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

elizalavelle

May 22 2014, 12:15:45 UTC 3 years ago

Definitely interested :) I'm in Canada so less shipping challenge than overseas.

Maybe if there's lots of overseas interest there might be an overseas person who could arrange printing and shipping? We did that this year with the Can't Stop the Serenity shirts in Canada rather than having them shipped from the US.

seanan_mcguire

May 22 2014, 16:37:42 UTC 3 years ago

Actually, same shipping challenge. I still have to fill out the customs forms, and still have to deal with the angry customs line. It costs less to ship to Canada than to Australia, but $10 is not that different than $13 (I mailed a poster to Canada yesterday, and it was $9).

I really like my shirt shop, and I need to be able to do quality control.

elizalavelle

May 22 2014, 16:53:47 UTC 3 years ago

Makes sense to want to be able to do the quality control yourself.

I guess the answer is that for now if you're outside of the US and want to order something then you pay more for shipping. Larger companies can balance out shipping fees but there's no way that independent artists can afford to eat that loss. The postal system inside Canada isn't great unfortunately. I'd rather ship to the US than inside my own country because it's cheaper... that does not seem right to me.