Nice! I'll have a look at this tonight. About descriptions, I've already planned on doing that along with setting up the items, so no big deal.

Thanks for looking into it! -C

On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 11:19 AM, Mihaela <mihaela.jurkovic@...400...> wrote:

On 04.04.2018 08:48, C R wrote:

So the more I use Spreadshirt, the more I see it's not a serious platform for merchandising. If you add a design for a mug, Spreadshirt requires you add the ENTIRE mug category, which contains any number of hidden (and hideous) products which you have no control over. I've confirmed this with Spreadshirt customer service: To add one white mug, you must add ALL mugs. To add one men's shirt, you must add all variations. This makes it impossible to control the quantity of products for a design, so the result is that the storefront gets flooded with a hundred variations of the very few things you set up, and the only way to remove them is to remove the whole category.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure that out, and I seemed to have found a way, unless they changed it in the meantime (it seems the same when I take a peek). There is a way to control exactly which products and designs you want in the shop, but it is time consuming. I've written it up in a Wiki page https://gitlab.com/inkscape/vectors/general/wikis/spreadshirt-shop Let me know if it needs to be more clear.

It was suggested we might be able to use their API to import it in bulk from a CSV file, which might be nice, once we get the designs and all the product copies in order. That is a lot more work than uploading and configuring the store. If we had product descriptions paired with designs and which products to use in a CSV file, even without the API we can find a volunteer who could chip at it manually.

I'm more annoyed by the inability to limit product colors, I'd love to exclude black almost everywhere because our logo is black and it disappears on dark backgrounds.

Many other services are like this, based on collections, because it makes it easier in most cases. Our case is a bit special.

So, what to do? I see only a few options, and none of them are great:

1. We limit it to one or two generic designs for everything. This is really

the only way that makes sense. Anything else is going to have the visitors wading through hundreds of badly auto-designed products that no one will buy.

I vote for curated list of designs/product combinations, a small list, which also increases likelihood of sales. Our biggest issue is coming up with enticing copy (titles and descriptions) for each product with regards to our audiences. Once we have that, tackling any store config won't be too difficult to organize.

Online store services are there to take care of the products, printing, and interface. But they can't do our marketing for us.

I've added a few products in that curated way when I first started playing with the store a year ago. Maye they got lost in the flood when entire collections were added.

2. We ditch Spreadshirt, and seek other options. I mean, surely there's

better than this out there somewhere. :)

If we stay, we risk carefully thought out designs getting lost in auto-gen rubbish, which any online retailer will tell you is death for a product line. Too many options is no options, especially when most of the options look terrible anyway.

I do have a list of other services I thought we could test. We're not limited to one store. I'm super excited by the possibilities of the ones with embroidery!

I have a list of those in my notes. I haven't published it on GitLab yet since I wanted to review them before dumping them on everyone else.

If you have a list of designs and products with descriptions and tags you want to include in the store I can get them in there, or I can help you with the configuration to get exactly what we want and not entire collections.

Mihaela

My 2p -C

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On Fri, Apr 06, 2018 at 03:12:17AM -0600, brynn wrote:

Will there be a way, with Spreadshirt, to upload our own unique items, such as art work prints, jewelry made using Inkscape, calendars with Inkscape-made images, things like paperweights made via Inkscape and CNC, etc, etc?

I think being limited only to the products which Spreadshirt (or any similar kind of shop) offers, no matter how we can hack out a unique display, is not doing Inkscape justice (from a shop persepective). I think we should look towards selling products what are actually made with Inkscape (and not just the logo added to the shop's default products).

It's a good point. Certainly spreadshirt doesn't have to be our only merchandise site. It's main advantages are that we don't need to maintain inventory or or large print runs, and that the money plumbing with SFC is already in place. So, it's worth pressing ahead even if we use it only in a limited capacity; it's a good learning experience for our project if nothing else.

I think we should look toward running our own shop -- at least someday. Yes, I realize it would take a lot of work. But couldn't we look towards doing that someday?? (especially since we have our own webspace now)

Etsy or even ebay might be worth looking at for more DIY products, although I'd guess that running a store would be a project in itself.

