I have been trying to figure out a good price to sell CoT patches for. It would need to be set where i have my labor/materials covered but also where CoT would get enough to be worth it and hopefully help. As far as i understand it, the shirts and what not in the store now, really only nets them a few dollars at best. Most of the money buyers pay goes to the printing company. And it's such a high price already. So i would like to keep my patches at a more reasonable price. Something where buyers wont feel like it breaks the bank, but still allows for us to make it worth while as far as profit goes.
So these are the prices i'm considering: This pretty much is my normal price for patches, just doubled.
[img=450x300]https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/intermediary/f/6d3fe3d0-d00b-4bdd-8517-a26f9862ee68/dcueirh-d5bdb476-ec4b-4dff-b899-9482f6141535.jpg/v1/fill/w_1024,h_576,q_70,strp/city_of_titans_mwm_logo_patch_white_on_black_by_lokiie1984_dcueirh-fullview.jpg[/img] - 4 x2.44inch patch (101.6x62mm) comes with the choice of either as white on black, or black on white. $14
[img=450x300]https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/intermediary/f/6d3fe3d0-d00b-4bdd-8517-a26f9862ee68/dcueic3-eb4766c1-c98a-47aa-895f-846b02b75873.jpg/v1/fill/w_1024,h_576,q_70,strp/city_of_titans_hero_blue_by_lokiie1984_dcueic3-fullview.jpg[/img] - 4x1.39 inch (101.6x35.30mm) Choice of Hero Blue, or Villain Red. $10
[img=350x300]https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/intermediary/f/6d3fe3d0-d00b-4bdd-8517-a26f9862ee68/dcueini-1771883b-d741-4433-90ff-8fb080434e65.jpg/v1/fill/w_1024,h_576,q_70,strp/city_of_titans_titan_city_patch_by_lokiie1984_dcueini-fullview.jpg[/img] - 4x2.66 inch (101.6x67.56mm) $14
[img=350x300]https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/intermediary/f/6d3fe3d0-d00b-4bdd-8517-a26f9862ee68/dcueikj-f88c9081-e3cd-4819-8dc8-9e70eb6a06b1.jpg/v1/fill/w_1024,h_576,q_70,strp/city_of_titans_the_pheonix_project_patch_by_lokiie1984_dcueikj-fullview.jpg[/img] - 4x3 inch (101.6x78.74mm) $14
[img=300x300]https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/intermediary/f/6d3fe3d0-d00b-4bdd-8517-a26f9862ee68/dcueihx-aa5a37c2-5145-4bf7-a057-5bd404cefe6e.jpg/v1/fill/w_1024,h_576,q_70,strp/city_of_titans_black_rose_patch_by_lokiie1984_dcueihx-fullview.jpg[/img] - 3.50x2.90 inch (88.9x73.66mm) $13
[img=300x300]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/461370881395130380/523152223065210908/KIMG0734.JPG[/img] - 3x3 inch (76.2x76.2) $12 This one needs more work yet but just posting it as an example of the 3 inch patch price.
Each patch will definitely have an iron on option which will cost an extra 50 cents. And i may do velcro options which would add an extra dollar.
Assuming the CoT dev team agree, my plan would be for a 50/50 split of the money from each sale. That way, my costs are covered and i get a lil bit of profit, and the rest goes to the devs to fund the game some more. Each order would go through the store to me, where i would make and ship. Shipping rates would probably be the same as what's in the store now. As far when they will be available in the store is up to the devs. They're pretty busy right now so it could be a lil while. But that gives me time to make more, test more and figure out prices.
Before i forget - each patch, be it sold here or in my etsy store, is made to order. Which means depending on how swamped i am they can take a bit of time to make. This time of year, i don't have very many orders so i can get em out quite a bit faster. But say around Halloween, i have insane amounts of orders. So around that time it can take much much longer. Last Halloween for example, i had some really huge orders that were over 15 days past the ship by date. On the bright side out of the 60 plus orders that i had all wanting their patches before Halloween for costumes, every single one was delivered before Halloween. There should be a way to set an email through the store here though so buyers can contact me about the backlog or check on how much longer the order will be to ship.
If curious, i use two Brother PE770 embroidery machines for the vast majority of the work, and then when i need it, i have a smaller Brother SE400 machine to add to the mix when i really get backlogged.
