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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

> I want to support the band, but feel like only a fraction of the money spent on merch goes to the target.

Maybe you don't have any friends that are in a band, but if it's the band members or friends of the band selling the merch, they are getting 100% of the profit. They design the shirts, they pay for the printing of the shirts, they then sell the shirts directly with their own hands. There's no middleman taking cuts. Now, if you're buying their merch from some 3rd party website, that site probably takes a cut. Some bands selling merch on their own website could still be coming directly from the band if one of them, or again a friend, sets up the site with their own accounts using square/stripe/etc and deals with the fulfillment themselves they are minimizing cuts as well.

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I guess they are technically not middle men because they sit one the start of the value chain, but the company making the t-shirts, the one selling it and the one printing on it are still making good profits. On top of the actual costs of making those printed t-shirts.

I imagine it's not hugely expensive at the volumes bands need, somewhere from $3-10 per t-shirt depending on quality, and maybe double that for hoodies? And if you are buying online shipping and handling, which is another $5-10 that I'm paying and isn't going to the artist. Not a huge deal. But if you don't care about the physical product and just want the band to have some money that's still a good bit of inefficiency

Slight correction: I just received an advertising blow-in from Ollie's listing Hanes and other brand women's tees for $1.99 each. That's for short sleeve, long sleeve or tank top in various colors. The indicated competition is stated to sell them for $2.49. Not that this is RETAIl pricing in the U.S.A.. I'm guessing wholesale will be even less.

the t-shirt itself benefits the band because it's free advertising, it keeps the band on the radarof your friends etc. even if you wanted to paypal them, they would probably prefer you to buy (and wear!) t-shirts

For your generous PayPal donation, please accept our gift of a free t-shirt as a way of saying thank you.

And to all a good tax-writeoff.

well, now you're getting needlessly pedantic in a way that just makes me wonder why would someone do that. seriously, nobody expects that a band is weaving fabric by hand to cut into patterns to sew into shirts. everyone here understands that you have to buy the shirts at your expense to sale at a mark up that earns profit. what a ridiculous thing to argue

Alternative framing that sounds less pedantic: Nobody was complaining about middlemen in the first place. The argument you responded to was "I don't need to support the white box oem mug manufacturer". Meanwhile you were talking about the opposite end of the value chain, which in no way refutes any of the complaints made.

More importantly you were also missing the point. The issue is how much of the $20 you pay end up in the hands of the band. Where in the value chain that money is spent doesn't matter. What matters is how much is spent on delivering the t-shirt to my doorstep and how much is in the band's bank account

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