Merchant of Wagdie

[Coldworld]

Hello Conclave

I seek some collaborative thought from the conclave.

I, alongside other community members that are working together are laying the foundation of a wagdie clothing webstore, hosted on shopify.

The site plan has been paid for, the domain has been set to wagdie.clothing and have it set up under wagdiemerchant.eth and have a specific wallet for it to be funded under for transparency.

Currently we have self funding for a line of shirts we plan to put out in limited quantities. However, going forward after exploring the success of our efforts.

I would want to open the idea up to being funded to help pay for the cost of expanding the merch line beyond the initial release. I would like to make it more methodical in the type of merch being designed (think seasonal apparel). I want to be able to have the items purchased be impactful so new and old travlers have something tangible to represent in their day to day lives.

We have a what has already begun as an established creative committee to agree on the merchandise needing to be printed and formulating the type and run size. Working in parallel with the artists preferred commission or compensation for providing the art.

Cost examples: Artists form of payment+blank unit cost+ printing + shipping & Handling.

Profit: After anticipating selling out the total amount of units ordered (which will start in small batches like 50-100 units) the profit will be reduced by all the total cost of production and returned along side the remainder is given back to the conclave per rate voted on (seemingly a unanimous 30%) The remainder of the profit will be up to the discretion of the merchants guild (i.e more wagdies bought, funding new artist production, paying out other participants on their efforts).

Why merch and the merchants guild I think its important to establish a strong web2 brand. Something where the strength our community bleeds into other communities we share in everyone’s individual lives. We have large brands (yuga, doodles, goblins and others) establishing tangible meaning behind their brand and its time the wagdie community did the same.

MY OVERALL WAGDIE OBJECTIVE IS BELOW:

Wagdie Objective : To support Wagdie_eth and its community grow organically through honest intentions and purpose for the greater good of wagdie and the community. Wagdie merch is an tangible representation of wagdie and its lore. The Wagdie merchants guild hope to express this through blending of more web2 centric objectives and “irl” motifs of the wagdie brand. With strong help of the artists and designers of similar passion, like people holding the monarch tokens of concord for example.

If there is a way to make wagdie seem less crypto/nft and more a brand/community/interactive experience/game that more can enjoy.

**Estimated amount of funds needed **

1-5 Eth depending on the types of merch, design difficulty and quantity of merch

[KingOffling]

Love the idea of getting a merch operation started using the conclave, but this proposal is missing a bunch of important information if it’s going to see success.

A couple of notes that I’ll just throw out in point-form:
• Show some design examples / product ideas
• Outline the other members working on this with you, their experience / roles
• Methods of production (self-printing? local vendor? POD supplier?)
• Treasury and production costs are all in USD so, use fiat cost instead of ETH
• Breakdown and detail the specifics of production expenses with numbers
• Target pricepoints for items and their estimated profit margins
• Net revenue expectations

A lot of number requests in there, but as a merchant-oriented proposal, these are essentials. With that info, we’ll be able to understand what it costs, what it’s being spent on, what returns look like, and assess risk based upon requirements of sell-out percentage.

Would also suggest that DTG-POD really isn’t that bad, and that pre-order systems for more high-end / hand-produced garments is a fantastic way to start low-cost with bases covered.

[Dontfeedthewolf]

I would love to hear about the experience of those involved. I think it would be a huge discredit for the unofficial official WAGDIE merch being someone’s first merch company/tshirt company/online store.

It’s important to understand how to find the best suppliers for the best price. To understand shipping to multiple regions around the world. To ensure quality of the product, etc.

If those involved are just learning as they go, they would be better off practicing on a smaller scale before asking for funding through a proposal. Not accusing or assuming these things, just want clarity on experience and whom will be involved.

[Dontfeedthewolf]

Also would like to see this drafted using the Proposal Template

[Coldworld]

Both you and king make great points to address and happy to answer all questions. This has been something already put into the works but not up for official release yet. We have designs done and it’s being looked into currently being printed and working on its way to distribution.