Bryce

On Fri, 2018-04-13 at 21:44 +0100, C R wrote:

Okay, finally got time to read the writeup. Thanks for the patience everyone, been frantic at work lately. Unfortunately, I didn't find any solutions to the biggest problem: Spreadshirt automatically makes way too many variations on just a single product.

The only real solution is to come up with one design, which works on all colours, and seek other platforms for selling a variety of designs.

As you can see, just one design on 5 products is made into 25 products, about 20 of which no one with any sense would buy. :)

So I'll work up a black logo with white rim design, load it up, and I'll keep looking for a more sane platform for handling multiple designs.

Can I clear out what's in the shop?

You can clear my work out, but I'd get a nod from Mihaela just to be sure.

Martin,

When you add a category, spreadshirt ads all possible products in that category, even ones you can't see (for example, the red mug that shows up presently). Spreadshirt confirms there is no way to alter or remove these phantom items. I assume this is so they can offer everything they have in stock to balance out their own inventory.

Please do read my earlier emails in this thread. It addresses a lot of your questions.

I'm curious to see how hackable the embedded version of the store is. It may be possible to hide some of the offending items with some java script and css. Pagination may still be an issue.

There is no version of the logo up currently which works on black and on white, so everything will need to be removed and replaced with similar graphics that do.

This is my next step.

-C

On Sat, 14 Apr 2018, 10:15 Mihaela, <mihaela.jurkovic@...400...> wrote:

Can you give an example where 5 products turn into 20? You don't have to add whole collections any more, you can add a product category, for example "Men's Hoodies", this way you end up with 2 products, because there are two different men's hoodies among the available products, one is more light-weight and cheaper, the other is warmer, sturdier and slightly more expensive. That's not that hard to handle, I'd expect someone wanting to purchase it would want the option of choosing between such qualities.

I asked the Spreadshirt about the colors issue, they replied they are implementing a way to limit product colors, and will post a blog post and send out an email about it when it's ready (should have been this past week I think). This is a necessary feature in any such shop, as it would solve our problem of having mostly black logo.

I think we all agree there's no obstacle to using any other service, we might have more than one shop too. But there are a lot of things to consider, choosing products and colors is only one issue. There are shops out there that get bad reviews about shipping, product quality, payment options, product prices, community options (in Spreadshirt we can allow our designs to be sold in other Spreadshirt shops, even people who've never heard of Inkscape can like our designs and learn about Inkscape that way, this is where the smart strategy about the designs and product copy come into place). Spreadshirt scored highly overall. Don't forget we need the conservancy account tied into it, so another step in the process that adds more work which is why it's important to be sure about what we decide to use.

Please do try to find a better option, but you might feel equally frustrated with others too. It's not as easy task as it may seem before you get into details...

It would be good to come up with a prioritized set of requirements of what we're looking for, to make it easier to evaluate possible services.

If you just throw yourself into learning about 5 different services and trying them out you may end up with 5 equally frustrating options that differ in how they're inadequate, and you won't know which one to choose if you're not clear on what you want your end goal to be. We seemed to have gone into this with an assumption that there are printing shop services out there, with time certain services float to the top which makes it easy for us to pick the best suited one. In reality it doesn't seem that easy to me, but YMMV.

You can clear out and start over if you like, although you can keep the logo designs I uploaded, they aren't likely to change. Don't use them in the shop until they implement the product color control to avoid "black on black" problem.

Do we have the appropriate titles and text for the designs that answer visitors questions and help with enticing them buy? We need that independent on which service is chosen. Or do we for now only rely on enthusiastic community members who already know Inkscape and want to purchase something?

What do the branding guidelines say about the "black on black" problem? If we're missing this, then we should come up with a good sensible solution for it and include in the guidelines for everyone to follow and keep Inkscape image consistent.

Are we in a rush to set up the shop? Do we expect a lot of revenue from it? I guess this ties to the overall question of what we're after.

What other designs should be there in shops besides Inkscape logo?

Mihaela On 13.04.2018 22:44, C R wrote:

Okay, finally got time to read the writeup. Thanks for the patience everyone, been frantic at work lately. Unfortunately, I didn't find any solutions to the biggest problem: Spreadshirt automatically makes way too many variations on just a single product.

The only real solution is to come up with one design, which works on all colours, and seek other platforms for selling a variety of designs.

