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producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts

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  producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro> - 2017-04-30 14:00 +0200
    Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Sebastiaan Couwenberg <sebastic@xs4all.nl> - 2017-04-30 14:20 +0200
      Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Don Armstrong <don@debian.org> - 2017-04-30 19:20 +0200
      Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Luca Filipozzi <lfilipoz@debian.org> - 2017-04-30 20:10 +0200
        Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-01 07:50 +0200
      Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro> - 2017-04-30 21:40 +0200
        Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Sebastiaan Couwenberg <sebastic@xs4all.nl> - 2017-04-30 22:10 +0200
          Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro> - 2017-04-30 22:10 +0200
            Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Sebastiaan Couwenberg <sebastic@xs4all.nl> - 2017-05-01 00:20 +0200
        Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi> - 2017-05-01 09:20 +0200
    Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@galactic.demon.co.uk> - 2017-04-30 19:50 +0200
      Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <odyx@debian.org> - 2017-05-01 18:20 +0200
        Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro> - 2017-05-01 18:30 +0200
          Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <odyx@debian.org> - 2017-05-01 18:50 +0200
            Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts martin f krafft <madduck@debian.org> - 2017-05-01 19:50 +0200
              Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts martin f krafft <madduck@debian.org> - 2017-05-01 21:40 +0200
                Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Martin Steigerwald <martin@lichtvoll.de> - 2017-05-01 22:20 +0200
                  Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@debian.org> - 2017-05-02 06:50 +0200
                    Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Martin Steigerwald <martin@lichtvoll.de> - 2017-05-02 11:50 +0200
                    Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> - 2017-05-02 22:50 +0200
                      Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana <phls@softwarelivre.org> - 2017-05-03 18:40 +0200
                        Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-04 00:50 +0200
                          Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana <phls@softwarelivre.org> - 2017-05-06 16:50 +0200
                Sourcing fair-trade t-shirts (was: producing, distributing, storing  Debian t-shirts) martin f krafft <madduck@debian.org> - 2017-05-02 07:40 +0200
                  Re: Sourcing fair-trade t-shirts (was: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts) Martin Steigerwald <martin@lichtvoll.de> - 2017-05-02 12:00 +0200
              Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Adam Borowski <kilobyte@angband.pl> - 2017-05-01 21:40 +0200
                Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro> - 2017-05-01 22:40 +0200
              Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Didier 'OdyX' Raboud <odyx@debian.org> - 2017-05-02 08:20 +0200
            Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-02 05:10 +0200
    Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@debian.org> - 2017-05-01 05:40 +0200
      Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro> - 2017-05-01 09:10 +0200
        Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Bas Couwenberg <sebastic@xs4all.nl> - 2017-05-01 09:20 +0200
        Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@debian.org> - 2017-05-02 06:40 +0200
          Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro> - 2017-05-02 08:00 +0200
    Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-01 09:30 +0200
      Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2017-05-01 09:40 +0200

Page 2 of 2 — ← Prev page 1 [2]

#9169

Hi,

Here in Brazil we are selling some products and using the money to organize free software events in Curitiba like MiniDebConf, FLISOL, Software Freedom Day, because it's very hard get sponsors.
http://loja.curitibalivre.org.br

There is too a big demand to buy products with Debian logo, and it's very expensive to pay in USD and import from other countries. So, our small store has helped these users to be proud to use Debian.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/curitibalivre/33092175864/in/album-72157679059866304/

1.00 USD ~ R$ 3,20
T-Shirt is R$ 40,00 ~ USD 12,50

We don't have a non-profite organization, but we are planning to open one.

