[marketing] Adoptium swag store
The Adoptium WG marketing committee has agreed to create a swag store to allow anyone to purchase Adoptium (and associated projects) branded materials.
The motivation for this is to avoid the current burden placed upon project members and Eclipse staff of bulk ordering branded materials, having to track the quantity and location of items, the cost and logistics of bulk shipment of swag to events, having to maintain sufficient range and sizing of swag for different users, and the distribution of swag to remote recipients.
The resolution is to create a virtual 'store' that offers branded items and let end users order directly for delivery straight to them. There is no plan to use the store to make significant sums of money. Items are priced "at cost", with a very small margin to cover the store fees, allow for discounting promotions, and cover the cost of lost/returned items etc. for which the project becomes responsible.
Using the capabilities of the store it is possible to offer vouchers to a value of our choosing. We may use such a voucher system to reward project contributors (e.g. new committers), or distribute at events in place of bulk ordering and shipping items (e.g. free t-shirt voucher).
The implementation to date is:
- use the existing projects' artwork for Adoptium/Temurin/AQAvit/etc.
- create a Shopify front end to handle product display and user interaction.
- utilise a back-end drop-shipment fulfilment company to design, produce, collect payment, and ship the goods.
- the current implementation uses Printful as the fulfilment company, and we may choose more if required to get a broader range product offerings if desired.
The proposed store is implemented and stood up behind password protection for evaluation and trial. See https://e57573.myshopify.com/ We have made a test purchase and confirm that the goods are of the expected high quality.
Shopify is on a basic subscription (GBP £25 per month). Printful's costs are covered by their product pricing.
Next steps are to create a DNS entry for store.adoptium.net and make the store live.