April 19, 2005

t-shirt update

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Here are my thoughts on the t-shirts since they launched roughly 24 hours ago.
So far we’ve sold 81 shirts and 6 subsc­rip­tions. Not bad at all. Thanks to ever­yone who bought one. Seriously, it made my day.
I think we would have sold more had the weak Dollar not made them so darn expen­sive for the Ame­ri­can buyers. Notice how all the kvetching about the price ear­lier was all peo­ple quo­ting in Dollars, not Pounds Ster­ling or Euros? I thought that was very telling.
A “desig­ner” tee in the UK retails around the 

19 Responses to “t-shirt update”

  1. T-Shirt Tech

    I’m here in White Plains, NY get­ting ready to head over to Seth Godin’s place, stay tuned for upda­tes on that exer­cise but I did want to get the world (okay, the 6 of you) upda­ted on Hugh’s most exce­llent T-Shirt Adven­ture. First, tech­no­logy still

  2. lmb says:

    Hugh, cool! I want white on black though; I’ll wear black until they make something dar­ker ;-)
    So, how much for the elite edition?

  3. hugh macleod says:

    We’re not offe­ring white on black, but I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks for your kind words, though.

  4. Brock Tice says:

    What tur­ned me off, aside from the whole mar­ke­ting gim­mick, was that there are no pic­tu­res of the t-shirts, the labels, etc on the site. If you’re loo­king to improve sales (though not neces­sa­rily from me) try to get some ima­ges of the pro­duct so that peo­ple can see what they’re buying.

  5. hugh macleod says:

    Good point, Brock.
    I did tell ever­yone clearly that it’s a pre-order site, as the shirts are not back from the fac­tory yet.
    Everything should be up by 3rd of May, the offi­cial launch date, two weeks from today (Tues­day).
    I basi­cally had to choose bet­ween either wai­ting two weeks for the full site, or launching with a pre-order site. Both options had their pros and cons, but since I had a lot of peo­ple asking “where do I sign up”, I gave them that option.
    And what exactly did you mean by “mar­ke­ting gim­mick”? All I’m doing is making them limi­ted edi­tions. You obviously don’t appre­ciate the rea­sons why I’m doing that, so hap­pily for us both, I’d rather not have your busi­ness. Nothing personal.

  6. frosty says:

    Looks good Hugh. I think the price is OK, after all the main thing here is that you’re buying a limi­ted edi­tion. Sure it’s higher than peo­ple are used to in the US, but bet­ween the low dollar and the cul­ture of low-priced clothing there that should’ve been expec­ted.
    Have you thought about doing things besi­des t-shirts? I like the car­toons but I don’t wear that type of stuff… I almost bought some blog­cards but rea­li­zed peo­ple would assume they were my car­toons. (Might still do that as a social engi­nee­ring expe­ri­ment.)
    Indigo’s US par­ter has a bunch of other merch… Any­way, I don’t think I’ll buy a shirt, but I could defi­ni­tely pic­ture myself she­lling out $60 or so for a mes­sen­ger bag. (No idea how fea­si­ble that kind of thing is with your art.) Or buying non-limited-edition mugs as gifts…

  7. frosty says:

    Another thing: rea­ding the ear­lier com­ments it looks like a lot of peo­ple are com­pa­ring this to Cafe­Press. As far as I can tell this is not print-on-demand stuff, you’re actually get­ting the shirts done ahead of time. If that’s the case you might want to point it out to people.

  8. hugh macleod says:

    Frosty, yeah I’m con­si­de­ring oither merch ideas. We’ll see how hard/easy they are to get off the ground.
    But they will be limi­ted edi­tion, regardless.

  9. Great first day of sales, Hugh. Price is com­pe­ti­tive for uni­que designs, and peo­ple need to remem­ber we’re not just buying a T-shirt, we’re buying a piece of blo­gohis­to­ri­cal art!
    As to next merchan­di­sing idea, think NASCAR.

  10. Timbo says:

    c’est LA guerre…war is femi­nine in French, go figure.
    functionality.

  11. hugh macleod says:

    Duly Noted, Timbo ;-)

  12. R.I.Pienaar says:

    hey,
    loo­king good, I’d buy some if they came in white on black :( And yes, the idea about sho­wing sam­ples of the actual pro­duct is a good one.

  13. Gregor says:

    I think the Tees are still pretty darn cheap for a “limi­ted edi­tion”. What put me off as well was the lack of infor­ma­tion, and a Cre­dit Card being te only way to pay. And that some of the best “dood­les” aren’t printed.

  14. hugh macleod says:

    Thanks, Greg… More infor­ma­tion on its way, pro­mise ;-)
    Like I said, this site is still in pre-order mode. I can’t show pho­to­graphs of the shirt until the shirt actually exists.
    As far as there not being a lot of designs avai­la­ble, well, one could also argue that’s a good thing.

  15. bob says:

    well, per­so­nally, I think the site is pretty unins­pi­red, it looks like it was put together by a pro­gram­mer, too cold and techy.
    i for­got to men­tion this guy when you said you were loo­king for a scot­tish web dude:
    http://martagnan.co.uk/
    he could have put something slick together for you…
    anyhow, sales are pretty good, so maybe it doesn’t mat­ter — good luck!

  16. Gregor says:

    Bob, I think func­tio­na­lity is a lot more impor­tant than how it looks… Just like the mova­ble type gaping­void is run­ning on ;)
    I’d really like to see this
    http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000843.html
    on a shirt. I already prin­ted one out and stuck it to my port­fo­lio. Heck, it’s CC ;)

  17. JamesZ says:

    I have to say that the price per unit for a limi­ted run of shirts is not bad. Hell, I have paid simi­lar pri­ces at con­certs without thin­king twice about it. I am loo­king to have something cool and uni­que, not cheap. I could walk into any shop in any mall and buy some mass-produced POS that anyone can have.
    I have to agree that the white on black idea would be really cool. I’ll have to get some more if/when you come out with those!
    Aside from that I am loo­king for­ward to the next set to be released.

  18. gaping­void is selling t-shirts

  19. Kat says:

    At last, my very own cou­ture Hugh­train! Not only will I be the envy of all my friends, but I will finally be accep­ted into high society!