Promotional items

[digriz]

I realise that this topic has been covered in the past.

But i'm thinking a getting some t-shirts, mouse mats and mugs made up for newletter competitions.

Now, i've found places that will make these items on a one off basis...Print on demand type of service. I have found a service in Europe and in America. The main reason for this is postage costs and delivery times.

I was wondering if anyone on these forums had experience of this. CafePress seems the obvious choice for America but they seem very expensive. Especially when it comes to postage, even within north america.

Can anyone recommend other services similar to cafepress that may be more competetive on their pricing?


Thanks.

[ErikH2000]

I've done t-shirts, caps, posters, mousepads, coffee mugs, game soundtrack CDs. Nothing has come close to being a regular seller, but I never did much marketing for them. Ideally, I think you'd have a nice upsell page like on twilightgames.com so that when somebody is buying a game, they can choose to tack something else onto the order. Except for the soundtrack CD (discmakers.com), my stuff is all Cafepress. http://www.cafepress.com/drod_store
I mostly just use these for contest prizes. It would be interesting for me to hear from other people that have done more with it.

-Erik

[James C. Smith]

Can anyone recommend other services similar to cafepress that may be more competetive on their pricing?

I would also love to know about a good alternative to cafepress. Their service is very convenient but the prices are high and the quality is low on some of the items. The only product of theirs I was really happy with was the posters. I tried the clocks, tshirts, hats, mugs, thong and more.

[alfie]

I tried the thong and more.

Your kidding, right?

[PoV]

Haha! *cough* .. Erm..

On the subject of promotional material, I know I'm reaching, but a reasonable service or rate for producing a couple hundred small plastic toys, or even ones made of that squishy foam/plastic stuff.

Totally reaching... I know. I'll take any info anyone's got. Building your own injection mold, cheap place online to buy plastic and/or resin, even an opinion (i.e. you crazay!), anything anyone has.

[Red Marble Games]

I have heard good things about Zazzle (http://www.zazzle.com) , which came to my attention because Google just made a big investment in them, I think. I was interested because I had also heard that CafePress was not only expensive but poor quality. They don't look that much cheaper, though.

Mark

[digriz]

For me quality is also a priority, i wouldn't want people to be unhappy with anything they purchased or won through my site.

I think Cafepress tend to jip you on the postage too. I've found a company called Speadshirt that have european and US distribution...Their prices are about the same as CafePress though.

[milieu]

I don't see Cafepress as a good way to differientiate from others since everybody and their brother has a Cafepress shop.

Financially, Cafepress didn't look like a very good deal to me. On a $15-18 shirt sale, you might see $1 or so. Most of these shirts would be a few dollars to make yourself, and you would pocket more like $5-10 on each sale. Plus, if you are selling the item as an add-on to a physical CD game sale, you can offer a chance to combine shipping to the user. I don't think that happens with Cafepress.

Cafepress does offer the flexibility of not having to maintain inventory and being able to offer a wide variety of items. If you are not shipping products (i.e., a downloaded game), it could work for you.

I'm very interested in finding cheap sources for little plastic toys too. Or methods people have used to make their own.

[Adrian Cummings]

I had my characters from my Dweebs range of PC games made into 6inch diameter plush toys back in 2001-02 but had to go to the the far east to have them mass produced by a plush toy specialist manufacturer 'Shinwoo'.

It cost me around $2500 per 1000's of toys which was not including inport duty and customs mind!.

They came in 36 boxes on a 16 wheel truck via ship/sea - it was huge I tell ya! :)

Ended up giving them away by the hundred after I sold about approx 500-600 of them with the games online when I used to be in business.

I would'nt personally do it again tho - it took far to long and was a bit of a headache from the design point of view etc. - but they did look awesome.

I have about 20 left in a bag here since closing my business late last year.

They have turned up in some really odd places on my travels too belive it or not :)

Cheers,

Adrian.

[ErikH2000]

There's kind of an obvious thing to do with this stuff.

Basically, one-off printing is always going to be low margin for you, (i.e. $1 or $3 for every item you sell) unless there is some radical change in what is required for companies to do it. And then short-run printing will be risky because of upfront costs and needing to order in quantities of 50 or 100 to get any kind of useful discount. So you can test an idea with one-off, and if you see evidence of enough sales to warrant a short run, then switch to that.

I wonder if anyone has any success stories with add-on merchandise? It seems most people's experiences are in the range of "disappointed" to "mildly satisfied". My first short-run project threatens to break even any month now, so I guess I'm almost in the "nearly mildly satisfied" category.

-Erik

[Ratboy]

The point of add-ons is advertising, not profit, so don't get hung up on making only 1-4$ on a shirt sale. One of my clients sells shirts through cafepress, but doesn't mark them up at all - as far as they care, each shirt is a little mobile billboard.

[DFG]

Their service is very convenient but the prices are high and the quality is low on some of the items. The only product of theirs I was really happy with was the posters. I tried the clocks, tshirts, hats, mugs, thong and more.