-- 
Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana (phls)
Curitiba - Brasil
Membro da Comunidade Curitiba Livre
Fone: +55 (41) 99198-1897
Site: http://www.phls.com.br
GNU/Linux user: 228719  GPG ID: 0443C450

Apoie a campanha pela igualdade de gênero #HeForShe (#ElesPorElas)  
http://www.heforshe.org/pt

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#9171

On Thu, May 4, 2017 at 12:38 AM, Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana wrote:

> Here in Brazil we are selling some products and using the money to organize free software events in Curitiba like MiniDebConf, FLISOL, Software Freedom Day, because it's very hard get sponsors.
> http://loja.curitibalivre.org.br

Please add your webshop here:

https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/misc/merchandise.data?view=markup

> We don't have a non-profite organization, but we are planning to open one.

Once you have, it could become a Debian TO:

https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Auditor/Organizations

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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#9183

Hi,

Daniel and Giovani at Cryptorave (https://cryptorave.org) today:
http://imgur.com/a/Wwx1Q

Best regards,

----- Mensagem original -----
> De: "Paul Wise" <pabs@debian.org>
> Para: "Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana" <phls@softwarelivre.org>
> Cc: "debian-project" <debian-project@lists.debian.org>
> Enviadas: Quarta-feira, 3 de maio de 2017 19:45:52
> Assunto: Re: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts

> On Thu, May 4, 2017 at 12:38 AM, Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana wrote:
> 
>> Here in Brazil we are selling some products and using the money to organize free
>> software events in Curitiba like MiniDebConf, FLISOL, Software Freedom Day,
>> because it's very hard get sponsors.
>> http://loja.curitibalivre.org.br
> 
> Please add your webshop here:
> 
> https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/misc/merchandise.data?view=markup
> 
>> We don't have a non-profite organization, but we are planning to open one.
> 
> Once you have, it could become a Debian TO:
> 
> https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Auditor/Organizations
> 
> --
> bye,
> pabs
> 
> https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

-- 
Paulo Henrique de Lima Santana (phls)
Curitiba - Brasil
Membro da Comunidade Curitiba Livre
Fone: +55 (41) 99198-1897
Site: http://www.phls.com.br
GNU/Linux user: 228719  GPG ID: 0443C450

Apoie a campanha pela igualdade de gênero #HeForShe (#ElesPorElas)  
http://www.heforshe.org/pt

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#9158 — Sourcing fair-trade t-shirts (was: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts)

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

also sprach martin f krafft <madduck@debian.org> [2017-05-01 21:37 +0200]:
> Make it fair-trade and printed by people with disabilities, like
> we did for DC15, and it was somewhere around $8.

Since people have asked off-list: the contractor that Daniel Lange
identified was

  Caritasverband für Stuttgart e.V.
  Bereich Arbeit, 7 Siebe
  +49 711 8878652

and the product we ordered was

  Stanley&Stella,STTM528/STTW006,"Leads2,"Loves",Biobaumwolle
  + Fairtrade,Kids STTB938,"paints"

at 4.79 €/piece. Printing was 2 € each, as well 30 € or so one-time
incidentals, net price.

Since they work with people with disabilities, they only need to
charge 7% VAT (vs. 19%) in the EU, which helps keep the price low,
and in the end, you end up with something close to 7€/shirt (we
printed 700) of them).

If you want to work with them, you might want to quote the following
from our order:

  Contact person: Herr Schupp
  Order ID: 2015-19310-287 E

Hope this helps.

-- 
 .''`.   martin f. krafft <madduck@d.o> @martinkrafft
: :'  :  proud Debian developer
`. `'`   http://people.debian.org/~madduck
  `-  Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems
 
murphy's law is recursive.
washing your car to make it rain doesn't work.

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#9162 — Re: Sourcing fair-trade t-shirts (was: producing, distributing, storing Debian t-shirts)

Hello Martin.

martin f krafft - 02.05.17, 07:39:
> and the product we ordered was
> 
>   Stanley&Stella,STTM528/STTW006,"Leads2,"Loves",Biobaumwolle
>   + Fairtrade,Kids STTB938,"paints"
> 
> at 4.79 €/piece. Printing was 2 € each, as well 30 € or so one-time
> incidentals, net price.