I would be happy to get this in a better format for you. As we progress off of this self funded line we look for a more formal request but wanted to just put the interest out there and questions others might have that we can answer along the way. I look to try and provide more information to what we have started already and how it’s being operated to help everyone’s goals align

[Coldworld]

I can in the end provide a more best case scenario of the product being sold and profits made with a spreadsheet to provide better data to award funding.

[Coldworld]

Those last two paragraphs I would be happy to explore under. Is there a place or format this can be better sorted through to help the conclave be more comfortable with approving?

[Coldworld]

The scale of the merch or product line is limited. 50-100 shirts being made per artist design. So that there is a small but limited amount to promote sell out or depleted inventory. I will look to provide more information to what we have done thus far to gain a better understanding

[Coldworld]

• Abstract - To provide tangible expression and representation of wagdie in the form of articles of clothing. Through collaboration with designers and other members of the community.

• Motivation - This will help blend, build and strengthen the community by delivering tangible representations of wagdie into their own individual communities.

• Rationale - An explanation of how the proposal aligns with the WAGDIE Community’s mission and guiding values.

• Specifications - We have and will cross examine using local print shops in comparison to online print companies and weighing the difference between providing quality we feel is desired while keeping costs and finding ways to reduce cost a conscious effort.

• Steps to Implement - We have already begun creating the infrastructure needed to provide for the wagdie community. We have the shopify store and domain ready. We have an artist providing designs alongside others willing to help provide designs. I coldwrld leading with Poof, peach, Atroix, _Dungeon and a few others that are helping getting the webstore up and a production line started. We welcome more to have a voice in the merchants guild.

At the end of the day its pretty simple. We work with getting a quote for a couple different sources and choose the one with the best balance between quality and cost depending on the merchandise and avenue we want to follow. We dont always want to be heavy on lowering cost every chance we can get as we want the quality to stay above a certain standard. We have artists, designers, business leaders coming together to lead a community driven merchandise apparel.

• Timeline- Seasonally and continually. We plan on putting out about 3 shirts and a hat to start out. Unit amounts will range from 50-100 per item. Once sold out its sold out. Cost for example on a T-shirt will be as follows.

Overal Cost - This is a simple mock example of a T shirt. Costing 11.95 a shirt for a total of 100 shirts to be printed. If sold for $35 shirt will yield net revenue of $3495 for example. After artist cost or payout, return of investment and shipping and handling w/ taxes due Would generate a take home pay of $1040…30% of that would be $312 for this example. So with the return of the initial investment we would also give 30% of the profit back into the conclave. As this is just a simple example of an actual quote given there are always a margin of error and change amongst cost.

I do want to preface that merch/clothing isnt a overly lucrative business. Good money isnt really to be made easily. We want to do small runs of merch to get a pulse and idea for the demand whether it be size or the location of demand.

Here is the first example of designs made.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This design is what was used for the excel spreadsheet quote/data

Because this has been something we have been working on with various community members to build, i mostly ask for questions you think are worth answering before moving on. At the end of the day there needs to be a level of trust in that not everything is going to come out 100% perfect. But we seek to deliver cool shirts at a low level production and high level costumer service.

[Dontfeedthewolf]

This is a great proposal, I definitely encourage sharing the link in discord/twitter and rallying together those who would support it.

Also I would nail down different tiers of funding, or settle on a cost. Proposals have best chance of succeeding with a clear objective.

[Coldworld]

Great point, I think the merchants of wagdie have decided to go through with our own funding to see how the process works and how we want to alter it. Once we get some good data from an initial release we will come back and make some adjustments and figure out what the next release will look like and how we can better make a proposal for the conclave.

Should we delete this thread or just leave it up for now to continue off of?

[Dontfeedthewolf]

As you are the author of the proposal and wish it to be closed we can go ahead and do that. Please don’t delete, let’s save it on the record for transparency purposes and also for ease of use in case you wish to come back to/make a new proposal.