There used to be a place where you could buy Stack Exchange branded gear, what happened to it?
asked Jun 25, 2012 at 14:58
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1Any news about store?– SadeghCommented Feb 28, 2016 at 20:58
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1 Answer
Unfortunately, it no longer exists. The short story is that it was just too much work for the amount of sales we had.
The long story is, we have a lot of remote employees in different states. Our sales tax burden for selling tangible goods started to become an administration nightmare. We also couldn't justify the costs of either having someone at the office ship swag or paying a fulfillment house to do it for us (we were doing both). It also was complicated by the fact that a few months ago, a group of people defrauded us for a few thousand dollars in merchandise before we caught it.
We only averaged maybe $20-$50 a day in sales. Sometimes a week would go by without an order. We also felt like allowing anyone to purchase our swag made it a bit less awesome when we sent it out for free to people for being awesome on our sites.
So we closed the shop. We'll continue to make swag, and continue to gift it to people in special circumstances, but you won't be able to purchase it anymore.
I apologize to everyone who is upset by this news. We should have foreseen a lot of these problems beforehand, and we didn't, so it's my fault.
answered Jun 25, 2012 at 14:58
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46Sounds like a great decision - swag that can be "earned" only through participation feels so much cooler. I can confirm Martijn's problems though– PekkaCommented Jun 25, 2012 at 15:02
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14Prediction: record sales in one week as people start to panic buy. Commented Jun 25, 2012 at 15:51
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11I also have to say, there was very little marketing of the shop. I only found out last week, when I saw a friend of mine with an SO sticker on his laptop, that there were even SO branded stuff. now i've got like 3 days to go. I'm gonna rush buy, but in the future can we also be informed about competitions where we can win stuff.... And for Gods sake, why Isn't South Africa on the list of Countries in the billing information?– UmohCommented Jun 29, 2012 at 12:06
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1Maybe some (very tough) goals to achieve can be introduced with a T-shirt as a reward (like badges).– TudorCommented Jul 5, 2012 at 13:00
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2Hm, can't you use services like Spreadshirt for world-wide distribution? Who says you have to be the vendor yourselves...– RaphaelCommented Jul 11, 2012 at 22:07
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28Did you guys consider outsourcing most of the work (shipping, tax, orders) to someone else? Like opening a store on cafepress.com maybe Commented Aug 2, 2012 at 19:07
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16gasp here I am wearing a carelessly crumb-covered SO T-shirt. Henceforth, I vow to preserve it's awesomeness more carefully. Commented Aug 13, 2012 at 18:47
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4So what are these special circumstances where I will be receive swags?– StarxCommented Nov 5, 2012 at 3:29
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3How do we be awesome enough to get swag? Because I want to be that awesome. Commented Jul 24, 2013 at 13:07
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3The store link still mentions "You can vote for it to be created through our democratic, community-driven process at area51.stackexchange.com, or see a complete directory of all our Q&A sites at stackexchange.com." That means there is still a possibility to get it opened if we democratically propose for it. After all SO is of the people, for the people, by the people :)– pal4lifeCommented Apr 29, 2014 at 16:15
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4@AnthonyHatzopoulos I think cafepress is the way to go too. You just upload a logo and they take care of the printing and shipping. You don't need to carry inventory. CafePress does all that for you. SO could make it a revenue stream (albeit small), or just offer it as a pass-through cost. I think just the increased visibility in the brand is worth it even if you just break even on it.– SunCommented Sep 16, 2014 at 3:56
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8I'm not sure why you guys decided to tackle this all by yourselves in the first place. Let another website/company deal with displaying, shipping and processing payments. Yes you get less money, but like you said, it was a huge pain in the butt. Commented Dec 20, 2014 at 1:19
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13Hello @MichaelPryor! I know this was long ago, but I was wondering if there was ever a chance that a store would open again? Not necessarily for all the cool swag thats earned through competitions or giveaways, but a nicely branded stackoverflow laptop bag, stickers or a shirt would be awesome. Just curious. Like the platform a lot and recommend it to anyone I can. I'd be proud to wear/use something to promote it even more.– War10ckCommented Feb 25, 2016 at 17:48
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