Patreon is Offering Merchandise, do you want Merch?
Added 2019-11-22 16:08:02 +0000 UTCSo I got an email to be part of the Patreon's Merchandise program and I'm curious as to what you guys thing. It doesn't work like a normal "I want something and therefor I buy it" model. It still follows the subscription model. Let me try to explain - and hopefully I understand it properly.
The options they have, it seems, are stickers, posters, and mugs. What would happen is I pick a thing - lets go with a sticker. I pick the picture (I think) and say 'hey if you're part of this tier, for x months, you will get a sticker.
The example that they have here is "After 3 months, a sticker will be sent to Patreons who've paid at least $36 dollars to be a member of my community"
What that would effectively mean is I would add a sticker (or poster or something) to our Super Awesome Supporter Teir. Now, what this means for me, is Patreon increases their monthly cut by 3% and I also have to cover the cost and shipping of the stickers (which equals out to be $5.60 per sticker). Lets do some math and assume we have 40 stickers that get sent out that's an extra cost of $224 every 3 months (which is about 75 dollars a month) plus the 3% increase (which would be about 60 dollars a month).
The bottom line is, for some simple like a sticker I'd be paying about 135 dollars more a month to Patreon - which I would question that a sticker would being in 10 brand new 15 dollar tiers.
So in my mind, this isn't worth it.
However! I did toy around with merchandise in the past and there are a number of sites that let you just buy stuff I design and I get some royalty or whatever. To me that seems easier (as I'm not doing shipping manually anymore). It's something I can explore if you guys want Druids Merchandise.
TL:DR: Do you want / care about Druids Merchandise?
Also: if anyone is interested in helping me with this endeavor, feel free to shoot me an email and maybe we can work something out.
Comments
I would absolutely love more Druids mercy personally. Love my magnets and bookmarks. But the way you explained it don’t sound exactly fair so if you can find away that’s lucrative for you then by all means and if you can’t that’s fine too
pokediginut
2019-11-22 19:16:52 +0000 UTCIt's good to hear that's an option if you do decide to go that route.
Stinzik
2019-11-22 18:35:03 +0000 UTCI am not going to source this myself. I learned my lesson from the magnets, comics and bookmarks. Although they did well, it was a pain in the ass to manage. There are sites out there that will make merch on demand for you and handle shipping. So I'll likely explore that direction.
Amocin
2019-11-22 18:12:04 +0000 UTCYeah the more I think about it the more I agree with your statement. But I'll likely look into some of those other online stores.
Amocin
2019-11-22 18:11:03 +0000 UTCI'd be more than willing to buy merch, but I do understand the reluctance if there's not enough interest because stuff like shirts and other printed merch can be expensive due to needing to be done in batches.
Stinzik
2019-11-22 18:02:58 +0000 UTCI still love my magnets and bookmarks, and wish those had stayed. This patreon merchandise sounds like a ripoff compared to what used to be the option.
Sartharina/Scow2
2019-11-22 17:57:01 +0000 UTCVoted no, but mainly because of concerns with the shipping and import costs outside the US. Otherwise I might be interested to buy some merch once in a while if it's something that interests me.
Blackwater
2019-11-22 17:43:28 +0000 UTC
