BCG Merchandise?!

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Abinoone

Abinoone

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I have a vague recollection (which is how all of my recollections are these days - vague!) that Steve once had, or was planning to offer, BCG merchandise like caps, mugs, and shirts. I think it’s a great idea and I’d be very pleased to wear a logo cap, or add a BCG mug to my collection. Anyone else?
 
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Abinoone said:
I have a vague recollection (which is how all of my recollections are these days - vague!) that Steve once had, or was planning to offer, BCG merchandise like caps, mugs, and shirts. I think it’s a great idea and I’d be very pleased to wear a logo cap, or add a BCG mug to my collection. Anyone else?
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Steve had a Black Friday sale a few weeks ago.
 
Abinoone said:
I have a vague recollection (which is how all of my recollections are these days - vague!) that Steve once had, or was planning to offer, BCG merchandise like caps, mugs, and shirts. I think it’s a great idea and I’d be very pleased to wear a logo cap, or add a BCG mug to my collection. Anyone else?
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Yup! I’m in..🤩
 
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I'm not much of a merch guy myself. If someone gave me a hat, I'd probably wear it, but to pay to wear someone else's logo is just not for me (again no offense to Steve).

That being said, I've bought T-shirts to help a charity or something like that. But that's different in my mind.
 
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I'm particular about hats (caps). Would need a cool logo, cool colors, the right rise, and generally make me look good and younger.🙂
 
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Abinoone said:
I have a vague recollection (which is how all of my recollections are these days - vague!) that Steve once had, or was planning to offer, BCG merchandise like caps, mugs, and shirts. I think it’s a great idea and I’d be very pleased to wear a logo cap, or add a BCG mug to my collection. Anyone else?
Click to expand...
He did -- I wear one of his hats :) And if I recall correctly, and not to speak for him, but a 'mess' with the online ordering company had him settle on a 'never again' place :)
 
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Steve did have merch available earlier, available through Etsy if I remember correctly. I ordered a hat and a couple of shirts. But it was a nightmare for Steve working with the online sales organization, so it stopped after its first iteraction. I asked Steve about it earlier this year as I was interested in some newer items. He replied that while it was still a topic, it was going to be a very labor intensive effort, and that he was prioritizing updates to his ebooks, etc. which I certainly understand. If he ever does go that route, I would certainly support. But right now I think he was paying more attention to his books and teaching videos which is more his core business.
 
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Based on my personal experience, selling stuff on line is a major pain unless you are selling thousands upon thousands of units and can make enough to have someone else either "drop ship" or handle warehousing and distribution. For 4 years, my wife and I created calendars featuring our photography. We had regular and repeat buyers and sold about 100 per year which is all we really wanted to deal with.
The work to pick out our favorite photos for each season and organizing them into months was the fun part.
Once we had the calendar organized, ordering them and paying for them up front cam Eto lay.
They got delivered and we started collecting money and trying to get them out once a week between late October and early December. Creating mailing labels, buying padded envelopes, dealing with damage from the post office, and getting the checks deposited was work.
We only sold these to family, friends and friends of friends (word of mouth). Our goal was to break even on them for cost of goods sold (calendar, envelopes, postage). We did not factor in our time, expertise in the capturing of the images, mileage to and from post office, depreciation on equipment, etc. Just recoup our personal out of pocket expenses.

Given a percentage of lost in mail and/or damaged in mail we rarely broke even. If we considered out time and personal materials we lost money.

It was; however, a labor of love and not a business opportunity. We did not do a calendar this year. 1) costs for postage went up and cost of the calendars went up. Hard to justify the cost when everyone has a calendar on their phone anyway. 2) we lost about one dollar per calendar last year due to an unexpected increase in our costs. 3) I love to be in the field in October and November capturing images of Whitetail Deer rut (well, the big bucks chasing does at least). The calendar work was taking time away from the activity I really enjoyed.

I say all this because it is probably an equal pain for Steve with an equally small return. He, as a business, is doing it for profit and there really isn't a whole lot of profit when total end to end cost of goods sold is calculated.

Jeff
 
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High quality coffee mugs are always the bomb and I would be in if we could sell some merch to raise money for some charitable organizations such as nature preservation, youth photography, etc.
 
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ajrmd said:
High quality coffee mugs are always the bomb and I would be in if we could sell some merch to raise money for some charitable organizations such as nature preservation, youth photography, etc.
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that would be great. I looked into creating nature photo coffee mugs to put out at various shows and gatherings. Unfortunately, most of the ones I saw were more or less generic ceramic mugs with silk screening or really low quality image transfers. Those things would peel off or chip up quickly with use and they were quite expensive (my cost) for what they were. Now, a nice heavy pottery mug with some kind o high quality photo transfer may be worth the extra cost but I'm assuming something like that would be cost prohibitive to purchase for both me and the intended client.
 
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We're back to offering a limited selection via the Donations tab above. Note that at the moment the store is closed (we're out of town), but we'll re-open one we're back.

Right now, inventory is really low anyway. We'e looking for new vendors for the shirts. I like the old ones, but I found some new lightweight shirts I like even better. Just a matter of getting it sorted out. New hats coming too - foldable with 50SPF protection. I don't mind selling the merchandise, I just want it to be stuff I would use.
 
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Ralph said:
There was an email, and I purchased a t-shirt. I got the email on November 24. No hats were left.
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I need to check my e-mail preferences and also my BCG account settings, for I don't recall seeing an e-mail about this. Then again, if my wife saw an e-mail offering to sell me more hats or t-shirts, she likely would have deleted it immediately! :unsure: Can you believe that she thinks I have too many hats? There's no such thing! ;)
 
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TBH, we kept it subtle, I don't think we mentioned it directly, just mentioned the new donations page. Last time with Etsy they freaked out when they saw all the orders pour in at once and caused us no end of grief. This time, we're trying to take it slower so they can see we aren't scammers. Granted, they know us now, but I'm not getting burned again :)

Also, we use them because they get a massive discount on postage that we can't get on our own - easily half price what we'd pay. Otherwise, we'd just put in a cart and do it all ourselves.
 
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