Idea

I'd love this feature! Redbubble does it so well on the storefront for artists.

I've been talking about this for awhile, but I never thought of it as a "storefront." Merch by Amazon needs to create a "virtual store" that would be just like those stores at the beach that sell beach stuff but also they are just full of TShirts. Here's how this virtual store would work. The most popular TShirts (based on total sales of the TShirt) would be right as one virtually walked into the store. As one moved to the left, this area would continue to have the most popular TShirts, again based on total sales, except that as one virtually "walked" away from the front door down the left side of this virtual store, the TShirts displayed would be older and older designs (based on the date they were first submitted to Merch by Amazon). The far back of the store would display the least popular TShirts (based on total sales), but one would have the confidence that every single TShirt available from Merch by Amazon would be in this virtual store. I would have the TShirts display so that as one got closer to a particular TShirt it would be more clearly displayed, and if one "zoomed in" on a "virtual tag" on the neckline of the TShirt, then one would see data on this virtual tag. The data on this virtual tag would be the Merch by Amazon company name and the TShirt's name as given to the TShirt by its creator, and if one zoomed in even more on this virtual tag, it would show the creator's profile including a picture of the creator and whatever the creator wrote as his or her profile. I would populate the store with "virtual shoppers" and the density of these "shoppers" as seen by someone as they "walked around" in this gigantic store would be based on how many real actual Amazon shoppers were currently looking at a certain TShirt on the actual real general Amazon sales website in real time. Wouldn't that be fun to go into that store and just see what T's are available and what's selling a lot, and just where are your own TShirts designs anyway, and where are the crowds, and what are the shoppers congregating around. What fun!

Ok I thought about this some more and I started a story.....

AMAZONBURGH.COM

Well, we have a discussion on this Merch by Amazon forum about setting up “storefronts” for the Merch by Amazon TShirt creators. This is, of course, completely feasible with no real permission requirements providing the TShirt creator pays for, creates, maintains, and runs a website that is designed to appear as a storefront. I think what the Merch by Amazon creators were really implying was:

1)this idea of a set of “virtual storefronts” where each “storefront” for a Merch by Amazon creator would be dedicated to only the TShirt works of that Merch by Amazon creator, and…..

2) Most importantly, these “storefronts” would be a service provided by Amazon at no cost to the Merch by Amazon creator.

Of course I am in favor of this, but, wow….. that’s a lot of free virtual “storefronts” for Amazon to create, and who would have the final say on how the “storefront” would look, anyway? Who would say how or when edits would be made to the look or features or contents of these “storefronts”? It’s just hard to realistically analyze this concept and not conclude that there is no way Amazon could do this without endless arguments, headaches, disagreements and escalating costs. I don’t see it.

I added a thought that one idea would be for Amazon to just make only one virtual “TShirt Storefront” and Amazon would put only TShirts from the Merch by Amazon crowd in this “storefront” and Amazon would be meticulous to be sure every Merch by Amazon creator would be represented by his or her products in this storefront.

But I got to thinkin’ about it….and, Hey, Here’s a proposal…..

Let’s us all the Merch by Amazon crowd gather together in big virtual crowd, and I wish to conduct you on a tour of:

Amazonburgh.com

Some thoughts… why would Amazon only want a virtual presence for TShirts only? And is it really true that this virtual place of surroundings around a product for sale just be one giant virtual TShirt emporium? Why do just that?

OK, let’s let Amazon make a virtual mall, with all sorts of storefronts in this mall. Inside these stores, if one chose to go in, would be the products of Amazon.com. And trinkets would be scattered about the aisles and displays of these various stores, including Merch by Amazon TShirts. We’ll let this virtual mall, of course, have a TShirt store, and inside this store almost all the display space would be for TShirts. But since we got permission to put some TShirts (as trinkets) around in the other virtual stores of this virtual mall, then its only fair that Amazon would put some other Amazon products just scattered around (as trinkets) in the TShirt store. No problems with that.

I’m thinking that Amazon could create a virtual storefront, or perhaps expand it to a virtual mall, but why not a virtual city? Amazonburgh. And, of course, we’ve got to get around in this virtual city….Hmmmmmm

Ok, Amazon would supply to each visitor as they signed in to Amazonburgh.com a “speeder bike.” (editor’s note: images of this speeder bike to follow). All of this is virtual (it’s going to work like the Microsoft Flight Simulator) but it just adds writing complexity to keep sketching out with words how this is a virtual world with virtual computer synthesized experiences, so I’m gonna’ just write from here on like I was actually at the actual place called Amazonburgh. Let’s explore how all this would be…

What’s available at Amazonburgh? Everybody get on your speeder bike and keep me in sight and we’ll look around. There’s buildings with storefront names so one knows for each storefront what types of items are contained in that store, and the doors are wide enough to let in a speeder bike, (one at a time, of course). Inside are displayed the products of Amazon, each product sitting on a pedestal. There’s enough space around the pedestals so one can circle around them on their speeder bike to investigate the product. Can everyone crowd around that one pedestal with that hot new product on it all at once??? Well of course not. You need to wait your turn to ease your speeder bike through the crowd and get your chance to look at that thing. No Shoving…No Bumping…!

(editor’s note: I don’t know how much space I’m supposed to use to tell stories on Merch by Amazon’s forum, so I guess I’ll put more of this at a page on the pistonrobot.com website.

More to follow….. pg

I'm for this idea ... but I would recommend the merchants have some kind of minimum to display, say 24 designs, and only one store front per account. For starters, this would make it less cumbersome for Amazon, would screen out designers who have a different brand name for every design; and it would make it easier for us to design our own web pages that point to a single amazon venue.