For quick one-offs, I've found Spreadshirt good for T-Shirts, they printed the Covenant one I wear at Cons. Spreadshirt.net , note that there's a UK and US variant, use the UK site or you'll end up waiting...

-Matt

Realms Publishing

I got some Silver Branch business cards done there - they keep sending offer flyers in Amazon orders and it was about £6 (I don't think you actually need the flyer, just make your first order on the site).

BUT when I mentioned this somewhere I got a comment that they're known for a scam where they sign people up for something and take payments from your card without permission. I was quite alarmed, but it doesn't seem to have happened to me. Just a cautionary note - if anyone does use them, keep an eye on your statements just in case.

(One can never be sure how much credence to place in these stories. The nature of the internet tends to mean that you can always find someone who has had a problem with a given service. There are, for instance, whole communities of anti-Paypal people.)

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

(Edit: Damn thing ate my post, stupid FF)

To be fair to those people PayPal may be fine in general but if something does go wrong they are TERRIBLE at dealing with it and getting to speak to a human at there end is nigh on impossible. I wont bore you with the details of the problem that I had but suffice it to say that it ended up with debt collection agencies, threats of court action, etc. despite the fact that the cock-up was entirely on their end, they were the ones who had ignored my communication attempts with them and I had cleared the negative balance on my account anyway!

Yeah, I'd heard of them in a recent bunch of e-mails from folks thinking about using CafePress. CafePress seems to be sol expensive that you either (a) make no money on anything sold, or (b) price the merchandise out of the affordable range of your customers.

Anyone use Cafe Press successfully for decent mark-up?

We run a Cafepress shop here

We started it because we got a lot of requests for T-Shirts, made some and flogged them. Then we got Slashdotted a couple of times and the demand for shirts increased and also the number of requests from the US. Since we'd had all the shirts printed locally, we ended up setting up the CP store basically for the US, because at the time getting money from people in the US was quite hard (this is pre-paypal) and also postage is expensive and a massive hassle.

What we also did was this:

"Please note our special deluxe totl.net t-shirts. These are almost identical to normal totl.net t-shirts but cost more and have the additional amount you paid (In Pounds Stirling) printed on the top right hand corner above the barcode. They also come in funkier colours. We'd really like your money. Money is neato."

Which was essentially a backdoor donation thing. Get a shirt with £5 printed in the corner which cost £5 more than a regular one. We also did £10, £20 and £50.

They sold OK, it was a bit cooler than a begging jar and we made enough to sponsor a Lemur for 2 years at Marwell Zoo. And a Duck.

I'm not sure what the margin is on the stuff that's there now. Probably not much. The site gets way less traffic than it used to because we rarely (if ever) update.

Despatched the order today that I placed in the early hours of Friday.

I'll let you know how they look and feel.

Of course, if anyone has horror stories, or otherwise, of anything then please do start a "Is Blah... bollocks?" thread, as has become a tradition around here.

:^D

...from Spreadshirt arrived and look nice. I think I will try Monster T-Shirts for a larger run, but for a quick turnaround Spreadshirt were pretty good.

Despite the best efforts of the British Postal Service to stop any mail travelling through the UK the business cards arrived today from Vista Print. (Along with several sacks of delayed mail, so no fault of Vista Print.)

What are they like?

Very pink, bright and glossy. The colours are sharp and the black is solid. The various shades of pink are well-differentiated and the pink "watermark" image is clear. Really excellent.

The gloss coating I paid for it worth it. The cards are stiff and feel of good quality. The card stock is a nice bright white.

They feel really great and look fantastic.

Slight quibbles?

They print at 300 dpi, which is OK for half-tones but leaves nit-pickers such as myself wishing the small text was slightly sharper (which it would be if they printed at 600 dpi). However, this is me being a perfectionist (a bit American Psycho perhaps?) and the cards of course are readable and clear to the normal punter.

As for design?

I'm pretty happy with the design I did. Next time you see me, ask for one.

My badges arrived from Busybeaver on Friday while I was in Helsinki.

They are perfect. The badges are well made, the background colours are strong (pink, bubblegum pink, flourescent pink and fuchsia) and the monochrome printing of the Cool Girl is of high quality. They were packed neatly into bags, organised by colour, and sent in a robust small cardboard box.

I will be handing them out at GenCon for free and at other cons until they run out.

I'll try and get a photo online at some point too. I really recommend BusyBeaver for these type of buttons.