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I had a similar experience during the presidential debates. When McCain pointed at Obama and called him "that one," I quickly made a CafePress t-shirt and began

I had a similar experience during the presidential debates. When McCain pointed at Obama and called him "that one," I quickly made a CafePress t-shirt and began pointing to it using #thatone as a hashtag on Twitter. Shirt sales began before the debate had even ended. I ended up selling 118 t-shirts, nearly all of them sold within 3 days of the debate. Loren, would you mind sharing your sales totals?

guynamedloren 16y ago
Back of the envelope calculation: 200+ shirts (over half in the first day) in a few days, ~$9 profit per shirt. Should be an interesting trip to the post office. Just curious - what kind of profits did you get for your Cafepress shirts and how much did you sell them for?
- chopsueyar 16y ago
  No issues with Paypal?
  - guynamedloren 16y ago
    One small issue. Somebody wanted a refund (which is totally fine), but they stupidly filed an "unauthorized funds" dispute, basically implying that I hacked their account and stole the money. Paypal froze the funds temporarily, but I issued a refund and cleared it up right away.
- jaysonelliot 16y ago
  I'm not sure anymore, but I did go to Cafepress and take a look at my sales history just now. It doesn't give much detail, but feel free to have a look: http://twitpic.com/3y0pg0/full http://twitpic.com/3y0pg0/full
- bmr 16y ago
  I seem to remember you saying you had a new visitor every 4.5 seconds for 48 hours (can't find it again though). That works out to about 38,000 visitors. So the conversion rate was 200/38000 = 0.5%? Or am I missing something?
  - guynamedloren 16y ago
    Good memory, and your calculations are pretty much spot on. Low conversion rate, but high traffic - so I can live with it.
    - bmr 16y ago
      Sure, I was just curious if paid traffic could have been profitable for you. With $8 in profit per shirt and a conversion rate of 0.5%, it looks like anything over $0.04 per click would have resulted in a loss. Your site was gorgeous, and the idea was strong. Amazing how hard it is to push people to action.
karterk 16y ago
Very interesting - do you mean to say that people watching for new tweets came across that tweet and the whole thing just took off? Or, did you publicize it on other mediums like FB too?
- jaysonelliot 16y ago
  In my case, the hashtag was all I used. McCain's "That one" moment was enough of an insta-meme that it exploded pretty quickly. I think the key was spotting that the phrase would resonate with so many people as soon as he said it. By the time the press picked up on it and columnists started writing about it, I had already made the bulk of my sales, and the dropoff was as fast as the spike had been.

guynamedloren 16y ago

Back of the envelope calculation: 200+ shirts (over half in the first day) in a few days, ~$9 profit per shirt. Should be an interesting trip to the post office. Just curious - what kind of profits did you get for your Cafepress shirts and how much did you sell them for?

chopsueyar 16y ago
No issues with Paypal?
- guynamedloren 16y ago
  One small issue. Somebody wanted a refund (which is totally fine), but they stupidly filed an "unauthorized funds" dispute, basically implying that I hacked their account and stole the money. Paypal froze the funds temporarily, but I issued a refund and cleared it up right away.
jaysonelliot 16y ago
I'm not sure anymore, but I did go to Cafepress and take a look at my sales history just now. It doesn't give much detail, but feel free to have a look: http://twitpic.com/3y0pg0/full http://twitpic.com/3y0pg0/full
bmr 16y ago
I seem to remember you saying you had a new visitor every 4.5 seconds for 48 hours (can't find it again though). That works out to about 38,000 visitors. So the conversion rate was 200/38000 = 0.5%? Or am I missing something?
- guynamedloren 16y ago
  Good memory, and your calculations are pretty much spot on. Low conversion rate, but high traffic - so I can live with it.
  - bmr 16y ago
    Sure, I was just curious if paid traffic could have been profitable for you. With $8 in profit per shirt and a conversion rate of 0.5%, it looks like anything over $0.04 per click would have resulted in a loss. Your site was gorgeous, and the idea was strong. Amazing how hard it is to push people to action.

karterk 16y ago

Very interesting - do you mean to say that people watching for new tweets came across that tweet and the whole thing just took off? Or, did you publicize it on other mediums like FB too?

jaysonelliot 16y ago
In my case, the hashtag was all I used. McCain's "That one" moment was enough of an insta-meme that it exploded pretty quickly. I think the key was spotting that the phrase would resonate with so many people as soon as he said it. By the time the press picked up on it and columnists started writing about it, I had already made the bulk of my sales, and the dropoff was as fast as the spike had been.