Gear anyone?

[mysticlighthouse]

What do people think of gear? (The selling of promotional products for your web site) I guess a more apt question would be... Does anyone actually buy this stuff and if so, what types?

Are they shirts, pens, bags... what?

Just thought I would throw this out and see what everyone thought. I've noticed it on a lot of people's sites and decided to put one on mine too, but don't know what people would want.

I just don't want to be stuck with mountains of boxes of shirts or what have you.

[cyanide]

That's funny, our company has been thinking of just that.

We're going through a restructuring of our company, including a face-lift, including changing our corporate image, profile, etc.

Branding will be a big part of that.

I think the key is value.
Just throwing a logo on a t-shirt?
Will any one buy it ?
It shouldn't look plain. It should have an appealing look and have style.

[mysticlighthouse]

I agree with you that it needs to be a quality product, but which product? There are several choices and I'm wondering what people really want. I'm wanting to put it on there for cost because I just want the products circulating in the general public getting my branding noticed, etc, etc.

I even saw one site that imprinted thongs... that might work if I were located in South Beach...

Any suggestions? I'm not sure I want to do the over done knit polo. But hey if it works...

[tenaki]

Hi all

I use 2 online stores because I can't afford to buy in bulk and have t-shirts and mugs lying around the house.

I use Cafe express which is a US company and MakemyMegastore which is a UK company.

Both provide a great service for merchandise, but here are the problems as I see them for each.

Cafe express, good easy layout for users, but shipping to UK makes the products too expensive, but fine for the US market.

MakemyMegastore, great products, better price because they are UK based but the user interface is really complicated if you aren't that good on puters.

But if you can't afford to buy in loads of products, these are great places to start selling.

[mysticlighthouse]

I agree... I was going to go with cafepress.com, but I have a friend that is in promotional marketing (she can stick your logo on just about anything) and I can get everything considerably cheaper. The good thing with Cafe Press is that you get it all piecewise.

But I'm still trying to find if anyone has had success selling branded products and if so, what were they.

[tenaki]

Give me her details, I need cheap :)

I think selling merchandise is very difficult, I know some of the gaming websites have had a lot of sucsess selling, probably because the member group is normally younger,and there is a certain amount of street cred,they also have more usable income.

I suppose it depends on your client group/content. Is it something you would want to buy?

[mysticlighthouse]

Something I would want to buy... hmmmm... well...

I usually don't buy much of anything except software, food and clothing (in that order) ;-)

But seriously, I would buy a nice knit polo or something... but t-shirts (I've got tons of 'em) probably wouldn't make me want to run out and buy it.

The light pens are cool, but seems kind of like a trinket.

Decisions, decisions...

[tenaki]

They are all trinkets, give makemymegastore a look it's very flash :)excuse the pun, and not limited to t-shirts.

http://o2.makemymegastore.com/getstarted_o2.asp

I have had a look at your site, very impressive, but I am not sure by looking at it what products would be good for you

[Brittany]

Hey everyone,

We're seriously considering selling T-Shirts, pens, mugs, etc... for WebProWorld and othe iEntry corporate sites.

To start off with, we're focusing on creating and selling WebProWorld T-Shirts for now. We're just trying to determine whether to go with a local company, a well-known site such as CafePress.com, or another source.

Since this is an international website, affordable overseas shipping rates are a plus.

Any suggestions or personal experience you could provide would be greatly appreciated!

Also... if we do decide to start selling WebProWorld T-Shirts - would you buy one?

We look forward to hearing from you!

Brittany
and the WebProWorld Team