Who would donate $5.00 to help Steve improve/maintain F150.Com??????
Senior Member
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 593
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From: Portland, Oregon
Senior Member
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 356
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From: Atlanta, GA USA
Instead of donations which will eventually open up some cans of worms, Steve can maybe look at other revenue streams, such as merchandise. Sorry if I'm retreading old, considered, and already rejected ideas, but something like cafeexpress.com can probably provide a steady revenue stream with minimum of overhead. My friends run a web comic site and their bandwidth usage probably even exceeds f150online's but they managed to keep their heads above water primarily with cafeexpress's storefront.
Basically what my friends do to finance their site is sell t-shirts, teddy bears, hats, and mugs with their comic characters. I can't for the life of me find the rates on cafeexpress's website but I think my friends told me that cafeexpress keeps $12 per t-shirt and handle pretty much everything. You give'em a design and they'll print the t-shirts, maintain stock, accept and ship out orders, and handle payments. From what I understand, there is no overhead for websites. If a t-shirt is sold for $18, then cafeexpress keeps $12, and website gets $6. It's true they keep a huge chunk, but then, you don't have to worry about anything.
One problem I do foresee is some copyright issues. You probably can't simply stick a copyrighted pic of F150 on a t-shirt and sell it, but if contributors can donate a stylized artwork or something then it shouldn't be an issue.
I'm sure some L owners would love to have a "If I'm Playin', I'm Sprayin'" t-shirts.
Basically what my friends do to finance their site is sell t-shirts, teddy bears, hats, and mugs with their comic characters. I can't for the life of me find the rates on cafeexpress's website but I think my friends told me that cafeexpress keeps $12 per t-shirt and handle pretty much everything. You give'em a design and they'll print the t-shirts, maintain stock, accept and ship out orders, and handle payments. From what I understand, there is no overhead for websites. If a t-shirt is sold for $18, then cafeexpress keeps $12, and website gets $6. It's true they keep a huge chunk, but then, you don't have to worry about anything.
One problem I do foresee is some copyright issues. You probably can't simply stick a copyrighted pic of F150 on a t-shirt and sell it, but if contributors can donate a stylized artwork or something then it shouldn't be an issue.
I'm sure some L owners would love to have a "If I'm Playin', I'm Sprayin'" t-shirts.
Senior Member
Joined: Jul 2001
Posts: 593
Likes: 0
From: Portland, Oregon
