T-shirts for 3.5k people. Stickers and CDs for 4.5k people.
I’m estimating $15k for the T-Shirts, $1.5k for the stickers and $3.5k for the CDs. Maybe I underestimated one or several of those. $26k certainly doesn’t seem unrealistic for the merch and they had to ship it. It was part of the deal.
That’s actually one of negative things about Kickstarter: It can’t be good that someone who should and most certainly is busy pushing out a product suddenly also has to be this expert in getting merch made and shipping it to people.
I would assume becoming that expert is not easy and being good at dealing with merch doesn’t seem like a valuable skill the rest of the time – you know, when you are busy building a social network or doing whatever.
All this merch crap sadly seems to have become a staple of Kickstarter projects. Maybe it’s necessary to get people to pay?
Sounds like an easy value-add for them or someone else to provide design/manufacture/drop-shipping for all the merch if you give them your logos and brief, or whatever.
They save on effort, and you take a few percent yourself. Scale means you can make better arrangements with suppliers, and quite possibly everyone comes out ahead.
Edit: to address the "is it even necessary?" question, I'd personally guess at 'yes'. Having some sort of tangible reward for your contribution, even if it's just a sticker, helps people justify the cost. Then they can wear your hat or t-shirt and get maximum indie "I funded them even before they were underground" credit. Also, free(ish) advertising for you.
Comments
T-shirts for 3.5k people. Stickers and CDs for 4.5k people.
I’m estimating $15k for the T-Shirts, $1.5k for the stickers and $3.5k for the CDs. Maybe I underestimated one or several of those. $26k certainly doesn’t seem unrealistic for the merch and they had to ship it. It was part of the deal.
That’s actually one of negative things about Kickstarter: It can’t be good that someone who should and most certainly is busy pushing out a product suddenly also has to be this expert in getting merch made and shipping it to people.
I would assume becoming that expert is not easy and being good at dealing with merch doesn’t seem like a valuable skill the rest of the time – you know, when you are busy building a social network or doing whatever.
All this merch crap sadly seems to have become a staple of Kickstarter projects. Maybe it’s necessary to get people to pay?
Sounds like an easy value-add for them or someone else to provide design/manufacture/drop-shipping for all the merch if you give them your logos and brief, or whatever.
They save on effort, and you take a few percent yourself. Scale means you can make better arrangements with suppliers, and quite possibly everyone comes out ahead.
Edit: to address the "is it even necessary?" question, I'd personally guess at 'yes'. Having some sort of tangible reward for your contribution, even if it's just a sticker, helps people justify the cost. Then they can wear your hat or t-shirt and get maximum indie "I funded them even before they were underground" credit. Also, free(ish) advertising for you.