So anyway, feel free to post opinions. Prices too high? Too low? If you have any ideas for other CoT related patch designs feel free to comment those too.
Those look so professional! So good!
I'm not much help with the pricing, I'm afraid.
Edit: No wait! Maybe I am! How long does it take you to make each one? Your time is worth something, yo!
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Generally these ones take around 30 to 60 minutes each. It's all machine made though so it's not like im doing it by hand. The real labor comes in with switching out fabric, changing thread and filling bobbins. I can get about two per sheet of fabric so that's pretty often. Of course thread changes happens every few minutes generally.
On bright side materials are fairly cheap so the majority of what i earn per patch covers labor, i generally just combine labor and profit into the same thing.
How much is minimum wage where you are? Cause for an hour of your time you, personally, should make at least that.
Heck, with how professional they look you should be making much more than that.
But I say this as someone who can't really afford to buy them, unfortunately.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
7.25 an hour. Which is higher then i thought it was. But really if i charged enough to be that much an hour i don't think i would be able to sell them lol. At this point it's more of a volume to make up the difference.
I suck at math on top of that so not even sure what i would have to charge to equal minimum wage. Actually i might be making more then that any way. Again i'm terrible at math, but i make around $1300 to 2k a month. It does fluctuate of course though.
Currently with your most expensive it's $14' half that for the potential of splitting profits with the Devs makes your earnings $7 minus whatever costs you have for materials. So per patch, per hour you'd be making less than $7/hour. And that's for the most expensive. The cheaper ones would have you working for less than $5/hour!
Your time is definitely worth more than that.
I'd at least up your prices by a few dollars.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Honestly:
Those prices are a bit low. Make them round prices:
14 -> 15$
13 -> 15$
12 -> 15$
10 -> 10$
I think that would be my minimum price. You could still adjust them, of course.
[font=courier][color=#FF0000]Tech[/color][/font]
45 52 52 4F 52 3A 20 34 30 34 0D 0A 48 65 72 6F 20 6E 6F 74 20 66 6F 75 6E 64 21
Generally my prices are based on size, which translates to the amount of fabric and stabilizer used. Which is why smaller ones are cheaper.
I suppose in this case i could set them all to the same price though. This is in a way a charity for CoT and people have been known to dump tons of money on charity dinners. $500 for a hotdog lol. But i would still want to keep them on the cheaper side so people feel like they can buy more then one without breaking their banks open.
The machine is doing most of the manual labor, so his cost per hour should be more based on how long it takes to import and setup the images for printing.
Based on how much you said you earn currently, you make about 300 patches per month? So this a hobby?
Is that gross income or net? If gross, you are seriously undervaluing yourself. Not that I want to pay more, but your prices should be closer to a Minimum of $20 for the patches, which technically qualify as custom work.
Yeah I would agree with that statement.
You say yourself that it should help MWM and their project. So I would look through their merch shop, their prices are between 16$ and 31$
The mug costs 16$ and the hoodie 31$
[font=courier][color=#FF0000]Tech[/color][/font]
45 52 52 4F 52 3A 20 34 30 34 0D 0A 48 65 72 6F 20 6E 6F 74 20 66 6F 75 6E 64 21
It's their time being used up. Doesn't matter if the machine is doing the work. If you work a factory and you just have to pull a lever, you wouldn't accept less than minimum wage just because the machine is doing most of the work.
Time is money.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
It's a hobby business i suppose.
I don't think i can track how many patches i create in a month, but i can track orders. Which normally range from 1 to 5 patches, and some going up to 20.
Below is a screenshot of the stats for November 1 through the 30th [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519192944931241994/523267690056515610/unknown.png[/img]
The income is before costs as far as supplies go, but i believe it is after Etsy takes out their fees, however, i don't know if it counts buyer paid shipping fees into that total.
$20 may be where i should be charging but that just feels way too high. I mean, i cant imagine people paying that for something they could get elsewhere. Granted CoT stuff they wouldn't get in other places. But at the same time, T-shirts in the cot store are $25. Would people want to buy a patch, when they could just buy a shirt for near the same price?
Patches are not the same. You could stitch them on your favorite jeans and love them even more.
