How Should We Celebrate Tiki Central's 20th Anniversary? - General Tiki

M mikehooker Grand Member (3 years) Austin Joined: Jul 17, 2014 Posts: 1211	M mikehooker Posted posted on Fri, Oct 4, 2019 3:30 PM On 2019-09-26 14:40, CosmoReverb wrote: OK, here are my thoughts on swizzles... This is an awesome design and I want some. But 10,000 is a freakin lot!!! I know. I bought that many from Royer over a year ago and try to off as many as I can every day and still have thousands. There's no way we're going to sell that many, even at cost, which would defeat the purpose anyway, since the whole point of this ordeal is to raise money for the future betterment and sustainability of this website. On the positive side, the price per unit is likely lower than any other swag we've considered, which should make them an easy sell. But with the incredibly high minimum order someone will have to shell out around $2500 to make this happen. Hopefully whoever finalizes the design (CosmoReverb?) offers their services out of the kindness of their heart so that price doesn't go even higher. Money would have to be raised through some sort of crowd funding campaign before they're ordered so no one is on the hook for that amount and gets stuck with giant boxes of sticks they can't sell on top of that. I suggest somewhere around half of them be donated to bars or whoever hosts official anniversary events so they could stick them in drinks for the patrons (obviously organizing these events is a whole other mess that involves lots more planning). The rest could be sold in different sized "bundles" to folks who want them, with all proceeds benefiting TC. It's not uncommon on Kickstarter for people to price gouge on basic items. People donate knowing the money is going to a specific cause. That said, maybe we come up with a tiered system. Like 5 swizzles is 10 bucks. 25 is $45, 50 is $75, and so on. The more you buy, the cheaper they become per stick (but not to go below $1 each since we'll never get a return on them if we sell too close to cost). Something to keep in mind, tons of people have home tiki bars but very few are likely to splurge $2500 on custom swizzles with their bars name or logo on them. But lots of folks would gladly buy 100-200 TC swizzles to have on hand to put in drinks they serve to friends. Is $100 for 100 commemorative swizzles unreasonable? I don't know. I don't think so. But we'd still have to sell quite a few bundles at that price to offset the cost of the overall production to make it worthwhile. I imagine between advertising a well put together campaign on here and the various FB groups, reddit, etc we could get over 100 people contributing at different levels, primarily on the lower end. But if just 20-25 of those people buy a $100 bundle of sticks, we've covered our costs. I don't think that's unobtainable. Maybe as a bonus, for purchases of $50 or more, people also get a one year grand membership included. It could drum up many renewals and bring new people on board. The big question though, who's going to be in charge of putting together, managing and promoting a campaign, placing the order, receiving the shipment, storing the goods, sending out orders, etc. On a final note, I doubt we'll sell much more than 3000 swizzles, which means there will be a hefty surplus remaining. That's why I suggested donating a bunch to the people hosting the "official" anniversary parties. But what do those look like? Who's in charge? What takes place? Where do they happen? Maybe this aspect warrants it's own thread.

On 2019-09-26 14:40, CosmoReverb wrote:

OK, here are my thoughts on swizzles...

This is an awesome design and I want some. But 10,000 is a freakin lot!!! I know. I bought that many from Royer over a year ago and try to off as many as I can every day and still have thousands. There's no way we're going to sell that many, even at cost, which would defeat the purpose anyway, since the whole point of this ordeal is to raise money for the future betterment and sustainability of this website.

On the positive side, the price per unit is likely lower than any other swag we've considered, which should make them an easy sell. But with the incredibly high minimum order someone will have to shell out around $2500 to make this happen. Hopefully whoever finalizes the design (CosmoReverb?) offers their services out of the kindness of their heart so that price doesn't go even higher. Money would have to be raised through some sort of crowd funding campaign before they're ordered so no one is on the hook for that amount and gets stuck with giant boxes of sticks they can't sell on top of that.

I suggest somewhere around half of them be donated to bars or whoever hosts official anniversary events so they could stick them in drinks for the patrons (obviously organizing these events is a whole other mess that involves lots more planning). The rest could be sold in different sized "bundles" to folks who want them, with all proceeds benefiting TC. It's not uncommon on Kickstarter for people to price gouge on basic items. People donate knowing the money is going to a specific cause. That said, maybe we come up with a tiered system. Like 5 swizzles is 10 bucks. 25 is $45, 50 is $75, and so on. The more you buy, the cheaper they become per stick (but not to go below $1 each since we'll never get a return on them if we sell too close to cost).

Something to keep in mind, tons of people have home tiki bars but very few are likely to splurge $2500 on custom swizzles with their bars name or logo on them. But lots of folks would gladly buy 100-200 TC swizzles to have on hand to put in drinks they serve to friends. Is $100 for 100 commemorative swizzles unreasonable? I don't know. I don't think so. But we'd still have to sell quite a few bundles at that price to offset the cost of the overall production to make it worthwhile. I imagine between advertising a well put together campaign on here and the various FB groups, reddit, etc we could get over 100 people contributing at different levels, primarily on the lower end. But if just 20-25 of those people buy a $100 bundle of sticks, we've covered our costs. I don't think that's unobtainable.

Maybe as a bonus, for purchases of $50 or more, people also get a one year grand membership included. It could drum up many renewals and bring new people on board.

The big question though, who's going to be in charge of putting together, managing and promoting a campaign, placing the order, receiving the shipment, storing the goods, sending out orders, etc.

On a final note, I doubt we'll sell much more than 3000 swizzles, which means there will be a hefty surplus remaining. That's why I suggested donating a bunch to the people hosting the "official" anniversary parties. But what do those look like? Who's in charge? What takes place? Where do they happen? Maybe this aspect warrants it's own thread.

Post #797859 by mikehooker on Fri, Oct 4, 2019 3:30 PM