durtbagz: things are looking better

so yesterday i actually saw the demos for the website and i cried i got so excited. they are wicked cool and i love them. here is how the site will work: you can pick your sign and pick your bag and be on your way. OR more importantly, if you think you can come up with a sign, you can submit your idea for a sign in an ongoing competition, where the winners' signs go on the next month's bags. the winners are chosen by votes given by customers and visitors to the site. even if you are not there to buy a bag, you can still submit signs, vote on others, look through a gallery of photos of people with their durtbagz and post a photo of yourself there too. you can post comments about bags and read a blog done by the head bag lady. it's really meant to be more like a small community than just a place to buy bags. some times we'll have tee shirts to sell, sometimes we'll have stickers. sometimes i'll send a bag to someone who's submitted a design, someone who's posted a photo, and someone who's voted just to keep people interested. sometimes we'll have themes for the sign competition to keep things different. at least this is how things will go in my head; how they actually turn out is another story as this whole idea has evolved into something completely different since it started two years ago.
at this point, i'm trying to work out how we're going to get the bags printed and that is pretty much my biggest worry/issue right now. at first i thought that we'd just keep enough in stock and when they sold out they sold out. but, that won't work; we have way too many sign, bag, and color options to keep that many bags in stock, especially since the signs will be changing monthly. way too much risk and cost up front to try and guess which colors for both bags will sell and then to try and figure out which signs will be popular...there's just no way. so i'm going to buy the bags from on vendor and get them printed by another one who is here in phoenix. finding the bags was one of the hardest and most annoying things ever. in my head, all i wanted was plain old canvas tote bags; no other materials used and all one color, but available in multiple colors. this has been the most difficult and most time consuming issue i've faced up to this point. finally, i have found the tote bags i want to use and i think i've found the messenger bags i want. however, like i said before, i thought i was going to get the bags and have them printed all in one stop. not so. so now, the issue of printing locally brings about more issues. i will be using the same signs for a month, then some, if not all, will be changing. i need to work it out where i can give the printers the images for the month and then give them weekly orders based on the orders i get. seems simple in theory, but there are set up fees for each image that i'll need to negotiate, otherwise, they could make this really expensive. also, i still have to pay per bag for each sign printed and those numbers will be all over the place in the beginning and could continue to be since there are so many options for the signs. we have to figure out a price for that too. let's say that we work out a deal that will work for both of us, now come more issues. i will have to work out a system for getting them the bags because i'm betting we cannot store them there. also, the issue of turn around time is pretty big. if i give them my order on a monday, those that ordered on tuesday the week before have already waited almost a week, then they'll have to wait for the bag to get printed and then shipped. i don't' want people waiting three freaking weeks for one messenger bag with one imprint on it. also, i've got to get bags from the printers as soon as they are done and ship them immediately...lots of coordinating that will need to be worked out. i feel sorry for folks that are my guinea pigs the first month. i'm thinking i automatically should send them a free shirt to make up for the time that i think it might take. and that is just the time issue. my cash flow is another issue; since i'm going to have to pay per bag too, something will need to be worked out so i'm not paying a different amount each week based on my orders. and we'll need to work something out for the set up fees for each image because those could get me too; each image has a fee of anywhere from $20-$50 every time they set up a new one. i would like to make some money, but i'd also like to like to keep the price of the bags low enough for poor college kids to buy one or two.
i feel better because now i've seen the start of the web design and i love it. it became real to me yesterday. it also became really scary too.