The New Site Merchandise Store
Alright folks, after a lot of requests, false starts, and personal research, I am happy to finally be rolling out the site’s new merchandise store! I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails, especially from folks who missed last year’s Teespring campaign and wanted a shirt of their own. To that effect, I took a couple of months to dig into all the options out there, testing a few for myself, and have settled on two vendors for the respective goods.
T-shirts Will Go Through TeePublic.com
There are a lot of places online that do custom tees, but this was the best one I could find in terms of options, reputation, and quality. Their sizes run from S - 5XL, and every shirt option comes in a variety of patterns and colors. All of which is great, but my biggest concern when picking this vendor was choosing one who produced quality goods. TeePublic has a stellar reputation on that front, or they have some incredible dedicated employees padding every review site I checked to make them look competent. Still, reputation isn’t everything, which is why two months before rolling out this new addition I bought a pair of shirts from them.
Some of you might have noticed my shirt plugging Authors & Dragons in the Christmas Power Hour video, and that’s because I’ve been wearing it into the ground to get in as many washes as possible to see how it held up. Also, because I thought it was funny to sneak that into the video. Anyway, after two months of heavy wear, I can report that there has been only minimal fading and no shrinking, which is about all I can really hope for from a t-shirt. Granted, that’s anecdotal, but combined with their reputation I felt comfortable setting up shop with them.
One note on sizes though: If you’re between two, then go for the larger of the set. These don’t run small, per se, but they definitely aren’t big for their size. Something to help out anyone who is sitting on the fence.
Various Goods Will Go Through Redbubble.com
Any of you who happen to be familiar with Redbubble will probably be wondering why I didn’t just set up shirts with them and keep it all under one roof. The simple answer is that while Redbubble had a good reputation for many of their goods, their t-shirt credibility came up lacking. I wasn’t going to steer any of you into a place with a bad rap, so I decided to split the catalog up in to get the right products from the right places.
Here, I got a mug as my test object, and it’s held up pretty well. Went through the dishwasher, didn’t give me some sort of stomach disease… it’s a coffee mug, there was a limit to how much QA I could really do. It showed up looking like the picture and didn’t splinter into shards at my touch. Role as a coffee-mug=fulfilled. As with TeePublic, they had a solid reputation for their non-shirt goods, so that’s enough for me to give them a try.
I’m a Third Party Here, But a Concerned One
To start off with, this project was set up solely for the people who wanted it; under no circumstances do any of you need to feel compelled to buy any merchandise. If you do, however, I’d like to know about your experience with the companies, especially if it’s a bad one. This, like most of my new ventures, is an experiment, and while I’m not the one who can fix issues with any order, I’d definitely like to know if either company leaves a sour taste in your mouth. Vendors can be changed, and despite all my research I might not have picked the right ones from the choices out there. If that’s the case, please let me know, because if you folks aren’t happy, then I’m not happy.
At any rate, enjoy perusing the new wares. I’ll add more stuff as I have the time/inspiration to think of it. Maybe I can even persuade some of my artistic colleagues to come up with designs when I have the spare cash. We’ll see how it all goes, and for those of you who’ve been requesting this addition I’m happy to say that it has finally arrived. Enjoy!