Although I haven’t set a merchandise shop up for Lowell.com yet, I’ve heard that these shops can be a nice source of passive revenue, and they help build brand recognition. David Castello emailed me to let me know about a large hat sale that was made via the Nashville.com merchandise shop.
While CCIN netted a couple hundred dollars from the order of 55 hats, the greater benefit is that there will be a bunch of people receiving hats with their logo, and hopefully some of them will actually be worn by those who receive the hat! While many entrepreneurs pay big bucks for various branded tsotchkes to give away, having a shop allows people to actually brand your site for you! CafePress offers an easy to use and operate white label shop, and I plan to set mine up in the next couple of weeks.
This is one reason why having a fun logo is important to set your brand apart from other websites.
Lowell.com starting to look real sweet.
Hats, pins, bumper stickers, local flags and other patriotic items are a natural for a geo site. You actually own the rights to it.
I bet a lot more is made on the street vendor carts selling NY T-shirts in front of NewYork.com’s office’s then the whole site makes. Something to think about.
Totaly agree, selling merchandise with your logo sounds like a great marketing strategy to promote your brand offline.
Great point Owen…and don’t get me started on NewYork.com
A great site I use for merchandise is http://www.printfection.com/
That’s a great idea, Elliot. Let us know how it works out. I can see a lot of people wanting to wear these out of city pride.