You could even stitch them on other things, while shirts are just shirts. It's not bad, I like shirts, but just not the same feeling.
Maybe I could look somewhere else on the web, there are probably others doing these and you can look at their prices.
Edit:
I looked through others work and some of them have pretty low prices ~ 0.50$ and others have higher ones 6$
But they are just for profit and we want to assist MWM. So I would say...take 6$ and triple it. 18$ is not as high as the shirts and still is between the 16$ and 31$
[font=courier][color=#FF0000]Tech[/color][/font]
45 52 52 4F 52 3A 20 34 30 34 0D 0A 48 65 72 6F 20 6E 6F 74 20 66 6F 75 6E 64 21
Minor edit to my other post. It looks like that total from my stats is counting the shipping from buyers as income.
@Kurai, i suppose that is true. But i think it still will depend on what people are willing to pay. At least where CoT is concerned anyway. I would rather a few sell for a lower price then one sell for a higher one.
I wouldn't pay more than 25$ honestly. I like them, but my wallet is going to be empty soon lol.
Still... I think people who are interested are willing to pay more than just 6$ or 7$ as they are not only paying for the patch but donate to the game as well. Maybe no 40$ (I saw people paying certain. YouTubers way more money, for less things) but yeah... Well
[font=courier][color=#FF0000]Tech[/color][/font]
45 52 52 4F 52 3A 20 34 30 34 0D 0A 48 65 72 6F 20 6E 6F 74 20 66 6F 75 6E 64 21
I agree with that, plus time the machine spends doing one job is time it can't spend doing another job.
It's like using your car for a job. There's the obvious cost for the fuel, but you also have to take into account the miles and wear and tear you're putting on your car. Sooner or later that machine is going to need to be replaced.
- - - - -
[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
I missed this reply. One thing to remember with the store here is that for each of those sales. The dev team only gets about $2 for shirts, maybe $5 for the hoodie, and less for the smaller items. The majority of each sale goes to whoever they use to make the items.
When it comes to patch prices, one thing I did see is a lot of the cheap ones, those below $3 especially tend to come out of asia. Philippines, Singapore and a bunch from India. And of course the quality is pretty poor.
The other thing I have found is if they are in the US, they generally are mass produced. Where a company does a run of 100+ of one dessign for like $1.50 a patch. Then the buyer turns around and sells them for a profit. Where I have to make them one at a time.
Generally mine do tend to look better though. I have seen a few of the mass produced ones and they seem to small issues all the time.
$18 for the larger ones seems like it could be a fair price considering the charity aspect of all this. And that's really most of them. Even the archetype patches would fall into that price. Maybe $15 for the City of Titan logo patch. Or maybe keep those two at $10 so there's at least two in there that's on the cheaper side for those that want to help out but can afford to throw so much at the store.
Besides the labor involved in those two is next to nothing with how things they are, plus only being two colors.
If enough sell and the devs get a good chunk, maybe they will be able to have that issue 0 celebratory stripper party. (Male and female strippers, because we're all about equality.)
Yeesh typing all that out on a phone was hard and a little painful.
Instead of donating to the next KS since I donated quite a bit to the first one, I would buy all the patches, sew them on a CoT shirt/sweater, and where it to all the Titan Summits ;P
-AlienMafia (Justice Server)
Main: Thorns 13xx Badges
You obviously didn't ask for tips on that but here's some anyway. My patches are kinda dense and stiff. They tend to want curve inward a little bit. So t-shirt material might be a little bit light. They would pull it out a little. I imagine it would be kind of uncomfortable to wear. However, a hoody would probably work well. Or maybe if you ironed them a little first. The thread is polyester so low heat.
In the discord today we were talking about a Letterman's jacket. That type of canvas material would work really well. Or another that I have seen people put em on is a overall style jump suit. Walk around the convention like your a MWM sponsored Nascar driver lol.
[b]One Price To Fit Them All[/b] ... [i]$15 [/i]... which just so happens to be the same as a one month subscription price.
I'd say invest in a better hoop (you were complaining elsewhere about it) for making these on, count that as a "business investment" and then just start making these patches to order for the MWM store whenever you're ready.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Exactly, but the machines do most of the work, so the time it takes to "print" isn't as Significant as the setup process. How long does he takes to import, redesign to machine specs, setup the printers, etc? 3 badges every 2 hours (per machine) is his average to print, but long to setup? How many hours per day (average) for maintenance? It ALL has to be accounted for.
