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7/13/2006

THE PEACE STORE

What if capitalists adopted a greater end goal than profit for profit's sake? What if instead we capitalists made profit for the purpose of profiting others? That's the idea behind The Peace Store, a new venture of mine built into shaungroves.com version 2.0 being crafted as you read this.

Here's the concept:

  • You, the buyer, get to purchase things that don't have my name on them. Just cool stuff. In the beginning we'll only stock t-shirts but hopefully move into other wares as well. And these wares will be worth buying - shirts that look and feel great. No cheesy slogans. No Hanes Beefy-T's.

  • T-shirt manufacturers and printers donate the goods to the store or sell them to the peace store at wholesale. This keeps the cost of doing business low and profits as high as possible. (E-mail me if you'd like to donate your services.)

  • 100% of the profits from the peace store go directly to faith-based organizations making peace. Peace is not the absence of war and fear but the presence of completeness, of wholeness.

    So, for example, let's say you buy a shirt for $15 that benefits Compassion International's work in Uganda. A company sells me the shirt for $3.50, the wholesale price. You get to wear a swanky shirt from The Peace Store that impresses your friends and Compassion International gets a donation of $11.50 with which it feeds kids, clothes them, gives them medicine, teaches them about Jesus and, well, makes peace. That's what we call a win win.

    BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

    If you sign up for the "affiliate program" you can earn money for sending other folks to The Peace Store to shop! So, Mr, Youth Minister, you need to raise some cash for your kids to go on that mission trip this Summer? Well, fear not. Become an affiliate of The Peace Store. E-mail your entire church a special link we provide you to The Peace Store. And BAM! You're earning 15% from every purchase made through that link FOREVER! Sweet deal.

    By the way, the store will have it's own url so people following your link won't have to go through shaungroves.com's homepage first. They might not even know they're deep inside my site at all. So even the weirdo who hates my music - is there such a person alive? - can shop undisgusted and unaware in The Peace Store.

    Just something to look forward to from the new and much improved shaungroves.com site.

    As always, any ideas or contributions you have to make to what we're doing now and in the future are welcomed.
  • 9 Comments:

    Blogger Shaun Groves said...

    Now I know what some of you are thinking: What does SHAUN get out of this?

    Good question. I do get something out of this and I want to be upfront about that. What I get is traffic. People some to The Peace Store to shop and they'll see a list of tiny links (we think, we're still building you know?) to folks who've been part of this project: folks who donated shirts and printing services, design companies donating their art and time, etc. And a link to my homepage. There will also be a link from The Peace Store to my "line" of products - stuff like my shirts and CDs. And there will be a link from my store to the Peace Store "line" as well. AND affiliates are affiliates of both stores and buyers can shop in both stores and keep what they purchase in one "cart".

    So there's integration to some degree between my store and The Peace Store. This will benefit both I think.

    The hope though is that a person following a link to The Peace Store wouldn't even know I was affiliated with it unless they clicked a link inside The Peace Store to visit my site/store.

    Confused yet? Not so good at communicating this stuff yet.

    Any other ideas?

    7/13/2006  
    Blogger Jeffrey J. Stables said...

    Will the costs for these items be inevitably high? It seems that there's always a premium price for the consumer when profits become donations. And, yes, it's worth the extra few dollars to give to the charities—but sometimes those extra few dollars mean a poor college student like myself is locked out of the deal entirely. How do you plan to keep the costs low (to you and to us, as you alluded to) and still benefit all involved?

    7/13/2006  
    Blogger Shaun Groves said...

    Good question. Ideally the shirts would be donated or pretty darn close to it. The deal I've gotten so far is from a company out of Houston - $3.50/shirt. That's pretty good but I wonder if someone can do us one better. ANy takers?

    And ideally I'd like to sell the shirts to you "poor" college students for no more than $15. I think any higher and you're just ripping people off. What do you think? Is that a fair price?

    SG

    7/13/2006  
    Blogger Brandy said...

    Wow, what an incredible concent (and I'm not biased just because I'm an employee at said Compassion International). I can't wait to hear more, and to buy my first t-shirt (and lots of shirts for friends...Christmas shopping here I come!)

    7/13/2006  
    Blogger cruz-control said...

    This sounds great Shaun, I'd do 15 bucks a pop to help the work for peace.

    Also, if you could have graphics that link to the Peace Store, much like you have to shlog.com that we could place in our sidebars and such, I'd be glad to advertise for you.

    -cruz-control

    7/13/2006  
    Blogger Beth said...

    Can't wait to buy! Sounds like a great idea and I will also pass the info about affiliation onto my church staff.

    Beth

    7/13/2006  
    Blogger Rachel said...

    Great concept...it makes me so excited to see things like this actually come into fruition. I'll have to check that out. :) I'll let you know if any ideas come to mind, too.

    Also...I e-mailed you (at your shaunikon address). Just thought to let ya know.

    Rachel

    7/13/2006  
    Blogger kathryn said...

    entrepreneurial and altruistic! Great stuff!

    7/13/2006  
    Anonymous Anonymous said...

    I especially like the idea Brandy has about Christmas shopping. What a great way to promote it!

    7/14/2006  

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