[Foundation-l] Cafepress alternatives?

Fri May 14 10:08:00 UTC 2004

--- "Thomas R. Koll" <tomk32 at gmx.de> wrote:
> On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 05:01:00AM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
> For the WikiReaders I'm currently setting up a webshop. I'm still
> working at it, implementing a multi-seller function.
> The idea is that everybody can sell printings, CD/DVDs or
> merchandise stuff on the site. For the sellers the biggest
> advantage is the central marekt and for the customer cheaper
> shipping is a big advantage (I neither live in CafePress country
> nor do I have a credit card).

Sounds neat. The fact that CafePress only accepts US dollars and is only in
English is a big drawback. On top of that, they are pretty darn expensive. 

> Maybe it's a good time to start discussions about an official
> Wikimedia shop. Comments?

I don't know since that would require us to have storage space, a distribution
system, a secure server to handle credit cards, and a staff to fill and send
out orders and deal with problems. Unfortunately CafePress has very little
competition and what little does exist has many of the same problems CafePress
does. 

After some time searching, this is what I could find (all only in English and
only accept US dollars as far as I could tell):

http://www.t-shirts.com/
http://artapart.com/
http://coshops.com/retail/index.asp (looks a bit cheaper than CafePress)

For special events we could order in bulk and distribute merchandise by hand
(there still would be storage issues for the leftovers). There are many places
that we could use to create good quality merchandise on the cheap. What is
expensive is the CafePress-type service. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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