Companies that print thousands per day have a different cost factor and can make a profit charging a lot less as quality is lower and volume is high. He does custom work, his time and labor is worth a lot more, A Lot More.
As he wants to do this to support MWM and is willing to take a loss in the process, I get. Lowball = $15. For the larger, more material and labor intensive setups $20 to $25. He uses quality materials, he needs to be able to pay for them. He spends time at the computer setting up the designs for printing, he does test runs to verify quality, all costing time and money. $7.50 per hour? For custom work? More like $10 or $12 at an absolute minimum.
So transparent, you gotta work on your capitalism ;)
yeah 15$ flat is a good call. I'd pay that
[hr]
[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/desvipers-creative-impulsivity]My Non-Canon Backstories[/url]
Avatar by MikeNovember
"If you don't work you deserve to die!"
-Capitalism
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
"Oh! You're already rich? Here's a bunch of money!" -Capitalism :p
[hr]
[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/desvipers-creative-impulsivity]My Non-Canon Backstories[/url]
Avatar by MikeNovember
I'm not a capitalist, I'm a socialist. I just know the value of good work.
Some 20ish years ago, I saw someone wearing this on a T-shirt and have remembered it ever since (mainly for the humor value). I only mention it here due to the thread derail into capitalism.
Socialism
You have two cows. Give one to your neighbor.
Communism
You have two cows. The state takes both cows and sells you milk.
Nazism
You have two cows. The state takes both cows and shoots you.
Bureaucracy
You have two cows. The state takes both cows, shoots one, milks the other and then pours the milk down the drain.
Capitalism
You have two cows. Sell one and buy a bull.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Anywho, 15$ seems like a fine, if even low market rate, for your efforts Loki ;)
[hr]
[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/desvipers-creative-impulsivity]My Non-Canon Backstories[/url]
Avatar by MikeNovember
I feel $15 should be the lowest possibly going up to about $20.
They look very professional.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Set it at $40
Then put it on sale for $20.
People will then flock to the $20 sales, as that's what most people do. :p
Some good stuff in here.
I do like the idea of one price for all except the City of Titans one, and that one being cheaper for the poor folk to still feel like they can afford to get some. And if they are set too high, i imagine people would say something.
Anyone bought any of the items off the store now? Curious about the quality.
I didn't buy anything yet. I'm waiting for second chance. After that I will spend some money :)
[font=courier][color=#FF0000]Tech[/color][/font]
45 52 52 4F 52 3A 20 34 30 34 0D 0A 48 65 72 6F 20 6E 6F 74 20 66 6F 75 6E 64 21
I will apologize for the political talk as I know most do not like it mixed with their game and escape. I understand, but I am compelled to respond:
If you did you'd be a capitalist.
That is not capitalist because if you are dead you can neither produce or consume. And then there is REALITY of other -isms, that you do in fact get killed because if you don't work you are a drain on the state.
I never understood comments like this, meant to disparage wealth. As if anyone here would balk and becoming rich, or richer. We are all up for that challenge, yes? I am sure you understand basic economics, so the rich getting richer is obvious and logical. On the other hand, the CoT devs, by relative standards, are not rich now. If they had a game of the year on their hands and a million players they would be richer. Then if they got WOW status they would be much richer still. And that is bad how?
Not sure why the anti-capitalist tones in the thread. This games development and it's (hopefully bright) future are the result of capitalism.
Honestly I think people get confused between capitalism and the immorality of a person. 2 separate issues entirely.
Capitalism, like a lot of things is ok on paper, I'm sure.
Personally I don't want to be rich, I just want to be able to live comfortably and have some fun every once in a while.
Also this game's staff was or is made up of a lot of volenteers, and most if not all of them are doing this because they have a passion for the project. Being able to make money off of it is a fortunate (ha, pun) side effect.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Great thing about capitalism is, one doesn't have to strive to be super rich, to live comfortably and have some fun once in awhile.
That said, fun every once in a while sounds bad, when one could rather have fun often. Then of course, what does one consider fun compared to others?