Okay, scratch what I just wrote. It helps to really carefully read all the 
details of your mail:

You found an even slightly cheaper source. Printing costs are higher at least 
when ordering 500 shirts or more compared to Memo. As I don´t know what 
printing partner Memo uses, it may be fairer tough. For me a price of 7 Euro 
per T-Shirt is totally acceptable, so I see no point replacing printing by a 
cheaper option if that cheaper option is less fair or socially sustainable. 
(Given the mission of Memo I bet they take fairness into account for printing 
as well… but I didn´t found a definitive information on that.)

Thanks,
-- 
Martin

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#9149

On Mon, May 01, 2017 at 07:45:06PM +0200, martin f krafft wrote:
> For many of us, it goes without saying that we'd not take a margin
> off merchandise we create/sell for our project, mainly because of
> our idealism.
> 
> However, at the end of the day, all things considered, if Didier or
> Person X would mark those items up, say, 5% to cover the incidentals
> (not the time spent), then I wouldn't have a problem with that.
> It'll certainly help if they were entirely transparent about it,
> though.

I for one would be glad even if he _did_ take a fair fee for his time spent. 

And it would make a difference:

# It's been fun in 2011, but I would not do it again, no.  I have better
# uses of my Debian time.  :)

If you get compensated beyond the costs, you don't get that warm fuzzy
feeling of doing gratis work, but still do provide a welcome service to
members of the project.  If that can tip the threshold between the service
being provided or not, then why not?

> Note also that there's nothing that prevents Person Y from producing
> Debian merchandise and offering it with a more substantial markup.
> If people buy it (i.e. the price is right), then everyone benefits…

Note the data mentioned in this thread:
* decent printed shirts cost $0.60 in a large batch (including the
  manufacturer's profit)
* "very good quality" printed shirts made in a small batch retail for $3 if
  you skip most of the "rich country" artificial markup (ie, the price you
  pay in shop is "what the market will bear" rather than just what would
  keep the seller in business)

Thus, there's a massive gap between doing it for costs and a full commercial
operation.  It's not hard to find a sweet spot in between that would flood
relevant places with people in Debian-themed clothing while not cutting into
volunteers' unpaid time.

(Obviously, not everyone finds organizing such an operation fun -- I for one
would find doing this myself abhorrent, my contributions are 10% code fixes
90% wise-ass remarks -- but Debian is pretty diverse, and some of us have a
modicum of skill here.)


Meow!
-- 
Don't be racist.  White, amber or black, all beers should be judged based
solely on their merits.  Heck, even if occasionally a cider applies for a
beer's job, why not?
On the other hand, corpo lager is not a race.

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#9151

On 01/05/17 21:33, Adam Borowski wrote:
> On Mon, May 01, 2017 at 07:45:06PM +0200, martin f krafft wrote:
>> For many of us, it goes without saying that we'd not take a margin
>> off merchandise we create/sell for our project, mainly because of
>> our idealism.
>>
>> However, at the end of the day, all things considered, if Didier or
>> Person X would mark those items up, say, 5% to cover the incidentals
>> (not the time spent), then I wouldn't have a problem with that.
>> It'll certainly help if they were entirely transparent about it,
>> though.
> 
> I for one would be glad even if he _did_ take a fair fee for his time spent. 
> 
> And it would make a difference:
> 
> # It's been fun in 2011, but I would not do it again, no.  I have better
> # uses of my Debian time.  :)
> 
> If you get compensated beyond the costs, you don't get that warm fuzzy
> feeling of doing gratis work, but still do provide a welcome service to
> members of the project.  If that can tip the threshold between the service
> being provided or not, then why not?
> 


There are various reasons why not:

- opportunity cost: time spent on this is time not spent on other things
where people have more to give

- financial reward isn't always a smart motivation (see Lepper and
Greene, 1973)

- Debian's constitution states we are volunteers, so if people do stuff
like this with Debian money maybe they can't personally be paid for it.

but I personally have no objection to somebody profiting from this if
they are transparent about it and provide a good service to the community.