As you can see, just one design on 5 products is made into 25 products, about 20 of which no one with any sense would buy. :)

So I'll work up a black logo with white rim design, load it up, and I'll keep looking for a more sane platform for handling multiple designs.

Can I clear out what's in the shop?

Thanks for the help everyone.

-C

On Fri, 6 Apr 2018, 19:05 Bryce Harrington, <bryce@...961...> wrote:

...

On Fri, Apr 06, 2018 at 03:12:17AM -0600, brynn wrote:

...

Will there be a way, with Spreadshirt, to upload our own unique items,

such

...

as art work prints, jewelry made using Inkscape, calendars with Inkscape-made images, things like paperweights made via Inkscape and

CNC,

...

etc, etc?

I think being limited only to the products which Spreadshirt (or any

similar

...

kind of shop) offers, no matter how we can hack out a unique display,

is not

...

doing Inkscape justice (from a shop persepective). I think we should

look

...

towards selling products what are actually made with Inkscape (and not

just

...

the logo added to the shop's default products).

It's a good point. Certainly spreadshirt doesn't have to be our only merchandise site. It's main advantages are that we don't need to maintain inventory or or large print runs, and that the money plumbing with SFC is already in place. So, it's worth pressing ahead even if we use it only in a limited capacity; it's a good learning experience for our project if nothing else.

...

I think we should look toward running our own shop -- at least someday. Yes, I realize it would take a lot of work. But couldn't we look

towards

...

doing that someday?? (especially since we have our own webspace now)

Etsy or even ebay might be worth looking at for more DIY products, although I'd guess that running a store would be a project in itself.

Bryce

Questions are fine, but I don't presently have time to answer all concerns. I'm a professional product designer, and can definitely come up with some nice universal solutions. Shirts and mugs do not need to conform strictly to the branding guidelines, and yes, the purpose of offering merchandise is to make money for the project, as well as spread awareness about Inkscape. It's also nice for community building.

More soon. -C

On Sat, 14 Apr 2018, 16:36 Mihaela, <mihaela.jurkovic@...400...> wrote:

I see the case about the red mug, there's no way to remove it, it is added when you tick the product type "Mug". They're adding it because it provides mugs in colors, in contrast to the default product of that type that only offers white mugs. But there are only 3 products added, white mug, dual-color mug and color mug. Maybe with the new feature of limiting product colors that wouldn't be a problem?

https://developer.spreadshirt.net/display/API/Product+Model Perhaps it is possible to restrict colors, read under Restrictions? Maybe it can also control individual products too? I haven't read it all since it's not my area.

No, we don't have the logo variation that works on all backgrounds. Do you want to suggest a design to be included in the official guidelines?

I'm not sure what you mean by "rim". A thin white outset from the icon shape and letters? I once got that sort of effect when printing from eps, I guess the shop adjusted for partial transparency by adding a white matte. It was black letters on light-colored t-shirt and it still didn't look good.

I don't think in our case that it should be a white circle around the icon or logo because it changes the negative space too much, it softens the very recognizable and powerful mountain shape and restricts the area around it which doesn't fit well with "freely". Maybe a white rectangle with enough padding from the edges would be a good choice? Only it would make the logo a bit smaller. Or revert the logo colors to white like Ryan did on the website mockup?

I'd still only want to purchase a product with the original logo, large, without modifications, on a light background.

You suggested we might build our own shop. Is there any interest/resources for this? Could you do it?

If the designs in the shop are to be artwork created by Inkscape then it means the purpose of the shop is to raise funds? Or should the artwork all be re-branded Inkscape logo? If not, I haven't seen anything mentioned that designs would be "watermarked" with Inkscape logo, so the intended audience it anyone looking for an interesting design on a hoodie, and not Inkscape community that wants to promote Inkscape at conferences etc?

I'm sorry to be asking so many questions, I might have missed the discussions. Is there a summary or a place where the requirements are tracked?

Most of the feedback I was working off was users wanting to wear Inkscape (logo) related clothing usually at open source conferences while also contributing monetarily or users wanting a piece of clothing just as a belonging/identification sign while contributing monetarily.

I've always set the bit that Inkscape gets from using the design to $3.00 (following a very fluid suggestion from Bryce). It's a very small contribution from financial perspective, a much larger value from the merchandise comes from branding (promoting Inkscape in public and adding to the sense of belonging).