Having read about what it's really like to live such countries as Norway, I have to say, glad to be in America. Though, I could see why those feeling extremely poor here, would rather be extremely poor with that system. Still poor, given more free stuff.
Agreed, I don't need to be 'rich' either, but I don't scoff at it. Maybe I want to have more fun more often ;) and maybe I could help my family out and some friends if I had a little more.
As for the volunteers (and I love them for making this possible), they wouldn't have this project to volunteer on if it wasn't for the promise of a product and people providing funds for CoT to deliver. And at some point, when the game goes live, it will be all hands on deck. I imagine the core CoT folks won't have tolerance for much when-I-can-get-to-it volunteer work. They will need more full time support. But then, based on their promise of a product we want, they'll have influx of cash with sales and subscriptions so they will be able to hire more folks full time and reward some of these passionate volunteers. Yay capitalism.
I take full responsibility for the politics injected into this thread
[hr]
[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/desvipers-creative-impulsivity]My Non-Canon Backstories[/url]
Avatar by MikeNovember
Get him!
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
I think everything i needed was covered. Please continue your political discussions. I personally like reading those when it comes to capitalism vs socialism. As someone that makes his living selling things as a small business i am very much in the capitalism camp. "Shut Up and give me your money!"
As for the volunteer system CoT has been using, i really hope they all will get a massive check once the game is launched and fully playable, subs are up and running.
You hear that? The flood gates are open!
Let's get political like a family at Thanksgiving!
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
When I said I was a Socialist, I was being snarky.
I dislike being called a Capitalist when I'm trying to help someone with what I believe to be fair market value for goods and services
Canada is a weird mix of Social Gov't, Corporate Capitalism, and personal mixups of the two. Makes for interesting conversations here.
Personally I'm neither because neither work as well in practice as they do on paper and That is because, well, people don't work as well in RL as they do on paper.
No one called you a capitalist from what I can tell.
We got a pretty good system up here in Canada Land but like many things it could be better.
The rise in automation is going to have an interesting effect on how countries are ran I feel. Like what do you do when fast food stores are all effectively big vending machines, or when you can replace most warehouse workers with robits?
Huh, thinking about it Vending Machines probably killed a lot of businesses. Soda shops used to be a thing, right? Same as there's likely less snack bars around.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Have you checked with the devs about this idea? There very well may be legal or tax reasons that they might not be interested in this.
Yep i have talked with them. They have already hired me to do other patches for them. I'm an "Affiliated Artist." Which is kinda cool, never had a title before.
They may be volunteers, and we don't know all their motivations, but they can still be getting something out of this collaboration. All do it for the love which may be enough for some, but some may also be doing it with the hope of getting hired full time. Some may be doing it for connections into the game business. Some may be doing it for experience using a set of tools. To see how a game business runs so they can start their own? Resume and/or portfolio building? To see their name in the credits? Did they negotiate a free copy of game and lifetime subscription? School project? Some combination of these things and others? Anyway you look at it, it is a decision they made by balancing what they felt the value was to them vs their time invested. No one told them what was valuable and where and how to apply their efforts.
Now they tax man (TM) don't like all of this, which is why charities and volunteer organizations need special permission and rules to operate. And why bartering is basically illegal now. How can the TM get his if $$$ is not changing hands? But that's another rant for another time.
And I can let this go now... before grandpa throws a turkey leg at me. Though I'd appreciate cousin Hero throwing the pumpkin pie my way.
Congrats on that.
Do you belong to a guild or group or have colleagues in the patch industry you can bounce thoughts off of? While the board has thoughts and ideas as buyers (important), some experienced pros can probably give some advice from a seller side of things. Maybe through the devs you can reach out to other game patch people?
For a sec I thought you were trying to say that the Tax Man was trademarked. Like he was a super hero/villain or something
Nananananana, Tax Man!
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Neh not really. There isn't very many people that do what i do. Which is why it works so well for me. Plus im not very social when it comes to gatherings of people. I tend to just figure it out myself.
I mean I'm in a few Facebook groups that do embroidery but they seem to be full of old ladies, and old ladies tend to not like things i like. Or their go to response for any kind of issue with the machine is "Send it in for maintenance."
I remember back in the day i had an issue where the upper thread was really loose and it felt more like sponge then a patch, so posted pictures, asking why or how to fix it. They responded with "That's neat." They just looked at the pictures and never read the post lol.
