Re: [Tails-dev] selling merch as Tails while outsourcing the…

> - Way back in the days, some core developers were reluctant to Tails
>    selling merch because of the social and environmental aspects. I think
>    that we moved a bit past these concerns (though I didn't check). For
>    example, we've been promising and shipping T-shirts to big donors and
>    sponsors:

>    https://tails.boum.org/sponsors/become/

> - Some years ago, we discussed joining forces with Riseup to have
>    procurement services (sorry for the jargon!) in both the US and Europe
>    operated by grassroots collectives. This didn't go anywhere.

> - Last year I think, Tor started outsourcing their merch handling to a
>    procurement service. I don't know which one or how they choose it.
>    We should ask them.

>    https://lists.autistici.org/message/20201025.192502.b9550ab7.en.html

> - We're currently spending time and money on shipping T-shirts to
>    sponsors and we haven't been very good at it: some sponsors have been
>    waiting for their T-shirts for 1 year because of the logistics problem
>    induced by someone leaving the collective combined with Covid.
>    We might have been able to avoid these problems if we had a
>    procurement service doing this for us.

>    For example, an MVP could be to have a procurement service to improve
>    our relationship with sponsors. And then expand on this.

> - The money that we could make through merch is "unrestricted funds"
>    (jargon again): a steady stream of income that we could use for
>    whatever we need and brings more financial sustainability.

> - Outreach. I think that Tails is pretty bad at outreach and I would
>    value positively every step in this direction.

> - As little work as possible for Tails workers. That's the core idea of
>    such procurement services.

> - Worldwide shipping. Only with our few sponsors, we've had to ship
>    T-shirts to the US, Russia, Australia, Sri Lanka, and Germany!

> - Social and environmental values, as syster rightfully stated. For
>    example, the T-shirts that we have right now were made in Turkey, with
>    a pretty good quality (quality is also environmental sustainability),
>    organic materials, and fair labor.

> - Political affinity. I would rather work with people that the project
>    could align with politically than with whatever organic business.

> - Web ordering tools. To move from sending T-shirts to a few sponsors
>    to automating orders from a website. Could we forward people from our
>    website to the online store of the procurement service without having
>    to do complex integration on our website.

>    Our own payment facilities are also weird and limited because we rely
>    on fiscal sponsors without a direct access to our bank accounts. Could
>    the procurement service handle all the money and only forward the
>    benefits to our fiscal sponsors? Otherwise, how would we interface our
>    donation mechanism with the procurement service? For example, how do
>    we go from a bitcoin donation to our own address to a actual shipping?

> - Cost. If we're selling merch to the general public, we should make
>    sure to still make enough money for the project to be worth it. When
>    dealing with T-shirts, for example, it might not be obvious or end up
>    in pretty expensive T-shirts. I think that the project is fine with
>    that: in the past we would only "give away" T-shirts to people who
>    "donated" 50€ or more during events like the CCC (Chaos Computer
>    Congress).

> - Items production and diversity. Does the procurement service also
>    handle designing and producing the merch or do we have to do this
>    ourselves? What kind of items can they produce themselves, eg. USB
>    sticks or condoms (Tails is the condom of the cyberspace!).