>> Note also that there's nothing that prevents Person Y from producing
>> Debian merchandise and offering it with a more substantial markup.
>> If people buy it (i.e. the price is right), then everyone benefits…
> 
> Note the data mentioned in this thread:
> * decent printed shirts cost $0.60 in a large batch (including the
>   manufacturer's profit)
> * "very good quality" printed shirts made in a small batch retail for $3 if
>   you skip most of the "rich country" artificial markup (ie, the price you
>   pay in shop is "what the market will bear" rather than just what would
>   keep the seller in business)
> 
> Thus, there's a massive gap between doing it for costs and a full commercial
> operation.  It's not hard to find a sweet spot in between that would flood
> relevant places with people in Debian-themed clothing while not cutting into
> volunteers' unpaid time.
>

Those are very different cases though: the embroidered shirts would
probably be more simple (just the logo) and designed for a long shelf
life.  The screen printed shirts may have more topical designs (e.g. for
DebConf17 or Stretch) and in these cases the smaller quantity is fine.

Regards,

Daniel

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#9160

Le lundi, 1 mai 2017, 19.45:06 h CEST martin f krafft a écrit :
> However, at the end of the day, all things considered, if Didier or
> Person X would mark those items up, say, 5% to cover the incidentals
> (not the time spent), then I wouldn't have a problem with that.

Oh, just to make the records straight: this was done under the debian.ch 
umbrella, with essentially Debian-like money. When I wrote that "we" were not 
making margin, I implied "Debian made an approximately zero-cost zero-benefit 
operation". I even paid my own knives.

-- 
    OdyX

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#9155

On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 12:44 AM, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote:

> If there's interest, I would _really_ recommend finding a trustable and
> specialized partner (such as EnVenteLibre) to manage that, even if Debian is
> to provide the initial funds and/or let a certain percentage go.

Some of our existing merchandise vendors seem suitable, for eg:

https://www.freewear.org/?page=foss_events
https://www.freewear.org/?page=foss_orders

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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#9136

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

Daniel Pocock dijo [Sun, Apr 30, 2017 at 01:53:49PM +0200]:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> On several occasions people have asked me about Debian t-shirts and the
> polo shirts when I'm going to an event or after seeing a video where I
> am wearing the polo shirt.
> 
> At some events there are opportunities to mass-produce things in
> collaboration with the event team, lowering costs and avoiding the cost
> of shipping into the event.  For example, the FOSSASIA team produced a
> lot of roll-up banners and three Debian banners were included in the
> batch.  Similar deals can lower the cost of t-shirt production,
> especially when the event takes place in a location where costs are lower.
> 
> A few people have expressed concern about the production of t-shirts though:
> (...)

Just my experience here:

Many years ago, my then-couple and me ran a textile printing
small-scale workshop. She still runs it, and she will print DebConf's
shirts this year (as she has repeatedly done - DebConf 6, 7, 9, 10,
13, 14, 15 and 17 shirts all went through her hands :) ). Of course,
back in the day, we printed many shirts related to Free Software
projects. We even made some minor trademark violations which I openly
acknowledge as such (i.e. we printed IIRC 50 shirts with the Firefox
and the Mozilla logos for the Firefox 1.0 release party... Only to
find out later they did have a trademark policy... Oh, we were young
and innocent :-] )

Anyway, beyond the memory trip... T-shirts are *awesome* for
promotion. Good material T-shirts much more so - I still have in very
good condition most of my home-printed shirts... With our production
starting in 2004. I did take a bag of shirts to several conferences
(several local ones, and at least I took a case with probably 50 to
DebConf5 in Helsinki).

