How Am I Going To Do This...

[+harrisale]

Hello. I have recently been posting about my Night Cachers Geocoin. I have gotten some quotes and may be ready to mint soon. The problem is that I don't have the cash to make these.

 

Some sites have offered to make, sell, and ship the coin for me all for free. Obviously these people will be making money off my coin to be able to do this.

 

I don't want other people to be profiting off my design, and I've always believed that geocaching should be relatively uncommercialized (I was planning to only charge about $5.49 - $5.99 for my coin and shipping would be about $2). Also, I've always liked doing things myself.

 

So, should I take pre-orders before minting the coin? And see if I can break even before I get the coin? (these orders would be a commitment)

 

Or should I just give my coin to someone else to manufacture? (this would also increase costs for buyers)

 

Any advice would be great. Thanx

 

harrisale

[+Mauison]

Hello. I have recently been posting about my Night Cachers Geocoin. I have gotten some quotes and may be ready to mint soon. The problem is that I don't have the cash to make these.

 

Some sites have offered to make, sell, and ship the coin for me all for free. Obviously these people will be making money off my coin to be able to do this.

 

I don't want other people to be profiting off my design, and I've always believed that geocaching should be relatively uncommercialized (I was planning to only charge about $5.49 - $5.99 for my coin and shipping would be about $2). Also, I've always liked doing things myself.

 

So, should I take pre-orders before minting the coin? And see if I can break even before I get the coin? (these orders would be a commitment)

 

Or should I just give my coin to someone else to manufacture? (this would also increase costs for buyers)

 

Any advice would be great. Thanx

 

harrisale

 

IMO, if you don't want others making a profit selling your coin and you don't have the money to fund it entirely yourself, hold off on it for now. Save up your money until you do have enough to mint them.

 

As for preorders, there have been problems before, such as people not buying them even though they've preordered them. And there are some that won't preorder and would rather wait until a coin is actually in hand and ready to ship before they do order.

 

You could also have less coins minted and not have them trackable either. This would lessen the cost per coin.

Edited June 24, 2006 by Mauison

[+Mandollyn]

OK - here's what I did -

 

I took preorders via my website, without charging anyone. That way I knew WHO wanted them.

 

Once I saw that there was an actual demand for my coin, I paid my die set-up fee up front... that process takes about a week... it was $85 per side.

 

Then once that was done & I saw the sample, I invoiced everyone. It took about 3 weeks from the day I sent my minter the $$$ via PayPal for me to get my coins in hand.

 

People are really good on here to let you know if they like your coin and what they will pay for it...

 

They also are good with you if it is taking a little long for the minter to send you the coins, just as long as you have a sample minted & are constantly in contact with them!

[+harrisale]

So, did you wait for enough preorders to be able to break even, before getting the actual coins?

[+The Dillon Gang]

For one of the order sessions on the California geocoins, I collected the money first and then when i had enough had the coins minted. back then coins only cost 4-5 bucks though.

[+harrisale]

The dillon gang: that was what I was planning to do. How long did it take you to get all the money to break even before u made the coin.

 

My coin will only cost about 5-6 dollars, so I hope to get orders fast.

[+geoSquid]

I took pre-orders, and invoiced for them, putting people in a priority for shipping in the order they paid. Once I had about $1000 of paid pre-orders, I started accepting trades (and you WILL get trade requests, probably lots of them, so if you collect coins, you may wish to factor that in).

 

However, I didn't take pre-orders until after I'd paid the mint and was waiting for coins, which is different than your situation. Personally, I'd probably be a bit reluctant to pay in advance for a pre-order if the coins haven't been ordered from the mint yet.

 

Financially speaking, I've recovered about 52% of the costs associated with making, selling, and shipping the coins. Remember when you set your price:

 

- the coin will cost <whatever> per coin, and you can figure that one out by dividing the minting cost by the number of coins... but there's other costs too.

- duties and taxes when your coins arrive from the mint

- shipping the coins to you from the mint, if the mint doesn't include it in their bill

- envelopes to ship the coins out to other people - even in bulk they're still 30-50 cents each

- assorted fees for collecting money: Paypal fees, eBay or other coin listing fees, gas for your car for you to drive around to local people, that sort of thing. It all adds up.

- costs associated with lost mailings: reality, if you ship 500 coins by post, odds are the mail will lose a few, you're out the coin AND you're refunding money, so you want a bit of a cushion for that.

 

For the geoSquid coins, costs over and above the base minting cost have added up to almost $450 (canadian) so far, and I've sold about half of the coins. Based on that, the expected extra costs will probably be in the $900 to $1000 range.

 

I don't want other people to be profiting off my design,

 

That is a VERY important consideration, and one that I'm not sure everyone thinks about. If you do it all yourself, you own the rights to your artwork, design, use of images, etc.