But yea when it comes designs and stuff i just make my own. It's easier then dealing with someone else. My general rule of thumb is if it sells, it's good. But if it never sells i eventually take it off my store. And then years later i will gather up all my non selling patches and make a post in a few Facebook groups and my embroidery page to try and get rid of em. Im a patch hoarder so unless it's messed up in some way i save all of em.
Heard an interesting idea once where each person would own a robot that did work. So say 6 of us are burger makers at mcdonalds. We get together and buy the burger making machine and rent it to macdonalds. They get their automation and we are not unemployed. We may not make as much as if we went there to work, but it is still cheaper for macdonalds since they won't have to carry as much insurance, reduce payroll tax, less loss of time do to safety issues and injuries and they won't have to worry about high turnover in personnel.
yeah, it would be even cheaper for mcdonalds to just buy it themselves, but still an interesting theory regarding automation and employment.
Yeah, it's how I wrote for a while. if you were going to repeatedly use a word you'd abbreviate it in ( ) the first time and then use the abbreviation the rest of the way. Really just laziness on my part here.
I'd say stay out of the Tax Mans part of the city, but he is everywhere!
Speaking about Señor Tax Man... For the first couple years of me doing this (i had no other job besides this) i never even had to think about taxes. I mean i made a couple hundred bucks a month if that. Now however, i make so much it's become a a job and i actually moved up in the tax bracket. Yay success! ... Crap.
No, but I'm fairly sure he's under copyright, still. ^_^
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
.
Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
The problem with Capitalism is common sense and common decency. The problem with Socialism is common sense and lazy people and people willing to live with bare minimum.
Something new to take a peek at. [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/461370881395130380/524356401837899821/KIMG0741.JPG[/img]
Which is of course a patch based on the Rooks logo. [img]https://cityoftitans.com/sites/default/files/Rooks_logo.png[/img]
This one has to be pretty wide, 5 inch, but not terribly tall so it works out as far as price goes.
Nice!
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
I'm surprised that the prices are so high. Don't get me wrong you've explained your expenses clearly so I understand the reasoning behind it. When I was considering having pins made (3/4" enamel lapel pins) I could reasonably cover costs and make a non-negligible donation at about 7.50. I was planning to kickstart/indiegogo them at 10 so there was a bigger margin if things hit the fan during shipping, which I did not see discussed here. You're lucky though that your badges are flat and can be set through standard first class mail. Pins are too tall to ship through letter mail and would have to go through "large envelope" which requires an "expensive" 11.5 by 6.25" envelope. (damn minimum size requirements) Shipping is always the back breaker of kickstarters.
Bernie Burns of Rooster Teeth mentioned some of their difficulties trying to ship stuff when they first started Rooster Teeth on a podcast a couple weeks ago. USPS wouldn't sell him all of their 85 cent stamps and wouldn't take all the DVDs they were shipping to fans because there was "too much." Flat out refused to take any of it, rather than just take what they could handle. So they ended up having to drive around the city with smaller satchels and spread them out among the different post office branches.
Second Chance: https://store.missingworldsmedia.com/CityOfTitans/SecondChance/
Dev Tracker: http://cityoftitans.com/forum/fixing-dev-digest
Dev Comments: https://cityoftitans.com/forum/dev-comments
If i were selling these in my store and CoT was getting none of the money, they would be cheaper but the idea is that i get my cut plus they get theirs and we both walk out with enough profit to be worth the effort.
However, you are correct in the post office being one the biggest hurdles. They lose mail left and right. They actually just lost one of my bigger orders, and trying to get them go and find it is like pulling teeth. It made it to the local distribution center, and then vanished. This same story seems to happen at least once a month, and i don't know if my stuff just falls between the cracks or if someone is actually stealing them. This one had over $120 worth of stuff in there. So i'm going to make a trip down to the post office and see if i cant get them looking for it rather then relying on their website contact form. Or calling them, which has to qualify as a new level of hell.
Another thing to note is that epic gets a cut of the money gained through the merch shop also.
Pins would be neat. Harder to ship I'm sure. I saw on Facebook someone trying to get a Kickstarter going for those. I wonder if it was you. I think it was in a coh group. Might have been mass effect though, can't remember.