Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#141

Post by eru » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 10:42 PM UTC

guynamedloren wrote: post #72

bhudman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He runs http://beetnikaesthetics.com/ so this is an off shoot of what he does already. Nice site for sure..

FWIW that site/project/business is pretty much defunct. Not that it failed or anything, but it was really just too slow paced for me and I got bored with it. High effort for low return. I actually ordered hundreds of shirts that I never even posted for sale on the site. They have been sitting on shelves in my bedroom for 2 years. Hm.

Perhaps you can convert some customers from the snow-shirts?

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#142

Post by bigiain » Thu, Feb 03, 2011, 11:56 PM UTC

qeorge wrote: post #119

bigiain wrote: post #57

You might want to keep an eye on that Pay Pal account - the "pay me now and I'll send you $stuff in a few weeks" pattern is exactly the sort of thing that trips their "might be fraud, lock the account and keep all the money for 6 months" response.

That's a great point, bigian. FWIW that's not a PayPal-specific policy - Visa and MasterCard's TOS explicitly state that you cannot bill the credit card until the merchandise has shipped.

True, but I don't hear nearly so many horror stories about Visa/MasterCard choosing to keep all the money people think they have given you for 180 days (exactly as you agreed they could when you signed up) while they "investigate".

I also hear regular reports of businesses which perhaps should have chosen their payment processor more carefully given the nature of their business, who clearly have a product which doesn't get "shipped" in any way that could comply with that policy - I think a European Ruby conference was the most recent one I've seen discussed here, how should a conference organizer manage their bookings to comply with this sort of policy? He'll, even Burningman got burnt by their ticket seller a year or two back "we're just gonna hang on to a few million dollars worth of ticket sales money, because your annual event that's been running successfully for ~20 years now with ~50,000 people a year recently - it might all be a big fraud!"... Unfortunately, choosing to sign up with PayPal means explicitly agreeing to allow them to do exactly that with very little recourse - and it's not necessarily _wrong_ - PayPals business is basically built on betting they can do a better job of fraud prevention than e banks/credit card companies are doing, and offer payment services to more people than the banks will and earn money from people the banks consider "too high risk". This allows then to provide a service that let's people like the OP go from idea to fully functional ecommerce website in 4 hours, but it also means you're giving them rights to retain "your" money to cover any fraud risk they might consider you to expose them too.

Its not a wrong/bad policy of PayPals, but it's a policy that I've seen many people not realize they were signing up for.

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#143

Post by salemh » Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 12:50 AM UTC

guynamedloren wrote: post #127

slimier wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was your plan had this flopped and you only had a few sales by the time you had to start shipping items? could you have brought down to a per-unit basis? did you have an exit strategy if it didn't seem worth your time?

Paypal has a wonderful thing called a refund button. Had things not worked out, all I would have to do is hit that a few times and I'm right back where I started, with no loss except $8 and some time. Talk about minimizing risk, huh?

Others thoughts on this as an acceptable practice? I don't think "personal branding" comes into this play / project, but it could in the future.

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#144

Post by gnosis » Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 1:46 AM UTC

guynamedloren wrote: post #37

madridorama wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agreed, I am curious about the logistics. I'd guess that he has a wholesale contact, but the margins after shipping would still be very small. assume $8 for a t-shirt, $5 average for shipping, leaves $3 profit per sale.

Margins are much higher than you'd expect. I've worked in the indie t-shirt game before and scrupulously figured out how to squeeze out ea much profit as possible while maintaining good quality. Profits are at least $7/shirt, will increase with decrease in unit cost from larger wholesale quantity.

"Profits are at least $7/shirt"

Did you factor in the cost of your time?

It sounds like you're going to be doing your own packing and shipping. How long does that take?

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#145

Post by gnosis » Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 2:16 AM UTC

u48998 wrote: post #117

So are we expected to wear these T-Shirts in summer in Chicago? Nice idea at the right time but I am not sure why people would buy such things. But then again, you'd know better.

"So are we expected to wear these T-Shirts in summer in Chicago?"

You're thinking way too far ahead compared to the people who are ordering these shirts.

This product is clearly meant to be an impulse buy, in the same category as a mountain of junk sold on street corners, at festivals, and in souvenir shops.

If the prospective buyer thought about it for a couple of seconds, they'd probably realize that they really didn't need this, and might never even use it. But at the time it looks funny, or cute, or otherwise "brilliant". And they really feel like buying something, almost anything.

And that's how someone winds up walking out having bought a baseball cap with antlers on it, a singing fish, dancing Santa, or Snowpocalypse t-shirt.

The OP was just lucky enough to latch on to a trend before it died out.

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#146

Post by emit_time_n3rgy » Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 3:59 AM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #64

guynamedloren wrote: post #3

I know this is not the norm for projects here on Hacker News and I realize that it may be seen as rather exploitive, so here's a very very brief background and my thought process: - Idea was conceived around 2am this morning. Saw a few events on facebook picking up speed (hundreds of thousands of attendees) so decided to leverage that instant-market - Wasn't sure whether or not it would work, but I didn't have too mu…

I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with what you did. On the other hand however, I also think that some people have way too much money on their hands or a lack of intelligent spending habits if they are buying stuff like this. We are a very strange country indeed. Have you ever seen the packets of clothing that are sold to vendors in third-world countries by the likes of Goodwill and such? They are full of t-s…

Travels reminds me of the Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy book as well as this "true cost" t-shirt

http://true-cost.re-configure.org

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#147

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 6:35 AM UTC

endlessvoid94 wrote: post #138

guynamedloren wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've mentioned this several times, but I'll bring it up again because I'm legitimately surprised at how expensive many seem to think these shirts are. Screen printing should absolutely not cost $10/ea for a 2-color print, especially for anything over 36 shirts. If you're paying this, then you're being robbed. End of story. I have had many shirts printed before so I know where to look, but it's really not that difficu…

Which printer are you using?

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#148

Post by nolite » Fri, Feb 04, 2011, 12:52 PM UTC

bigiain wrote: post #57

You might want to keep an eye on that Pay Pal account - the "pay me now and I'll send you $stuff in a few weeks" pattern is exactly the sort of thing that trips their "might be fraud, lock the account and keep all the money for 6 months" response.

Is there any way to specifically contact or call paypal and premptively warn them that your account is about to get a huge influx of orders, so they can help you prepare all of the paperwork they're going to ask you for in advance? Many people talk about paypal screwing them, but I rarely hear of anyone taking any preemptive action. If its not possible, then its something they should make more evident.

Re: Show HN: My 4-hour project, already profitable

#149

Post by djahng » Sun, Feb 06, 2011, 12:24 AM UTC

chrisaycock wrote: post #47

djahng wrote: post #9

Where are the shirts being made? Are they made to order and drop-shipped like Cafe Press/Zazzle? Or are you building up inventory?

He answered that in another thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2173482

Yeah I saw that. I also asked this question before endlessvoid94 did.