Thing is, sadly, I hate manning the sales booth. Selling shirts is a
quick way to make money. If you print in "cheapish" countries such as
mine (Mexico), a very good quality shirt+print would cost around US$3
if my numbers are right. I am *stumped* to find ~US$30 shirts for sale
in the USA; I have bought a couple of debian.ch shirts (which are
great!), but it's hard for me to understand where the price comes
from. Of course, then I remember what is said about .ch...

Anyway, if any of you is interested: We have found for DebConf that if
most often makes a lot of economic sense to print shirts in Mexico and
ship them via the usual courier services; if any of you is interested,
even in relatively short runs of products, I'm sure Gaby will be happy
to provide good work and material (and, of course, I can provide the
contact if needed). You mention "economies of scale" - It does not
really matter. I am not up to date with prices, but they should have
not moved much... The cost for making one silk-screen original (for a
workshop that does _not_ have their own development lab) is about US$5
per color. Shirt prices go down at around the 10, 25 and 50-items, but
beyond there, you won't gain much.

It usually makes no sense, so, to make big print runs and lug / move
around stock. It's best to just print as you go, and that way even
just take "current" designs to each event (plus some bits of stock you
have left over)... If I were to offer you, for very cheap, our shirts
for Sarge or Etch, I don't think you'd be very interested! That would
become lost money.

Greetings,

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#9138

On 01/05/17 05:36, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
> Daniel Pocock dijo [Sun, Apr 30, 2017 at 01:53:49PM +0200]:
>> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> On several occasions people have asked me about Debian t-shirts
>> and the polo shirts when I'm going to an event or after seeing a
>> video where I am wearing the polo shirt.
>> 
>> At some events there are opportunities to mass-produce things in 
>> collaboration with the event team, lowering costs and avoiding
>> the cost of shipping into the event.  For example, the FOSSASIA
>> team produced a lot of roll-up banners and three Debian banners
>> were included in the batch.  Similar deals can lower the cost of
>> t-shirt production, especially when the event takes place in a
>> location where costs are lower.
>> 
>> A few people have expressed concern about the production of
>> t-shirts though: (...)
> 
> Just my experience here:
> 
> Many years ago, my then-couple and me ran a textile printing 
> small-scale workshop. She still runs it, and she will print
> DebConf's shirts this year (as she has repeatedly done - DebConf 6,
> 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15 and 17 shirts all went through her hands :) ).
> Of course, back in the day, we printed many shirts related to Free
> Software projects. We even made some minor trademark violations
> which I openly acknowledge as such (i.e. we printed IIRC 50 shirts
> with the Firefox and the Mozilla logos for the Firefox 1.0 release
> party... Only to find out later they did have a trademark policy...
> Oh, we were young and innocent :-] )
> 
> Anyway, beyond the memory trip... T-shirts are *awesome* for 
> promotion. Good material T-shirts much more so - I still have in
> very good condition most of my home-printed shirts... With our
> production starting in 2004. I did take a bag of shirts to several
> conferences (several local ones, and at least I took a case with
> probably 50 to DebConf5 in Helsinki).
> 
> Thing is, sadly, I hate manning the sales booth. Selling shirts is
> a quick way to make money. If you print in "cheapish" countries
> such as mine (Mexico), a very good quality shirt+print would cost
> around US$3 if my numbers are right. I am *stumped* to find ~US$30
> shirts for sale in the USA; I have bought a couple of debian.ch
> shirts (which are great!), but it's hard for me to understand where
> the price comes from. Of course, then I remember what is said about
> .ch...
> 
> Anyway, if any of you is interested: We have found for DebConf that
> if most often makes a lot of economic sense to print shirts in
> Mexico and ship them via the usual courier services; if any of you
> is interested, even in relatively short runs of products, I'm sure
> Gaby will be happy to provide good work and material (and, of
> course, I can provide the contact if needed). You mention
> "economies of scale" - It does not really matter. I am not up to
> date with prices, but they should have not moved much... The cost
> for making one silk-screen original (for a workshop that does _not_
> have their own development lab) is about US$5 per color. Shirt
> prices go down at around the 10, 25 and 50-items, but beyond there,
> you won't gain much.
> 
> It usually makes no sense, so, to make big print runs and lug /
> move around stock. It's best to just print as you go, and that way
> even just take "current" designs to each event (plus some bits of
> stock you have left over)... If I were to offer you, for very
> cheap, our shirts for Sarge or Etch, I don't think you'd be very
> interested! That would become lost money.
> 

Can you give an example of shipping costs from Mexico to the US and
Mexico to Brussels (for FOSDEM)?

