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Barbe tees

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Less searchable M0rd4nt

19:38 / 08.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Persephone:
And, IMPORTANT, all of the above would be contingent upon everyone who collaborated on the design (grant, Mordant, Kit-Cat, gridley, todd, Fool, doubting thomas, and me) coming to an agreement about ownership issues

'Preciate the thought, pet, but I don't really feel I had enough input to justify getting all ownershippy. Oh, and put me down for a Queer Granny t-shirt/iron-on, as long as they don't work out too pricey.

Now, who's going to do the "I see dead people. Socially" tee? 'Coz I have to have one.

02:13 / 09.03.02

Here's Morlock/1's design:

[Very cute!]

[ 09-03-2002: Message edited by: Persephone ]

Morlock - groupie for hire

06:48 / 09.03.02

Woohoo! look Ma, I'm famous!

22:19 / 10.03.02

I have an Invisible shirt my friend made me for my birthday... I think I like yours better though.

I want a queer granny shirt and OF COURSE a Chaos magickian: too shallow for... shirt.

Small please.

The Return Of Rothkoid

14:22 / 11.03.02

This came out of a discussion at the meet yesterday that I'm betting Mordant is wishing had never started...

14:48 / 11.03.02

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

...nightmares are certain. thanks

15:22 / 11.03.02

i hope y'all know these iron-on transfer thingys are a bit pants, they crack and fade after about the 4th or 5th wash, those are the WH-smith home brand and the hewlet and packard ones.

Check the CafePress.com they print T's and even sort all the pay gubbins

15:22 / 11.03.02

As much as I dislike the huggles meme, that *is* just the sort of t-shirt I like to wear--id est the inexplicable kind. The posterization effect is cool, too.

But actually I'm here to do some business, I've done some shopping and figuring... and I think I'm going to start by making a few queer granny prototype t-shirts.

For the curious, this is the cost breakdown:

T-shirt: $2.54
Transfer: $1.40
Ink (est.): $1.00
Shipping (within U.S.): $1.95
Handling: $0.25
------
$7.14

So I'm going to make the Barbe-price $8.00 per shirt. This is just for the homemade jobbies, and quantities are limited... if anyone wants to see the cost analysis for having the shirts printed en masse, I figured that out too; but I don't want to unnecessarily terrify people, as I am wont to do.

So's not to have to futz around with exchanging currency, I will take barter from non-U.S. customers. Just a few tiny ideas: Flake bars, Typhoo tea, or any of those nice tea biscuits that Sainsbury's has... U.S. customers, it's cash on the barrelhead.

So if you want a first edition Queer Granny t-shirt, PM me with your t-shirt size and your address.

Kit-Cat: the shirts come in packs of six. So I guess I can get a pack of each size (L,M,S).

todd: this is sort of dumb, but... I have no idea how to make stickers. Or buttons, which [monkey] suggested some posts ago.

gridley: that was what I was thinking, as long as everyone else agreed. I figured I could front the money for this concern; and as soon as I got my money back, ownership would switch to the collective & the business pays for its own expenses and keeps its own profits. Part of the money could go for printing more t-shirts to be sold, and part of the money could go back to HQ to pay for bandwidth. That’s how I’d manage things, anyway. But that’s a lot of t-shirts down the road...

pointless and uncalled for

15:30 / 11.03.02

Huggles? Fuggles more like.

15:43 / 11.03.02

Hmmm... am now checking out CafePress... very interesting... you can't trade tea biscuits for t-shirts on CafePress, but this is probably the ticket if we go large on the t-shirt thing.

<crumples business plan>

Will still make slightly pants t-shirts for $8.00 or for food.

15:48 / 11.03.02

Im in, as long as you arent putting them on massive tent-size tshirts

18:40 / 11.03.02

agreed...I'll PM you

19:30 / 11.03.02

What size do you need, bk? I'm going to the store this week to get some size S for impulsivelad, so place your order now...

23:42 / 11.03.02

Hoo yah! Have just produced the first Queer Granny t-shirt! Made it with my own hands! Going to sleep in it tonight!

Hey, what do you all think about this CafePress thing? It's not so much between homemade vs. CafePress, it's more between CafePress vs. t-shirt printer.