Mihaela On 14.04.2018 15:22, C R wrote:

When you add a category, spreadshirt ads all possible products in that category, even ones you can't see (for example, the red mug that shows up presently). Spreadshirt confirms there is no way to alter or remove these phantom items. I assume this is so they can offer everything they have in stock to balance out their own inventory.

Please do read my earlier emails in this thread. It addresses a lot of your questions.

I'm curious to see how hackable the embedded version of the store is. It may be possible to hide some of the offending items with some java script and css. Pagination may still be an issue.

There is no version of the logo up currently which works on black and on white, so everything will need to be removed and replaced with similar graphics that do.

This is my next step.

-C

On Sat, 14 Apr 2018, 10:15 Mihaela, <mihaela.jurkovic@...400...> wrote:

...

Can you give an example where 5 products turn into 20? You don't have to add whole collections any more, you can add a product category, for example "Men's Hoodies", this way you end up with 2 products, because there are two different men's hoodies among the available products, one is more light-weight and cheaper, the other is warmer, sturdier and slightly more expensive. That's not that hard to handle, I'd expect someone wanting to purchase it would want the option of choosing between such qualities.

I asked the Spreadshirt about the colors issue, they replied they are implementing a way to limit product colors, and will post a blog post and send out an email about it when it's ready (should have been this past week I think). This is a necessary feature in any such shop, as it would solve our problem of having mostly black logo.

I think we all agree there's no obstacle to using any other service, we might have more than one shop too. But there are a lot of things to consider, choosing products and colors is only one issue. There are shops out there that get bad reviews about shipping, product quality, payment options, product prices, community options (in Spreadshirt we can allow our designs to be sold in other Spreadshirt shops, even people who've never heard of Inkscape can like our designs and learn about Inkscape that way, this is where the smart strategy about the designs and product copy come into place). Spreadshirt scored highly overall. Don't forget we need the conservancy account tied into it, so another step in the process that adds more work which is why it's important to be sure about what we decide to use.

Please do try to find a better option, but you might feel equally frustrated with others too. It's not as easy task as it may seem before you get into details...

It would be good to come up with a prioritized set of requirements of what we're looking for, to make it easier to evaluate possible services.

If you just throw yourself into learning about 5 different services and trying them out you may end up with 5 equally frustrating options that differ in how they're inadequate, and you won't know which one to choose if you're not clear on what you want your end goal to be. We seemed to have gone into this with an assumption that there are printing shop services out there, with time certain services float to the top which makes it easy for us to pick the best suited one. In reality it doesn't seem that easy to me, but YMMV.

You can clear out and start over if you like, although you can keep the logo designs I uploaded, they aren't likely to change. Don't use them in the shop until they implement the product color control to avoid "black on black" problem.

Do we have the appropriate titles and text for the designs that answer visitors questions and help with enticing them buy? We need that independent on which service is chosen. Or do we for now only rely on enthusiastic community members who already know Inkscape and want to purchase something?

What do the branding guidelines say about the "black on black" problem? If we're missing this, then we should come up with a good sensible solution for it and include in the guidelines for everyone to follow and keep Inkscape image consistent.

Are we in a rush to set up the shop? Do we expect a lot of revenue from it? I guess this ties to the overall question of what we're after.

What other designs should be there in shops besides Inkscape logo?

Mihaela On 13.04.2018 22:44, C R wrote:

Okay, finally got time to read the writeup. Thanks for the patience everyone, been frantic at work lately. Unfortunately, I didn't find any solutions to the biggest problem: Spreadshirt automatically makes way too many variations on just a single product.

The only real solution is to come up with one design, which works on all colours, and seek other platforms for selling a variety of designs.

As you can see, just one design on 5 products is made into 25 products, about 20 of which no one with any sense would buy. :)

So I'll work up a black logo with white rim design, load it up, and I'll keep looking for a more sane platform for handling multiple designs.

Can I clear out what's in the shop?

Thanks for the help everyone.

-C

On Fri, 6 Apr 2018, 19:05 Bryce Harrington, <bryce@...961...> wrote:

...

