"Alizée America" Promo Items - Concepts !

[The Cap]

Originally Posted by espire

Alright, I think that I can see what's going on between The Cap and OGRE; a misunderstanding.

I have an inkling of what process The Cap plans to use, and it does not require any sort of investment, rather a "print on order" method, where every order is made by the final buyer in quantities as low as 1. This has many obvious advantages over the traditional, but slightly cheaper in the end, upfront investment model.

The only real question is... who's going to get all the profits?

Exactly right about the process - on-demand ordering of items by the end-user directly from the supplier. No inventory, no advance orders, no exorbitant set-up fees for digital pre-press, no worries about sizes. Customers worder directly from the maker at any quantity they choose, and a storefront is easy and fast to set up. Credit cards would also be welcome as well.

As to the "upfront investment model" being cheaper ... not really, and not always. Costs have a way of hiding in odd places. Unsold pre-ordered stock costs money as long as it goes unsold. Pre-press and digital prep costs can be anywhere from just under $100 to a few hundred dollars, depending on the vendor and their manufacturing processes. Pricing is also high in the traditional model when higher-quality or name-brand raw materials are used in manufacturing. Lastly, the more traditional model isn't likely to come with an on-line storefront, where customers can use credit cards to make purchases.

The costs in the upfront investment model are high, typically - so high that in order to produce, for example, a high-quality embroidered product, the final cost to the customer could easily exceed the on-demand printed-design model after recovery of expenses.

As to profits ... a touchy subject. As OGRE stated in one of his posts, "Non-profit does not mean pro bono". Whatever profit margin could be created would likely be small, but it would be some minimal compensation for the responsibility of creating the graphics, selecting and designing the product designs, "managing" the on-line store, etc.

On the other hand, the idea of donating profits to the site is also a very attractive idea ... however, the "store" and it's products are effectively free advertising for the site (remember, these items are promoting THE SITE, not Alizée ... the SITE promotes Alizée, to split hairs). If the products draw more users to the site, the "profit" the site realizes is manifested in increased traffic and more registered users.

There would also be the possibility of selling the items at no mark-up whatsoever. The items would get to the end-users at "cost" - the base price established by the manufacturer for an item without any profit added at all. It may not be fair to me to put in all the time and trouble for zero compensation, but it does avoid the issue of who gets to keep any profits, since there essentially are no profits to be had by anyone except the manufacturer.

[espire]

I think that you've probably chosen the generally best way to do this, Cap, but that leaves just one thing to be said: Alizée America is not a corporation, nor is it an organization. It is not even a trademark, simply an online club. Because of this, you really don't need the authorization of anybody, even Brad, to go ahead with this. I say that if you want to go ahead with this, go ahead, and you can always make changes that we suggest down the road.

As for profits, decide how much you think your time was worth, and charge a low overhead until you have been compensated. After that, since it was your time and your effort, not ours, you can charge whatever you feel is right, or give whatever you feel is right to Brad, though I'm against the latter. To be honest, I feel that whatever sum is made from the ads and the Amazon link is sufficient, provided that it pays any amount more than the cost of hosting, and Brad hosts multiple sites anyway.

The truth of the matter is that if we really have any sort of problem with what you're doing, we can create other logos without too much trouble and open up our own competing store

I wouldn't expect to have any trouble, though, so you have Espire's official green light. You can see it in my sig

[OGRE]

Originally Posted by espire

As for profits, decide how much you think your time was worth, and charge a low overhead until you have been compensated. After that, since it was your time and your effort, not ours, you can charge whatever you feel is right,

And remember, don't call the compensation profit. Profit doesn't occur until after all expenses have been accounted for. That include payroll (yes, you get to pay yourself) and other overhead. Given industry standard compensation for graphic artists, and the volume we're talking about, I don't think the tax gods would have any problem reconciling a non-profit balance at the prices you've specified.

For everyone else, the retail/wholesale margin in the garment industry is often over 100%. That is, something that retails for $10, will often be wholesale at less than $5. The difference between wholesale and retail is where the retailer has to make payroll, overhead, and profit. As for those who know of cheaper ways, keep in mind you are dealing with a wholesale acquisition....you gotta wrap the entire package together to determine a final price. And even then, it's better to err on the side of caution lest you be left losing money.

[espire]

Aren't you the corrective one today, OGRE

In both this post and the one in the similar thread, you've fixed my errors of ignorance.