Pros for CafePress: no money upfront, they handle all the back office business, they set you up with an online store & you can link all the hell over. NB: Strict no-spamming policy in force at CafePress.

Cons for Cafe Press: shirts more expensive ($13.99 minimum base price, to make money you have to build on this price & prob. at most can earn $1-$2 per shirt sold.)

Cons for t-shirt printer: about $225 upfront investment, would have to sell 15 shirts @ $15 (plus S&H) just to break even & pay for screens, lots of running around, would have to handle all own marketing & distribution.

Pros for t-shirt vendor: after screens are paid for, probably profit $10 per shirt (or can lower the price of shirts). Similar quality to CafePress, but prob. more variety--e.g., shirt color.

Maybe CafePress is a good second step... it's a convenient way to knock micropayments to the server fund right now, and no one has to go to a lot of trouble or risk money at first.

Well, that's capitalism for you: whoever puts up the money, makes the money...

[Anyway, it's easy as pie to set up a CafePress account... can do if that's where y'all think we should be going.]

[ 12-03-2002: Message edited by: Persephone ]

12:25 / 12.03.02

Regarding ownership: If in the next three months you find that, as a direct result of my "Granny needs a bun" suggestion, you are swimming in a giant water tower full of gold coins a la Scrooge McDuck, I will want a free shirt.

Otherwise, back in *our* universe, consider the ownership issue to be a non-issue. Nice work, Persephone!

Less searchable M0rd4nt

13:03 / 12.03.02

Mightn't it work out more sensible/economical to make some iron-on patches as well as shirts? That way people can select the item of clothing to be Grannified. Plus the postage would be a darn sight cheaper.

13:26 / 12.03.02

13:38 / 12.03.02

That's sure enough, and it's the int'l postage that's the kicker... let's see, Airmail for 2 oz (iron-on decal), say, to the U.K. is $1.60. and for 8 oz (t-shirt) it's 6.40.

I am seriously thinking about setting up my own online store... I just called my t-shirt vendor, and the prices are better than I thought. Just seems that with a little more investment of one's own time and money at the outset, then you can take more of the profits down the road. Seems more punk to me, I guess. If punks ever talk about profit, not that I know not being a punk myself.

Of course this is only b/c I think Queer Granny has the potential to sell... but we can always use CafePress or iron-ons to do the one-off shirts.

In your own store, you could offer your own products --as Mord. suggests, just the iron-patches-- and you could set your own pricing, as in a special Barbe-price.

Someone talk to me, I'm about to rush out of the house with Queer Granny on a zip disk...

15:20 / 12.03.02

I dont have any ideas, sorry to say

impossible to say what size - the shirts in my closet run from small/petite to large....soooo, think little girl with big boobs and even bigger hips. I like my shirts snug. run with it!

pointless and uncalled for

15:32 / 12.03.02

quote:Originally posted by bitchiekittie:
think little girl with big boobs and even bigger hips

That always works for me.

Just out of interest, how much would it cost to invest in creating a small T-shirt printing company?

15:45 / 12.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Persephone:
Of course this is only b/c I think Queer Granny has the potential to sell...I hope I'm not getting ahead of things... but "MUSIC SAVES LIVES" (which, in my head, is just straight all-caps text, maybe a typewriter font, with little to no "design") really ought to sell if there is any justice in the world. I don't know what it is, the phrase itself gets me just shy of teary (happy-teary, natch).

15:50 / 12.03.02

Well it's shot my entire morning, for one thing...

...as for money, not that much. I mean, I haven't gone out and spent the grocery money on a t-shirt printing press. On the scale I'm working at, you create the design & take it to a printer & haggle out the prices.

The deal I'm working with is:

Screens: $20 ea x 3* = $60
Shirts: $5.75 ea x 24 = $138

* one screen per color, QG has 3 colors not including white

That's $198 total /24 shirts = $8.25 per shirt to break even. That's the "at cost" price that I would make avail. to registered Barbe users. Retail price I would do $15.00. And once you sell the first 24, the screens are reusable & the unit cost drops to $5.75, or lower if you order a larger volume.

Then add on S&H, which you can get from www.usps.gov and the price of envelopes I got from www.officedepot.com.