I was also very disappointed in their quality, especially for the price. Clock was OK. Had no need for a thong

[PoV]

It cost me around $2500K per 1000's of toys which was not including inport duty and customs mind!.
Ok, just to be clear, you don't actually mean "K" as in thousand (i.e. 2.5 Million!?!) do ya, or is that a currency shorthand I'm unfamiliar with.

Either way, that's quite cool. How does one get in contact with one such of these businesses? Were you "in the neighbourhood", did you have a contact in the area, or did you contact them online?

[Adrian Cummings]

Oops sorry slip of the keyboard there $2.5K as in $2500 of course :)

I just emailed them and went from there in my case so why not just do a google for whatever you are looking for? (thats what I did)... there must be plenty of alternative options available these days to make spin off merchandise.

I had stickers and keyrings done as well for example as well as the plush toys and I found those companies on the net in a few hours back in the day.

Cheers,

Adrian.

[Adrian Cummings]

Dweebs plush toys...

http://uk.geocities.com/mutation@btopenworld.com/Dweebs1.jpg

http://uk.geocities.com/mutation@btopenworld.com/Dweebs2.jpg

http://uk.geocities.com/mutation@btopenworld.com/Dweebs3.jpg

Adrian.

[James C. Smith]

I was also very disappointed in their quality, especially for the price. Clock was OK. Had no need for a thong

I always joke that not to many people are wearing the Ricochet t-shirt, but the Ricochet thong is very popular. Everyone is wearing them. You just don't get to see it but it is there. I guess they don’t work very well for advertising.

[Hamumu]

Dweebs plush toys...


Those are amazing! I wasn't expecting anything near that quality for $2.50 (of course, I don't know if they fall apart in 3 minutes, but they sure look good). Could you share what company this was? I wouldn't want to google around and end up with thier dishonest incompetent competitor, when I know there's a perfectly good company ready to be referred.

[Adrian Cummings]

I already did in an earlier post but here you go...

http://www.shinwoo.co.th/

(I just checked but they dont appear to be in biz anymore!?)

Remember that was back in '02 so I have no idea now what the deal is with them ok if you do find them.

The toys are really cool and now very rare! :)

Cheers,

Adrian.

[DFG]

the Ricochet thong is very popular. Everyone is wearing them. You just don't get to see it but it is there.

I think you are pioneering a new field of branding James ;)

[soniCron]

I guess [thongs] don’t work very well for advertising. I suppose it really depends on the girl wearing it, now doesn't it? ;)

[Pyabo]

Anyone thought about going local for these items? Any largish metro area is going to have multiple companies that can produce all the items CafePress does, at probably half the price. CafePress's only selling point is its Internet presence. If you're not opening a "store" then stay far, far away from CafePress!

[ErikH2000]

Anyone thought about going local for these items? Any largish metro area is going to have multiple companies that can produce all the items CafePress does, at probably half the price.
I think we need some more examples of one-off companies with better prices and quality, since they handle a certain case well. If you are just talking about short-run printing, then sure you can get a better per-unit price from some place in town. But you must be willing to order in quantity to get it.
CafePress's only selling point is its Internet presence. If you're not opening a "store" then stay far, far away from CafePress!
Man, I think people are being too hard on CafePress. They seem at least competitive to me. Quality on products differs depending what you are talking about. The posters look perfect to me and the price is comparable to printing a poster at Kinko's. On the other hand, the coffee mugs start fading after about 20 runs through the dishwasher.

To say they are expensive doesn't have meaning unless you say what you're comparing to. Compared to other one-off publishers? Well, then list the cheaper ones. Compared to regular printing in quantities on 200 or more? Fine, but there are plenty of that only sell 20-30 items and the cost can't be made back.

One cool thing you can do if you're on Plimus: ship a box of your t-shirts or whatever to them, and they will fulfill orders for you. If they have to hold inventory for you, they charge $1/month per cubic foot, and after that they take their normal percentage from orders.

-Erik

[Adrian Cummings]

Been a long time, but I have 'located' the last 100 Dweebs Plush Toys recently and have about 90 left now - when they're are gone they're are gone for good!

See www.softwareamusements.com for more details of how to obtain your very own little bit of indie developer history in lime green furry form :)

Just in case for the doubters amongst us, they are 'extremely' well made!

Cheers,

[zoombapup]

Just wanted to say that I remember seeing a show on TV that was some big old trade show for the toy industry. I'm sure if you were really serious about merchandising (say for plush toys) you could find a similar conference and find a partner to do business with. Of course, volume would need to be there.

[Adrian Cummings]

Cheers, yes the New York one most likely - done that via an agent years back, but I backed out when I found out that it was an end royalty of 2% sadly - the contract looked 'really' dodgy too on further examination ;)

[Qitsune]

I have had this site recommended to me but haven't used it http://www.printfection.com/
I guess for shirts and mugs regular printers or even your basic drugstore photocenter will do the job.

Apparently in Canada (you might check for your location) you can have promo items at discount thru Costco http://www.brymark.com/costco/