How do we decide when it's time to rotate out old designs?
That's a great question that was asked to me on instagram. Because the answer is so long I'm doing it here.
There are multiple reasons why we might stop offering a design. But here are the most common reasons as to why we might remove it.
- It's simply not selling. If a shirt goes for awhile without having a sale then it's probably either already made its way into the hands of anyone who wants it, or it's a design that isn't the best (it happens). Or it's something that I like more than my audience likes. And that's okay.
- It's a copyright or trademark issue.
- There are a lot of similar designs in a lot of other shops similar to ours. And while no one is copying anyone directly (at least we hope), we all get inspiration from the same books, movies, and television series. This means there is bound to be some overlap, and that's okay. But we just typically bow out unless the design is selling super well then we aren't going to take it down.
- It was a topical issue which is no longer really an issue. We love focusing on fictional worlds, but we also have our feminism collection and occasionally we just like to make something that someone suggests (like the picture attached to this blog) or our Let's go Darwin items. However, those items are topical or have limited reach and so once that reach ends we remove them.
- We need to make room for new designs! As much as we would love to keep them all sometimes we have to decide what goes and what stays. And this list is how we do it!