On Fri, Apr 06, 2018 at 03:12:17AM -0600, brynn wrote:

...

Will there be a way, with Spreadshirt, to upload our own unique items,

such

...

as art work prints, jewelry made using Inkscape, calendars with Inkscape-made images, things like paperweights made via Inkscape and

CNC,

...

etc, etc?

I think being limited only to the products which Spreadshirt (or any

similar

...

kind of shop) offers, no matter how we can hack out a unique display,

is not

...

doing Inkscape justice (from a shop persepective). I think we should

look

...

towards selling products what are actually made with Inkscape (and not

just

...

the logo added to the shop's default products).

It's a good point. Certainly spreadshirt doesn't have to be our only merchandise site. It's main advantages are that we don't need to maintain inventory or or large print runs, and that the money plumbing with SFC is already in place. So, it's worth pressing ahead even if we use it only in a limited capacity; it's a good learning experience for our project if nothing else.

...

I think we should look toward running our own shop -- at least someday. Yes, I realize it would take a lot of work. But couldn't we look

towards

...

doing that someday?? (especially since we have our own webspace now)

Etsy or even ebay might be worth looking at for more DIY products, although I'd guess that running a store would be a project in itself.

Bryce

Regarding the website hack, yes I can do that. There are a few options:

Option 1: we can import it with the snippet provided by spreadshirt: https://freedom.support.tm/hc/en-us/articles/115001381253-Spreadshirt-How-do...

Then I can write more javascript code to hide unwelcome products.

Option 2: I (or we) can set up a page on the Inkscape website on which we list specific products manually, which then link through to spreadshirt items (which bypasses the need for the spreadshirt auto generated gallery).

Perhaps a combination of the above would be okay too. We make a featured item page with direct links, and a link at the bottom to "view all designs". That link would provide access to the full spreadshirt shop, while allowing us to control what visitors see first.

-C

On Sat, 14 Apr 2018, 17:46 C R, <cajhne@...400...> wrote:

The shirts category is much worse than the mug for extraneous auto added products. It's not just about color. Here you can see I've removed all product categories except for the basic mens tee and basic womens tee. https://shop.spreadshirt.com/inkscape-shop/

This produces 16(!) variations just for TWO shirts. Obviously this is not going to work for anything more than one or two designs total, and the designs must work on light and dark shirts.

Zazzle, as an example has none of these really unfortunate problems. There's no good reason for forcing you to have a whole category worth of shirts, just to have one. It's a real mess... the worst I've seen.

Anyway, I can solve that problem by working within those restrictions - One or two universal designs should be okay. We can replace these designs as part of outreach or fundraising campaigns too, but we must not have more than two total at any one time.

-C

-C

On Sat, 14 Apr 2018, 17:11 C R, <cajhne@...400...> wrote:

...

Questions are fine, but I don't presently have time to answer all concerns. I'm a professional product designer, and can definitely come up with some nice universal solutions. Shirts and mugs do not need to conform strictly to the branding guidelines, and yes, the purpose of offering merchandise is to make money for the project, as well as spread awareness about Inkscape. It's also nice for community building.

More soon. -C

On Sat, 14 Apr 2018, 16:36 Mihaela, <mihaela.jurkovic@...400...> wrote:

...

I see the case about the red mug, there's no way to remove it, it is added when you tick the product type "Mug". They're adding it because it provides mugs in colors, in contrast to the default product of that type that only offers white mugs. But there are only 3 products added, white mug, dual-color mug and color mug. Maybe with the new feature of limiting product colors that wouldn't be a problem?

https://developer.spreadshirt.net/display/API/Product+Model Perhaps it is possible to restrict colors, read under Restrictions? Maybe it can also control individual products too? I haven't read it all since it's not my area.

No, we don't have the logo variation that works on all backgrounds. Do you want to suggest a design to be included in the official guidelines?

I'm not sure what you mean by "rim". A thin white outset from the icon shape and letters? I once got that sort of effect when printing from eps, I guess the shop adjusted for partial transparency by adding a white matte. It was black letters on light-colored t-shirt and it still didn't look good.

I don't think in our case that it should be a white circle around the icon or logo because it changes the negative space too much, it softens the very recognizable and powerful mountain shape and restricts the area around it which doesn't fit well with "freely". Maybe a white rectangle with enough padding from the edges would be a good choice? Only it would make the logo a bit smaller. Or revert the logo colors to white like Ryan did on the website mockup?