 

If you get, shall we say, help with creating the coin, you may not own the rights. There are lots of coin manufacturers who will discount or otherwise lower the cost of producing your coin with the proviso that they get to sell your coin as they see fit. This may not be what you want. Indeed, if you have a little logo (I've been using the happy squid for decades) and you get an assisted coin production, you could lose rights to your own logo!

 

So I would recommend that you think long and hard before going for a discount-for-rights kind of deal.

Edited June 24, 2006 by geoSquid

[+Marky]

I agree with Mandollyn, if you are going to go the pre-order route, I would have the sample in hand before collecting any money. Once the dies are ready to go, it shouldn't take more than 2 or 3 weeks to get you the coins.

 

Tips on shipping:

If you offer priority mail as an option, mail those orders out first before you do anything else. Addressing these up in advance would be a good idea. I've been burned in the past by paying extra for priority mail, but had my order processed towards the end of the shipments, which just wasted my money.

 

If you sell any overseas, I would mail them next, since it takes them longer to arrive (and they had to pay more, most likely).

 

If at all possible, mail out all of the remaining packages in one day. Stretching out shipping over more than a couple of days is just going to lead to frustration and hard feelings. A lot of people watch the "mailbox" thread, and if other people are getting their coins, but some people are having to wait weeks, that is not good.

 

--Marky

[+Team JSAM]

You've got mail....... well a PM that is!

[+chaosmanor]

We wonder if this might not require a joint effort of some sort. Haven't seen much in here about "angels", and such (the people who finance plays, commission music, etc. so that good work can get written). but maybe the time has come for collaborative efforts. In other words, do you know a few people who are willing to loan you some money to help get your coin produced?

 

Personally, we don't find an $8 coin to be exorbitant, if the design is good; $10 is getting outrageous, though. Still, as with any business deal, profit makes the world go around. If you don't want someone else to make that profit, you *have* to be willing to do all the work yourself.

 

Good luck! We're definitely interested in your coin, if and when you are able to get it made.

[Jake - Team A.I.]

To follow the logic of no one making a profit, then perhaps you should consider not making the coin. Every step of the minting process has people offering a service to provide you with the product you desire. The mint has to charge an amount to cover their cost of making the coin and pay their workers for their efforts in the process. They must also add a profit margin to keep their business. Companies that provide the service of processing the orders and expediting them do deserve fair compensation for their efforts. The profit would come in if you were to provide an additional charge to every coin so that you would also receive a profit. What you could consider is to have the coins made by the company and what profits they work out for you... take them in the form of extra coins produced, so that you have some for trading. If you do not wish to have extra coins produced for you, let the company know that you wish to pass what would be your profit from the venture to your customers.

 

A Businesses sole purpose is to provide a profitable service to it's customer. If they are providing a means to ship your coins and garentee their delivery, they should be entitled to make a profit from it.

 

I considered distributing the coins I recently did. But after watching the most infamous fiasco in geocoin history unfold... I decided to leave the shipping and handling to the professionals.

[+harrisale]

Obviously people are going to make some money, u really didnt need to state that. I think youve misse dthe point of some guy saying "Gimme yur design and I'll make money off it". Its a bit different.

 

btw. what is this "infamous fiasco in geocoin history"?

[Jake - Team A.I.]

Obviously people are going to make some money, u really didnt need to state that. I think youve misse dthe point of some guy saying "Gimme yur design and I'll make money off it". Its a bit different.

 

btw. what is this "infamous fiasco in geocoin history"?

There's a few pages to wade through. Needless to say, if think the coins will sell like hotcakes, you may want to reconsider your distribution method.

 

Wyoming thread

[+harrisale]

We wonder if this might not require a joint effort of some sort. Haven't seen much in here about "angels", and such (the people who finance plays, commission music, etc. so that good work can get written). but maybe the time has come for collaborative efforts. In other words, do you know a few people who are willing to loan you some money to help get your coin produced?

 

hopefully I can get some fellow cachers to loan me the money or just someone else interested in the project. this will probably be impossible though. Where would I find them?

[+Ryder3 & Better Half]

When we finally get off our butt,and produce a coin,we will probably

go to a pro to see how things are done!

[+Mauison]

We wonder if this might not require a joint effort of some sort. Haven't seen much in here about "angels", and such (the people who finance plays, commission music, etc. so that good work can get written). but maybe the time has come for collaborative efforts. In other words, do you know a few people who are willing to loan you some money to help get your coin produced?

 

hopefully I can get some fellow cachers to loan me the money or just someone else interested in the project. this will probably be impossible though. Where would I find them?

 

I think the "few people" chaosmanor was referring to would be family or friends of yours, not fellow cachers. But I could be wrong.

Edited June 26, 2006 by Mauison