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Thread: How do we want to handle t-shirts this year?

How do we want to handle t-shirts this year?

From
Josh Berkus
Date:
Advocacy geeks,

We have two ways of handling shirts available to us:

1) Order a large number of shirts etc. with the Postgres 9 design from a
shirt printing company, and offer them in exchange for donations as a
fundraiser, both online and at conferences

2) Leave "selling" of the shirts to Zazzle.com/CafePress/etc., and only
do one small run for an event where we "launch" Postgres 9, plus the
volunteer shirts.

The main reason I'm considering (2) is that, as I measure it, we lost a
significant amount on the blue Postgres shirts.  Between the odd sizes
which we had too many of (I gave 40 Women's XL to GoodWill), and the
cost of shipping (shirts are heavy) and storage I'd judge that even
though we made $12 on each shirt we got a donation for, it was still a
net loss for SPI fund.  (2) would also have the advantage that we could
offer a variety of merchandise: hoodies, hats, totes, underwear, etc.
Drawback is that we'd get very little $$$ per item (like, $1 to $4) and
wouldn't have a reserve stock of shirts for general use.

I'll also have some difficulty taking (1) seriously unless someone on
this list steps forward to volunteer to be "swag czar" for the
US/Canada.  Europe has Andreas to do this, but currently nobody here is
interested in spending many hours of volunteer time to track shirts.

So, feedback?

--
                                  -- Josh Berkus
                                     PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
                                     http://www.pgexperts.com

Re: How do we want to handle t-shirts this year?

From
Selena Deckelmann
Date:
Hi!

On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 3:19 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:

> 1) Order a large number of shirts etc. with the Postgres 9 design from a
> shirt printing company, and offer them in exchange for donations as a
> fundraiser, both online and at conferences
>
> 2) Leave "selling" of the shirts to Zazzle.com/CafePress/etc., and only
> do one small run for an event where we "launch" Postgres 9, plus the
> volunteer shirts.

+1 on #2.

I think buying a small quantity of limited edition conference shirts
for a release is a great idea. But the run should be small, and the
assumption should be that we are trying to get rid of them all during
any particular event.

The point of shirts, IMO, is to give people a way of associating
themselves with a shared experience, not generating revenue. We do a
much better job of getting larger donations from companies an
individuals through our donation forms and conferences than we do
getting money by selling shirts.

-selena

--
http://chesnok.com/daily - me

Re: How do we want to handle t-shirts this year?

From
Dave Page
Date:
On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 11:25 PM, Selena Deckelmann
<selenamarie@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The point of shirts, IMO, is to give people a way of associating
> themselves with a shared experience, not generating revenue. We do a
> much better job of getting larger donations from companies an
> individuals through our donation forms and conferences than we do
> getting money by selling shirts.

Yeah, that's the view we've been taking in Europe this year. We've cut
right back on the price of swag (in fact, some things like pens we've
been giving away), the aim being to spread the logo as far and wide as
possible. We're just aiming to break even, or make a small profit
rather than make a ton of cash through sales.

--
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise Postgres Company