I'd still only want to purchase a product with the original logo, large, without modifications, on a light background.

You suggested we might build our own shop. Is there any interest/resources for this? Could you do it?

If the designs in the shop are to be artwork created by Inkscape then it means the purpose of the shop is to raise funds? Or should the artwork all be re-branded Inkscape logo? If not, I haven't seen anything mentioned that designs would be "watermarked" with Inkscape logo, so the intended audience it anyone looking for an interesting design on a hoodie, and not Inkscape community that wants to promote Inkscape at conferences etc?

I'm sorry to be asking so many questions, I might have missed the discussions. Is there a summary or a place where the requirements are tracked?

Most of the feedback I was working off was users wanting to wear Inkscape (logo) related clothing usually at open source conferences while also contributing monetarily or users wanting a piece of clothing just as a belonging/identification sign while contributing monetarily.

I've always set the bit that Inkscape gets from using the design to $3.00 (following a very fluid suggestion from Bryce). It's a very small contribution from financial perspective, a much larger value from the merchandise comes from branding (promoting Inkscape in public and adding to the sense of belonging).

Mihaela On 14.04.2018 15:22, C R wrote:

When you add a category, spreadshirt ads all possible products in that category, even ones you can't see (for example, the red mug that shows up presently). Spreadshirt confirms there is no way to alter or remove these phantom items. I assume this is so they can offer everything they have in stock to balance out their own inventory.

Please do read my earlier emails in this thread. It addresses a lot of your questions.

I'm curious to see how hackable the embedded version of the store is. It may be possible to hide some of the offending items with some java script and css. Pagination may still be an issue.

There is no version of the logo up currently which works on black and on white, so everything will need to be removed and replaced with similar graphics that do.

This is my next step.

-C

On Sat, 14 Apr 2018, 10:15 Mihaela, <mihaela.jurkovic@...400...> wrote:

...

Can you give an example where 5 products turn into 20? You don't have to add whole collections any more, you can add a product category, for example "Men's Hoodies", this way you end up with 2 products, because there are two different men's hoodies among the available products, one is more light-weight and cheaper, the other is warmer, sturdier and slightly more expensive. That's not that hard to handle, I'd expect someone wanting to purchase it would want the option of choosing between such qualities.

I asked the Spreadshirt about the colors issue, they replied they are implementing a way to limit product colors, and will post a blog post and send out an email about it when it's ready (should have been this past week I think). This is a necessary feature in any such shop, as it would solve our problem of having mostly black logo.

I think we all agree there's no obstacle to using any other service, we might have more than one shop too. But there are a lot of things to consider, choosing products and colors is only one issue. There are shops out there that get bad reviews about shipping, product quality, payment options, product prices, community options (in Spreadshirt we can allow our designs to be sold in other Spreadshirt shops, even people who've never heard of Inkscape can like our designs and learn about Inkscape that way, this is where the smart strategy about the designs and product copy come into place). Spreadshirt scored highly overall. Don't forget we need the conservancy account tied into it, so another step in the process that adds more work which is why it's important to be sure about what we decide to use.

Please do try to find a better option, but you might feel equally frustrated with others too. It's not as easy task as it may seem before you get into details...

It would be good to come up with a prioritized set of requirements of what we're looking for, to make it easier to evaluate possible services.

If you just throw yourself into learning about 5 different services and trying them out you may end up with 5 equally frustrating options that differ in how they're inadequate, and you won't know which one to choose if you're not clear on what you want your end goal to be. We seemed to have gone into this with an assumption that there are printing shop services out there, with time certain services float to the top which makes it easy for us to pick the best suited one. In reality it doesn't seem that easy to me, but YMMV.

You can clear out and start over if you like, although you can keep the logo designs I uploaded, they aren't likely to change. Don't use them in the shop until they implement the product color control to avoid "black on black" problem.

Do we have the appropriate titles and text for the designs that answer visitors questions and help with enticing them buy? We need that independent on which service is chosen. Or do we for now only rely on enthusiastic community members who already know Inkscape and want to purchase something?

