Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: thoughtful
  • Music: The Nields, "This Endless Day."

A few questions for the floor.

Apparently, I have too much free time on my hands, because I'm thinking of doing another run of Wicked Girls shirts. The last run was two years ago, and it seems like it's time. My shirt company is still in business, and while their rates have gone up slightly, they haven't gone up so much as to make things impractical. So! I have two questions.

First question, is there interest?

Second question...how do we handle international orders? I don't want to say "sorry, US and Canada only," but at the same time, recent increases in postage fees mean that shipping to anywhere else is going to be disgusting. Like, "at least ten dollars for a shirt, and fifteen for two" levels of disgusting (and even then, I'm averaging things out and will be eating some of the cost). There's not much margin on these shirts: because of the way we do them, I basically make cost + shipping materials + pizza party for the people who pack the shirts to ship. That means I can't afford to ship unless I charge what it actually costs. But I also cringe at the idea of charging what it actually costs. Fun for the whole family!

As with the last run, there will be a small surcharge for sizes 3xl and up, both because I pay more for the shirts themselves, and because they cost more to ship. I'll keep it as low as I can, again, if we do this.

So.

Do we do this?
Tags: people make things, seeking opinions
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  • 117 comments

grenacia

May 21 2014, 21:30:09 UTC 3 years ago

I've done a few t-shirt-based indiegogo fundraisers. I always made it one averaged-out price for the standard size and plus size shirts (making the standard size ones a little bit more expensive), because I didn't feel right charging more for the larger sizes, even though the t-shirt-makers do. I guess that's a little more complicated than passing on the cost increase, especially if you don't have a good idea of what percentage of the orders will be plus size, but it worked OK for me.

And yes, it is normal and important to charge the appropriate extra amount for international shipping, otherwise you lose so much money on anything shipped internationally. That's a much larger difference than the standard size size/plus size cost difference.

seanan_mcguire

May 22 2014, 16:35:09 UTC 3 years ago

I don't do indiegogo for these shirts; it's all bespoke. Which means that averaging out the cost doesn't work as well. (I also didn't feel right about upcharging for the larger sizes, until I had to mail the larger sizes. It's not only an additional $3 per shirt, it's an additional $3 in shipping costs. That's not something I can absorb, and that crosses the line for me of "it is not fair to ask everyone to pay more." Essentially, shipping three 5XL shirts is like shipping internationally.)