I assume that if they were sent to a European country there would be
VAT charges on arrival, between 8% and 23% depending on the country.

I did a quick search for information on the polo shirts, I have one
with a logo in red and the other one has the logo in red and "debian"
in white.  Both are embroidered onto the shirt and they last a long
time.  Here is an example[1] from China:

500 polo shirts x $1.90 = $950
1500 polo shirts x $0.60 = $900

So it is cheaper to make 1500 than 500.  I wonder if they would allow
different coloured shirts (e.g. 500 black, 500 white, 500 blue) in a
single batch.

Regards,

Daniel

1.
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/100-cotton-High-Quality-Customized-Logo_60450761521.html

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#9139

On 2017-05-01 09:00, Daniel Pocock wrote:
> Can you give an example of shipping costs from Mexico to the US and
> Mexico to Brussels (for FOSDEM)?

Please note that for FOSDEM the bulk of the merchandise is provided by 
Debian France.

Kind Regards,

Bas

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#9156

Daniel Pocock dijo [Mon, May 01, 2017 at 09:00:34AM +0200]:
> Can you give an example of shipping costs from Mexico to the US and
> Mexico to Brussels (for FOSDEM)?

Bufff... It's a matter of checking the weight and asking DHL, Fedex,
and all of their kin :-| 

> I assume that if they were sent to a European country there would be
> VAT charges on arrival, between 8% and 23% depending on the country.

IIRC, it's covered within the various free trade agreements our
country has. Maybe somebody remembers better than me in European
DebConfs (I've always ran away from handling monetary issues).

> I did a quick search for information on the polo shirts, I have one
> with a logo in red and the other one has the logo in red and "debian"
> in white.  Both are embroidered onto the shirt and they last a long
> time.  Here is an example[1] from China:
> 
> 500 polo shirts x $1.90 = $950
> 1500 polo shirts x $0.60 = $900
> 
> So it is cheaper to make 1500 than 500.  I wonder if they would allow
> different coloured shirts (e.g. 500 black, 500 white, 500 blue) in a
> single batch.

Those producers are best suited for high-volume production, I'm giving
you the numbers for a small, family-owned, family-worked workshop
where a DebConf run (~500 shirts among all variations) is usually the
largest work in the year. There is little economic difference per item
between printing 50 and 500.

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#9159

On 02/05/17 06:35, Gunnar Wolf wrote:
> Daniel Pocock dijo [Mon, May 01, 2017 at 09:00:34AM +0200]:
>> Can you give an example of shipping costs from Mexico to the US and
>> Mexico to Brussels (for FOSDEM)?
> 
> Bufff... It's a matter of checking the weight and asking DHL, Fedex,
> and all of their kin :-| 
> 

Could you give an example of weight for 10 shirts?  That may be helpful
for anybody who wants to calculate.

>> I assume that if they were sent to a European country there would be
>> VAT charges on arrival, between 8% and 23% depending on the country.
> 
> IIRC, it's covered within the various free trade agreements our
> country has. Maybe somebody remembers better than me in European
> DebConfs (I've always ran away from handling monetary issues).
> 

A free trade agreement generally eliminates the customs duties but not
the consumption tax although with some care the tax can be managed.

The consumption taxes (EU VAT, Australia, Canada GST, Switzerland MwSt)
always have to be paid if the product would be taxed in a retail store.
A few exempt items (books, gold bullion, some medicine) are not taxed at
the retail level, so they are not taxed at the border.

