BCP Calendar

Vegan.Hiker

Vegan.Hiker

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Jul 5, 2014
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Sorry to be all "me me me" but this is the sub-forum where we can do that right?

I would love a BCP photo calendar for my office with photos from BCP trips reports from the past year. I take multiple breaks throughout the work day (experts say that you are more productive doing so) and often spend those breaks reading BCP trip reports to take my mind "out of the office" and "off of my work". I spend so much time in my office it's virtually my "home away from home" so I like to hang things up that make me feel at home (pictures of my wife, dog, etc.) I would love to have a BCP calendar that I could put up.

This is where I get greedy; I would be totally happy with a regular wall calendar but I prefer the desk ones like this.

Insight-Desk-Jan2.jpg

Whatever it would cost to order these, I would be more than willing to pay that, plus extra markup, with the profits going to BCP.

I'd be cool with Nick designing it, but it might even be fun to make it a democratic type of thing where at the end of each month, a poll goes up with all of the featured images from the TR's from that month (that took place that month) and the selected photo gets used as that month's photo in the next year's calendar? Then again, it might be better if one person (Nick) designed it so they can ensure variety, and pictures that go together well. Just an idea.
 
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"Me me me me me me." That's all I'm hearing here! Haha!

Okay but seriously, this is a good idea and it is something we've tossed around before but never seriously. The biggest problem with a calendar in the past has been the very short sales life of such a piece. You really have to charge a lot just to cover the costs of the ones that might not get sold. I have seen some options lately where printers will do a print on demand type of setup, or perhaps we could do a pre-order so that the vast majority are pre-paid when they are ordered so I'm not left with a case of calendars to wallpaper my house in, kind of like the XL hiking shirts I have now!

I'll look into it...
 
Nick said:
"Me me me me me me." That's all I'm hearing here! Haha!

Okay but seriously, this is a good idea and it is something we've tossed around before but never seriously. The biggest problem with a calendar in the past has been the very short sales life of such a piece. You really have to charge a lot just to cover the costs of the ones that might not get sold. I have seen some options lately where printers will do a print on demand type of setup, or perhaps we could do a pre-order so that the vast majority are pre-paid when they are ordered so I'm not left with a case of calendars to wallpaper my house in, kind of like the XL hiking shirts I have now!

I'll look into it...
Click to expand...

Nick, the Jeep guys over at Early CJ 5 do nearly the same as Vegan suggested. In December, there is a request for photos, a vote is taken, and the 12 winners get their photos on the calendar. Those calenders are printed and sold by Cafepress.
http://www.cafepress.com/earlycj5dotcom

That eliminates your wall paper problem. The biggest problem here will be for members deciding which 12 photos will be used. Some pretty awesome photos on this site.
 
Sweet! Reasonably priced too. I do an annual staff photo contest and calendar for one of my clients, so I actually have some experience with this outside of selling them. I think a good process would be to assemble a selection committee of a handful of BCP members to narrow down the photos available, whether submitted all at once or selected from trip reports, to a more reasonable number. Then allow members to vote on the slimmed down selection. For the other calendar I do, we usually start with around 300-400 images and then give the executive team at the company the chance to vote on the top 60 or so. The top-ranked from becomes the monthly photos. Makes it easier than having to setup voting on hundreds of photos.
 
Looks like the shirts are made by Badger.
they do extensive work on their anti microbial fabrics and a cool milk test to show it fights stink and other stuff.
 
If you ever get any M in stock I would order one.. With all of the great photographers in here I can't believe no one else is interested in a calendar!
 
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I've done calendars for a few years now. The way I avoid getting caught with extras is to start selling them before the Holidays and order them in multiple smaller batches, the first couple batches are all sold before I even get them, so that a week or two before Christmas, I only have a couple dozen left and once those are gone, that's it, I stop taking orders. It's worked well, I haven't got stuck with one yet and the guys who have been buying them every year know I'm not kidding when I say only available for a limited time, so they get their orders in quickly. This year I sold over $2K worth of them in three weeks. But I'm done with them completely until next year.

I just order them from Costco. For the small qtys I deal in, the price/quality is as good or better than anywhere else I've been able to find.

But, if I do them next year, I am considering shopping around for having a larger qty printed all at once, to see if I can get a decent price break and increase my margin.

All that, to say this... Calendars are low margin in dollars. Even with a big percentage markup, you are still looking at probably less than $10 margin each. Which, when you factor in the time to create them, answering questions about them, ordering them, packaging them, trips to the Post Office, trips to the bank, etc., is damned little. I do them more because the guys who buy them bug the shit out of me every year to do them again, than to actually make any money. I enjoy knowing that they enjoy their calendars and it builds a lot of good will both ways. That, and I do sell some canvas prints as a side effect. But, making and selling calendars in relatively small quantities, selling direct, where you - Nick - are the entire organization, it's almost more PITA than it is worth. If you pay yourself $15 an hour for all of the above you'll be lucky to break even, unless you sell a lot more of them than just what BCP'ers are likely to buy. I'd look at it as a community thing, not as any kind of a money maker.

- DAA
 
So how do I buy an XL dark green shirt?
Use the buy now link, or pay via pay pal?
 
DAA, I was going to say Costco as well. They do a pretty good job there.
 
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