[Marketing] the future of evolt gear

[David Kaufman]

re: fund-raising, marketing and the "evolt gear store" that i setup
on http://www.cafeshops.com/evoltgear

according to CafePress, a commission check did go out to Evolt,
attn: Marlene, to the Adelphi road address, for $62.63 on June 15th.
Elfur or Marlene, can you confirm that it was received and cleared okay?
Not that I don't trust Cafepress, of course.  it's just that i don't
trust Cafepress, of course :-)

there's another $67.65 coming down the pipe, but unfortunately that's
the total commissions for the two months, May and June, *after* the
"initial launch" sales in April.  so sales are down 50% :-(

i know it's not a lot of *money* but it seems to me that the concept
(members and well-wishers donating to an NPO by buying promotional
goods) has the potential to result in a fairly steady *stream* of
monthly income, if it were _sustainable_.  so i'm interested in what you
all think would make such a thing as this sustainable, from a marketing
perspective.

in other words: *besides* the technical issues, and business decisions
we might make (that would be transparent to the members) what steps
could we take customer-experience wise, to keep members (and theList
subscribers, or other folks who just visit and are interested in the
articles, browsers, etc on the website) interested and visiting the
store and finding stuff they'd feel good about buying, and giving back
to evolt?

i'm thinking of the free CafePress store as merely a "proof of concept".
it proved that on one particular week in April, one thread on the
List can spawn enough interest and buzz to drive members to spend
$267.97 on items fairly over-priced (but cool looking!) items... why?

what is the value proposition?  a cheap $5.00 T-Shirt, or a standard
$3.00 coffee mug?  do people not mind over-paying the other $15 bucks
(or more -- they're already over-priced by Cafepress, plus our $5.01
commission) for just: a nifty, beautiful evolt.org logo (possibly with a
side order of geek-wise humor) and the warm fuzzy feeling people get
from donating to a good cause?  i can't help but feel that if we could
increase the selection *and* keep new products with new graphics (and
new humor) coming frequently, that the "business issues" of replacing
CafePress's "associate" or "reseller" model with our own modest amount
of inventory and fulfillment, we could be taking home the lion's share
of that $267 dollar per *week* peek potential.

do you think that such a significant potential even exists?  or that it
was merely a one-time novelty thing that cannot be reproduced or
sustained by any amount of product selection, pricing and promotion?

what could we, can we or should we do next?  some things i've been
tossing around in the darkness of my head are:

1. scrap it... ?

2. add product, graphic and humor selection (the http://thinkgeek.com
site, for instance, keeps me browsing for quite some time every time
i go up there.  i don't go there often, but i do visit repeatedly,
say every other month, and have bought stuff on several (certainly not
most) occasions.  it seems to have the very same target market as we do,
in short, the technically oriented and internet-savvy professional.  i
think ThinkGeek's wide selection of products, content (and wide
selections of combinations thereof) is what inspires me as to what
evolt.org could do.  evolt also has the added "value" that proceeds go
to an excellent not-for-profit cause, that the technically oriented and
internet-savvy professional already benefits from!

3. create some sort of interactive community site (evolt members only?)
that allows users to create and submit content, kinda like cafepress
does (but better, of course :-)) to contribute their own graphic designs
and/or humorous text ideas to whatever product(s) they want.  these
customized products could then be ordered immediately by them and other
members, but would only be placed into the "public store" for purchase
by
anyone, after some type of approval process -- maybe administrator
moderation or after receiving a number of "votes" of approval, from
other members.

as you may have guessed i don't want to scrap it :-)  but at 50%
decrease in sales per month, well, it wouldd just somewhat suck for it
to effectively scrap itself.

please don't hold back on any thoughts, ideas or perceptions you may
have that that may be rumbling around in the darkness or your collective
heads to suggest or point out that i can better guage my need for a
reality check.  am i wasting my time?

PS: (to DesDev list) who can i possibly persuade to make a small update
to the public "Help Support evolt.org" page:
http://evolt.org/help_support_evolt ?  just a mention of the "evolt gear
store", and a link to http://www.cafeshops.com/evoltgear would be just
great!

thanks,

-dave