Print on demand companies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Some POD companies have a marketplace (with products from many creators in one place), which can attract traffic in itself, but these are pretty saturated and competitive, and some don't, so driving traffic is up to us. I think we can assume that it will be up to use to promote the merch wherever we can, wherever is appropriate. The table below shows a comparison of several top POD companies that the TSCA might be able to use.
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Storefront options | |
As mentioned, to sell products at or via tiki.org, rather than at the storefront provided by the POD company, we would need to use shopping cart or storefront software. |
Tiki's shopping cart feature | |
As I understand it, this shopping cart is designed for selling goods whose data is stored as tracker items. As far as I know, the code isn't able to handle the kind of interaction needed to coordinate with a print on demand order fulfillment service. It would be nice if it were possible, but I suspect it isn't currently. More information is needed on this. Longer-term, what is the plan for this feature? Is there interest in making it more comparable to other options? Or is this a feature where it would be better to not reinvent the wheel and make it easier to integrate an existing tried and true solution? |
What other organizations do for a storefront | |
Drupal (https://www.drupal.org/swag) uses Spreadshop - https://drupal.myspreadshop.com/
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Some open-source shopping cart options | |
https://financesonline.com/best-open-source-shopping-cart-software/
One of these would have to be installed on the server alongside Tiki. |
About the designs | |
Something else to think about is what kind of graphics are possible. These are some things I've thought about, but a lot of brainstorming and individual creative efforts would be good on this.
Ideally, the graphics would be clever and attractive enough that the merchandise would be appealing to people (some people anyway) even if they aren't familiar with Tiki - anyway that is a good goal to shoot for, for at least some design categories. |
Is rebranding a possibility? | |
The topic of rebranding - changing the software name from Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware to something else - has come up a few times over the years. It seems natural to think about it if we are about to embark on a merchandise project. Of course, this is a separate issue from the merchandise decisions, but could be thought about together depending on how people feel. There are a few reasons I'm bringing this up now. For one thing, with the passing of time, very few people have any idea what "groupware" is. (Check Google Trends to see the steady decline in interest in this term.) Also, maybe it's just me but it seems the concept of a wiki is not especially compelling, not like it was a decade or two ago, so I don't think that term adds much value in the name. "CMS" is still relatively current, though not exciting and doesn't comprehensively describe what Tiki actually is. What I suggest is to keep the "Tiki" part of the name to retain the legacy connection, and allow us to continue using the logo graphics, but replace "Wiki CMS Groupware" with something more up to date, more interesting, more catchy, more comprehensive, and so on. I have a few ideas, but I'll keep them to myself for now. |