What do the branding guidelines say about the "black on black" problem? If we're missing this, then we should come up with a good sensible solution for it and include in the guidelines for everyone to follow and keep Inkscape image consistent.

Are we in a rush to set up the shop? Do we expect a lot of revenue from it? I guess this ties to the overall question of what we're after.

What other designs should be there in shops besides Inkscape logo?

Mihaela On 13.04.2018 22:44, C R wrote:

Okay, finally got time to read the writeup. Thanks for the patience everyone, been frantic at work lately. Unfortunately, I didn't find any solutions to the biggest problem: Spreadshirt automatically makes way too many variations on just a single product.

The only real solution is to come up with one design, which works on all colours, and seek other platforms for selling a variety of designs.

As you can see, just one design on 5 products is made into 25 products, about 20 of which no one with any sense would buy. :)

So I'll work up a black logo with white rim design, load it up, and I'll keep looking for a more sane platform for handling multiple designs.

Can I clear out what's in the shop?

Thanks for the help everyone.

-C

On Fri, 6 Apr 2018, 19:05 Bryce Harrington, <bryce@...961...> wrote:

...

On Fri, Apr 06, 2018 at 03:12:17AM -0600, brynn wrote:

...

Will there be a way, with Spreadshirt, to upload our own unique

items, such

...

as art work prints, jewelry made using Inkscape, calendars with Inkscape-made images, things like paperweights made via Inkscape and

CNC,

...

etc, etc?

I think being limited only to the products which Spreadshirt (or any

similar

...

kind of shop) offers, no matter how we can hack out a unique

display, is not

...

doing Inkscape justice (from a shop persepective). I think we

should look

...

towards selling products what are actually made with Inkscape (and

not just

...

the logo added to the shop's default products).

It's a good point. Certainly spreadshirt doesn't have to be our only merchandise site. It's main advantages are that we don't need to maintain inventory or or large print runs, and that the money plumbing with SFC is already in place. So, it's worth pressing ahead even if we use it only in a limited capacity; it's a good learning experience for our project if nothing else.

...

I think we should look toward running our own shop -- at least

someday.

...

Yes, I realize it would take a lot of work. But couldn't we look

towards

...

doing that someday?? (especially since we have our own webspace now)

Etsy or even ebay might be worth looking at for more DIY products, although I'd guess that running a store would be a project in itself.

Bryce

....although I'd guess that running a store would be a project in itself.

I was just thinking. When we finally get the "official" forum up and running (and all the related issues re Inkscape Community and Inkscape for Cutting Design, settled) I'll have a lot more time on my hands.

Maybe I would be able run the kind of....well, website or store, where products made with Inkscape can be sold. And I would have time to handle things like keeping products in stock, special orders, and stuff like that.

I'd have a lot to learn, but it's certainly not beyond my abilities (like writing code or server admin would be). Possibly I could even do it as a 3rd party, if there's not a path to do it officially (license-wise or income-wise).

brynn

-----Original Message----- From: Bryce Harrington Sent: Friday, April 06, 2018 12:05 PM To: brynn Cc: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net ; Mihaela ; C R Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Spreadshirt absurdity

On Fri, Apr 06, 2018 at 03:12:17AM -0600, brynn wrote:

Will there be a way, with Spreadshirt, to upload our own unique items, such as art work prints, jewelry made using Inkscape, calendars with Inkscape-made images, things like paperweights made via Inkscape and CNC, etc, etc?

I think being limited only to the products which Spreadshirt (or any similar kind of shop) offers, no matter how we can hack out a unique display, is not doing Inkscape justice (from a shop persepective). I think we should look towards selling products what are actually made with Inkscape (and not just the logo added to the shop's default products).

It's a good point. Certainly spreadshirt doesn't have to be our only merchandise site. It's main advantages are that we don't need to maintain inventory or or large print runs, and that the money plumbing with SFC is already in place. So, it's worth pressing ahead even if we use it only in a limited capacity; it's a good learning experience for our project if nothing else.

I think we should look toward running our own shop -- at least someday. Yes, I realize it would take a lot of work. But couldn't we look towards doing that someday?? (especially since we have our own webspace now)

Etsy or even ebay might be worth looking at for more DIY products, although I'd guess that running a store would be a project in itself.

Bryce