Then you probably want to set up a website, which I'll park for now on my free earthlink site; but if things got hot, I'd want to get its own domain... $35 per year for the name, $120 for the site, that would be farther down the road.

Mostly it's just figuring out everything that costs money & charging accordingly...

pointless and uncalled for

15:56 / 12.03.02

What's the business registration cost where you are. With a legitimate business operation then all costs can be written off against tax plus reimbursement for primary costs beneath an allowable net income.

As an overview it seems that it could be a good opportunity to run a non-deficeit operation with expanse potential in response to demand and marketing.

16:04 / 12.03.02

It's $50 to incorporate... or translated to Persephonese, "that's seven and a half t-shirts I'd have to sell to pay for that." Very justified step, though, if sales actually went high enough.

dt: Flyboy's thinking very much the same for MUSIC SAVES LIVES, go back a page or two to see his post, see if you like that idee...

[ 12-03-2002: Message edited by: Persephone ]

pointless and uncalled for

16:14 / 12.03.02

In Canada, it costs $60 CAD or about $35 US to create a sole proprietor business. That amounts to about 4 1/4 T's to operate.

Through the cunning and clever use of e-mail and an PayPal style service the fiscal operations could be initiated in Canada.

16:30 / 12.03.02

I think... I think, therefore I am not sure that you can run a sole proprietorship (rather than a corporation) in the U.S. just under your own SSN & report any income as personal income on Schedule C, so there's no setup charges there. Since profits would be going back to Barbelith (as an expense), there would be no "income," so no tax & Barbelith keeps all the money.

But now I think we're well into that alternate universe where I'm "swimming in a giant water tower full of gold coins a la Scrooge McDuck."

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:44 / 12.03.02

HUGGLES!

18:29 / 12.03.02

OH DEAR GOD NO

20:38 / 12.03.02

I posted on a thread a while ago how i'd like a YANKEE COCKBLOCKERS shirt, done like a hockey jersey or longsleeved t-shirt. I'd like the logo in the NY Yankees logo, royal blue on a yellow jersey or blue on a black t-shirt. As if it was a team, some real bad-ass violent team, i mean...who wants to fuck with the Cockblockers?

anyone care to comment/design that?
I'd buy that one...

20:56 / 12.03.02

just out of interest the costs of production you posed up earlier- is that per design or would it cover all designs?

an if so perhaps a "Hand made in America by an exploited Persephone labour" might be in order for all your efforts

08:13 / 13.03.02

The problemo with Cafe Press is that it's rather pricey for people in the UK/places which are not America... this cannot be insurmountable (bulk ordering, anyone? We could have a Barbelith P.O. Box... I am actually quite keen on this idea anyway...)

I have a personal problem with Cafe Press, which is that I don't have a credit card (some bugger committed fraud with mine....).

Persephone - I am guessing that I am size S... can I have one please? PM a list of foodstuffs...

08:13 / 13.03.02

My main problem right now is that if I'm happy & excited, I get insomnia. You don't even want to know what time I woke up this morning...

sleaze: those costs are per design, and costs may vary--e.g., depending on how many colors in the design. Also I slightly fucked up my cost estimates, so today I have to do 30 min. yoga & settle my head & figure things out sensibly.

Kit-Cat: see, I totally agree about CafePress... at first I was like, Oooh convenient! And they seem to do nice work. But then I was like, Hey! They charge a lot! And they keep almost all the money!

Anyway Husb. & I were up late building a pretty pants (my new favorite word) Queer Granny Designs (the logo is the granny, with her bun!) website. It will do the basics, and it will have options for credit card/money order payment and, if I can figure it out, PayPal. Anyway, I think it will be ready to unveil on Barbelith after another night's work... next, The Advocate... then, THE WORLD!!!

If you've sent me a PM or posted your order on this thread, please bear with me as I get --heh-- my bearings. I ought to have it all sorted by the end of the week, promise.

10:05 / 13.03.02

Its probably worth mentioning that in the UK pants is taken as slang for "not very good"...

10:14 / 13.03.02

Yes I know, that is how I am using it. Fairly describes the website at the mo... and so much gentler than "sucks," which hurts Husband's feelings.

10:59 / 13.03.02

In my circle of friends, pants = lies, as in the now classic phrase:

"Aww, you're full of pants!"

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