Re: GNOME Store
- From: Paul Cutler <pcutler foresightlinux org>
- To: Stormy Peters <stormy gnome org>
- Cc: Dave Neary <dneary gnome org>, GNOME Marketing List <marketing-list gnome org>
- Subject: Re: GNOME Store
- Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 14:53:28 -0500
I spent some time researching Zazzle and Cafepress, and put up a page on lgo at
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing/Merchandising.
I didn't find a lot of information about competitors to the two of them.
Overall, they're both very similar. Both offer similar merchandise, affiliate programs, customizable look, embeddable content and more.
My personal recommendation would be Zazzle. Zazzle hosts more (and arguably better) brand stores for companies than Cafepress. If you assume they went through a RFP selection process, there is probably a reason the likes of Disney, Mozilla and Mattel (Barbie, Hot Wheels) chose Zazzle.
Cafepress has a slight edge on pricing, on average 5-10% (though they do charge $60 for a premium store) but Zazzle handily beats them in assortment of products to choose from. I encourage you to look at Zazzle's t-shirt offerings, especially the women's selections as a comparison.
I also liked Zazzle's choice of posters and print offerings better.
Most of the novelty items, such as mugs, stickers, magnets, etc were priced similar between the two.
Please review the wiki page I added at
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing/Merchandising and let me know if there are any areas you would like additional information on.
Paul
On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Paul Cutler
<pcutler foresightlinux org> wrote:
Ok, that helps with the direction.
I agree with Stormy that it would be neat to have our own designs - especially when we can get the community involved, or have things like limited edition runs.
I spent some time yesterday comparing Zazzle's and Cafepress's premium store options. I'll type up a comparison over the weekend and send it to the list.
If anyone has any other suggestions of companies to look at, please let me know.
PaulOn Fri, May 8, 2009 at 10:17 AM, Stormy Peters
<stormy gnome org> wrote:
There's also Threadless, but they only do tshirts.
Currently, Hackerthreads decides what merchandise with which logos and asks the board for approval. Some of the issues I know we currently have with them, and we've told them, are issues with the user interface and payments.
I would like to have the Zazzle/Cafepress model where we could make up our own designs and decide which merchandise they could be offered on.
Stormy
On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 9:07 AM, Paul Cutler
<pcutler foresightlinux org> wrote:
Dave, thanks for linking the lgo page below, that was very helpful.
I guess the first question I have is, are we unhappy with Hackerthreads? Specifically, financially? Has anyone reached out to them to see if it's possible to assort more merchandise, and change the look and the feel of the store?
As far as more merchandise goes, looking at their other stores / affiliates they host, I don't think there is, as they appear to specialize in t-shirts.
I don't think any of the requirements have changed much in the last 5 years sine that was put together.
Looking at the work that was done back then, and the stores that were under consideration:
* Zazzle: Still in business, now has Mozilla as a client
* Cafepress - the wiki page mentions
* OpensourceFactory: Specializes in books and software only
* Sorucewear / Mayopi: Don't appear to be in the merchandising business anymore
Other than that, the only other site that was similar that I could find was Printfection.com.
Paul
On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 6:01 AM, Dave Neary
<dneary gnome org> wrote:
Hi,
While the project didn't go through to completion because the company we
signed with went out of business, we have gone through this process
before - I documented the process and hit on some of the very same
issues you mention - gnome.org URL, selection of products, and Zazzle
was among the companies I talked with.
The process is documented in
http://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/MerchandisingAgreement
As I understand it, Zazzle will do specific custom deals for high volume
brands. For lower value brands such as our, you can easily set up a
custom shop-front with the Zazzle store management software like this:
http://www.zazzle.com/southpark
I also understood from our discussions that Zazzle could set up vhosts
for a store.gnome.org sub-domain, but that they couldn't do a fully
custom interface for us - it would be a standard Zazzle shop-front.
Cheers,
Dave.
> * GNOME URL (store.gnome.org <http://store.gnome.org>)
> * User generated logos / content that can be added to merchandise
> * Limited edition merchandise (Could we create demand by having certain
> artwork / logos available for a limited time? Or create a campaign or
> use merchandise to support a larger campaign for GNOME)
> * Greater selection of products
>
> Of course, this would probably cause more work - setting up the store,
> managing inventory (Mozilla has a clearance store), HTML, requesting and
> approving logos and artwork from the community, etc. My idea may be
> totally crazy considering all the other work around the website that's
> going on as well.
>
> I'm not sure what value added services Hackerthreads or Zazzle can offer
> around these ideas, or what other ideas the community may have to add,
> but these were some things I thought we may want to think about.
>
> I'd like to gauge if there is any interest in the community around this
> idea? If so, we may want to create a small team that can help screen
> artwork, choose what kinds of merchandise to sell in conjunction with a
> fulfilment partner, and work with the web team to get a store implement.
>
> Thoughts or concerns?
>
> Paul
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dneary gnome org
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