[Foundation-l] [xxxxxxx at xxxxxxxxx.xxx: The wikipedia online shop]

Tue Apr 5 16:24:03 UTC 2005

(This message has been edited in the mailing list archives.)

> ----- Forwarded message from Leslie Nuccio <xxxxxxx at xxxxxxxxx.xxx> -----
> I noticed that you took down the shop link on the wikipedia homepage -
> and your sales dropped dramatically as a result.

It was actually on every page on the English Wikipedia (at least French too)
for 48 hours after the end of our last fund drive. 

> What I'd like to propose is either a thumbnail of a design line (or
> product) on the homepage, and/or a permanent "Shop" tab in the global
> navigation.  Since it seems that raising money for Wikimedia Foundation
> is a priority, this is definitely a first step towards that end.

I’m not at all in favor of this since it would likely divert money away from
donations (a revenue stream where at least 95% goes directly to the foundation
- only 20% of CafePress sales go to the foundation). The amount of money
generated for the foundation through Cafe Press was tiny compared with the
amount of donation money we took in during the drive. This was even during the
time that a link to the shop was on every en.wiki page and some people
complained that was a form of advertising (the commission check that covers the
fund drive period was 400 to 500 dollars more than a regular commission check).

What we do now is send each person who donated through PayPal to a thank you
page on the foundation wiki where they are encouraged to buy merchandise. 
There is also a link to the shop on the bottom of the donation page. 

-- mav (just talking as a user, not as CFO)

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