial set up with the online product designer.

[Sp3culuM]

I've always wanted a t-shirt with "SP3C > MOPPY" printed on the front /blum.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':P\' />

I think it's a good idea, but not right now. Give it a month or two I guess, I think we got enough going on right now as it is. Save yourself a few $ for now and we can get it going later.

[Tami]

You got that wrong, it\'s Moppy > Sp3c /bigwink.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\';)\' />

It\'ll take us at least that long to do anything in the way of a store anyway. While we have plenty of saleable designs, we\'re not opening a store without alot more, and not until we all agree on what\'s going to be sold, what can go in freeware graphix downloads, what if anything we will sell through our own website and not via cafepress...for instance any software we may develop, I think it would be better to keep it \"in-house\" at least to start with.

I wanted to get the discussion going though, and perhaps those who are willing to make a commitment can think about slogans, sayings, artwork, take pictures, etc. Remember with things like photographs as prints, we can add inspirational quotes to them and make them just like the ones people buy in the stores. There is a copyright thing called fair use which allows the use of quotes; I have an article about it around here somewhere. Of course, the ones in \'public domain\' are free for anyone to use.

For slogans, let\'s try to be original...things like: \"Slap me I have a pixel out of place\" (first thing that came to mind) /blum.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':P\' />

And then of course there are our own logos, mascot, etc etc etc......

[Trinity]

I'd have to agree with spec, at least at the moment. The thing that worries me is that we might not have enough customers at the moment to make a profit. I think it's a good idea to start doing some designs and thinking of some slogans, but perhaps wait until we have finished a few more sites and get things like seo going.

Maybe we could make a target, like say when we have 500 members we will open the store, and in the meantime we will do designs and slogans etc.

[Vercz]

[color=\"green\"]word to what trin said! /blum.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':P\' />

im thinking along the exact same lines, it would be great to have a store..but would we be able to run it at a profit now? last thing we need is more debt /blum.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':P\' />

dont get me wrong though, its a great idea[/color]

[Tami]

We aren\'t targeting just members; calendars, prints, cards, photo cd\'s all have wide appeal. So do \"slogan shirts\"

If you read through CafePress\'s FAQ section and various information areas, you\'ll see that they do alot to help market all of the stores. They do seo for the store, it\'s listed in New Stores, I believe each store can have its own newsletter, and there is the CafePress marketplace to list stores. Add this to listing the store on our sites for the link benefit, and registering the url for directory indexing the possibilities are endless. As I said above, this isn\'t something we\'re going to open right now, but with a good foundation of designs & planning, we\'ll have people just waiting for those doors to open /biggrin.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':D\' /> /blum.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':P\' />

[Endo]

Im fine with the idea, but i agree with waiting also. It would be a shame and waste of money to have the store going if people are not interested or purchasing items

[Kobra]

I think it's a great idea.. But maybe we should wait for a month or so? Some of us are still trying to finish projects, and once they're done, we may get some more publicity.. Also, I would like to work on some designs but I'm not very good with photoshop yet.

[Marko]

Seems like everyone is going for the \'wait a month\' option, which sounds reasonable, so i\'ll agree with that. /smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':)\' />

[us3rX]

lmao @ \"Slap me I have a pixel out of place\"

If your not making atleast your 10 bucks but then no, i would wait, maybe make a post in the news section \"Hey how would you like blah blah and blah, maybe blah? or even a blah\" and etc... then if enough people seem interested then open it up, other wise i would just say no...

us3rX /ph34r.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':ph34r:\' />

[radar]

We must take over the world before Microsoft does!

*ahem*
All in all, typing with cold fingers is a bad idea.

On topic, it's a good idea and I love it /biggrin.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':D\' /> I want a shirt that says "g0t 1337?"

[Tami]

I saw a kid at the movie theatre tonight, he was wearing a shirt with \"Hell Yeah\" scrawled across the back in semi-graffiti lettering. I got the idea of \"KillaNet? Hell Yeah\" or any of our other sites would fit as well. (with the partial url under the main part in smaller letters, of course, like \"killanet.net\")

[Scott]

I would have to say wait aswell. At the moment I feel we\'re spreading ourselves out a bit too thin and this wouldn\'t help anything. Its an excellent idea, but I think its something we can do later.