There are situations where it may not apply but care is needed to plan
for that in advance:
- if a tax registered entity does the import (e.g. if DebConf17 has a
GST registration or collaboration with a local business) then they may
be able to reclaim that tax, it looks like 5% in Canada, they would need
to check in advance and ensure the paperwork is right
- when bringing things to the EU, some countries charge a lower VAT
rate, e.g. 15% in Luxembourg is less than 21% in Belgium and once they
are in the EU, they can be moved to other EU countries without paying
VAT again.
- if they come into Switzerland it is only 8% but anybody taking them
over the border into the EU in bulk would have to declare them and might
be asked to pay the higher tax.  Personal items (clothing, etc) carried
out of Switzerland in your luggage is exempt but anything over 20 EUR
posted out of Switzerland is taxed.

So the bottom line is that people have to make extra effort to plan in
advance or just pay it.

>> I did a quick search for information on the polo shirts, I have one
>> with a logo in red and the other one has the logo in red and "debian"
>> in white.  Both are embroidered onto the shirt and they last a long
>> time.  Here is an example[1] from China:
>>
>> 500 polo shirts x $1.90 = $950
>> 1500 polo shirts x $0.60 = $900
>>
>> So it is cheaper to make 1500 than 500.  I wonder if they would allow
>> different coloured shirts (e.g. 500 black, 500 white, 500 blue) in a
>> single batch.
> 
> Those producers are best suited for high-volume production, I'm giving
> you the numbers for a small, family-owned, family-worked workshop
> where a DebConf run (~500 shirts among all variations) is usually the
> largest work in the year. There is little economic difference per item
> between printing 50 and 500.
> 

As noted in another reply, I see them as a completely different type of
product (polo shirt with only the logo, embroidered, one colour vs
t-shirt with multiple colours and designs) so it is not a price
competition, people could have both t-shirts and polo shirts.  The
screen printing solution you have described also sounds great and it is
good that there is transparency about the supply chain.

Regards,

Daniel

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#9141

On Sun, Apr 30, 2017 at 7:53 PM, Daniel Pocock wrote:

> On several occasions people have asked me about Debian t-shirts and the
> polo shirts when I'm going to an event or after seeing a video where I
> am wearing the polo shirt.

Are you reminding those folks about our merchandise page?

https://www.debian.org/misc/merchandise

PS: I've just updated the page a bit:

https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/misc/merchandise.data?r1=1.70&r2=1.71
https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/misc/merchandise.def?r1=1.44&r2=1.45
https://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/webwml/webwml/english/misc/merchandise.wml?r1=1.7&r2=1.9

> - how do people view the distribution of merchandise, is the primary
> goal fundraising or is it about brand exposure?

The latter seems more appropriate for a non-profit but I'm not sure we
should be undercutting our merchandise partners, especially the ones
that donate a portion of their profits to Debian.

> - would it be reasonable for 1% - 2% of Debian's reserves to be tied up
> in slow moving inventory items like t-shirts that take up to a year to
> fully turnover?  As the reserves are mostly kept in cash Debian probably
> loses at least that much to inflation each year anyway.

The official view of the Debian project in the past seems to have been
that we leave the distribution of physical items up to our vendors,
for both merchandise and CD/DVD/BD/USB. I don't think that should
change.

https://www.debian.org/misc/merchandise
https://www.debian.org/CD/vendors/

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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#9142

On Mon, May 1, 2017 at 3:20 PM, Paul Wise wrote:

> The official view of the Debian project in the past seems to have been
> that we leave the distribution of physical items up to our vendors,
> for both merchandise and CD/DVD/BD/USB.

PS: some of our merchandise vendors will do specific orders for FLOSS
events and even custom designs for specific events like mini-DebConfs.
One has even done both for Debian:

https://www.freewear.org/?page=foss_events
https://www.freewear.org/?page=foss_orders

-- 
bye,
pabs

https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise

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