Sock it to me

October 23, 2007 12:04 AM

Let's say I was selling really cool handmade and individually numbered socks. They would be organic and would have 3% of their sales donated to a charity. Now, let's say I set a cap at 400 pairs a month. Would you be intrigued to purchase them?

For example:

It's December 15th and 400 pairs of socks have already been sold, you would have to wait to January 1st to be able to purchase a pair of the socks.

Would this annoy you? Intrigue you?

Oh, the delay wouldn't be fully intentional but more of a clearance time to allow more socks to be produced. I would really appreciate your thoughts on this.

posted by 913 to clothing, beauty, & fashion (26 comments total)

If they were made of cotton, I'd be quite interested in handmade socks- I think if the 400 pairs/month was expressed more as a production limit, I wouldn't be annoyed. If it was more arbitrary I would probably be annoyed, possibly set up a reminder on my laptop anyway, and quite probably forget what the reminder was for.

What venue? Etsy, ebay?
posted by arnicae at 12:14 AM on October 23, 2007

Is mid-December an essential part of your hypothetical or is it an arbitrary date? I ask because If I were to somehow find myself seeking to purchase a pair of handmade socks in mid-December, it's probably because I intend them to be a Christmas gift. If you told me I had to wait until January 1st, I'd likely go elsewhere.
posted by RichardP at 12:14 AM on October 23, 2007

I like cool socks so if they were reasonably priced I might buy them, and the delay wouldn't bother me all that much (I don't usually need particular socks for a particular event).
The 3% to charity probably wouldn't make a huge difference to me, as they'd have to be more than $30 a pair before even a dollar would go to charity. And of course it would matter what charity.

But, yes, I might very well buy them, liking cool socks as I do.
posted by smoakes at 12:14 AM on October 23, 2007

Well, I don't know about socks, but I do buy a fair bit of sock knitting wool. And often times you have to wait for small suppliers to spin/dye their next lot of yarn. Which is annoying, but if I know it's good quality, I'm definitely willing to wait for it. And for yarns that develop a bit of a cult following, yeah, making them "limited edition" just makes them seem that much more special.
posted by web-goddess at 12:18 AM on October 23, 2007

I would see handmade socks to be something of a novelty item. I don't mean that disparagingly, I just mean that I would see them as something sorta' cool to have but not imperative to my life.

This means that if I saw a pair of handmade socks for sale, I would maybe say "Hey, cool!" and buy them. But if I saw that some handmade socks had been for sale, ran out, and won't be restocked for a while, then I would just shrug, pass on by, and not come back.

Quite often, convenience is a very important ingredient in a sale.
posted by Ms. Saint at 12:20 AM on October 23, 2007

By "handmade", do you mean "handknit"? Because if they're handknit socks, unless you're employing orphans to do the knitting at 2 cents a day, I can't see how you'd possibly be able to price them at a not-insane level and still make a profit.

But if you could tap in the knitting market, you'd be set! Knitters are crazy and will wait insanely long for things we like. (Unfortunately, we'd probably knit our own socks.)
posted by thehmsbeagle at 12:30 AM on October 23, 2007

thehmsbeagle wrote: if they're handknit socks, unless you're employing orphans to do the knitting at 2 cents a day, I can't see how you'd possibly be able to price them at a not-insane level and still make a profit.

Ha, I was just thinking the very same thing. I don't think I'll be able to knit 400 pairs of socks in my LIFETIME, and I like knitting socks.

I'd be willing to buy organic hand-knit socks especially if a portion of the profits were going to charity. And I'm a knitter, so as HMSB says, we are crazy and willing to wait insanely long for things we like.

(But, as she also says, I'd probably be even more keen to buy the yarn and knit the socks myself.)
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:51 AM on October 23, 2007

No, I wouldn't want to buy the socks.
posted by grouse at 1:01 AM on October 23, 2007

Reduce the price by 3% and let me decide what to do with my money. Maybe I hate your charity, maybe I don't trust you to donate. Regardless, the "X% of your purchase goes to Save the Ys" gimmick is not something that makes me more inclined to buy a product.

It's December 15th ... you would have to wait to January 1st to be able to purchase a pair of the socks.

Would this annoy you? Intrigue you?

I don't understand how anyone could not find this annoying. Most likely, I'm going to go "arg" and forget to buy the product. If I can pre-order, I will probably do that.
posted by hjo3 at 2:06 AM on October 23, 2007

I really wouldn't be interested in a product or marketing scheme such as that for *many* reasons. As someone mentioned, I also consider it "fad-ish" and wouldn't feel the urge to buy something like that.

Secondly, I would much rather make a donation directly to the charities of my own choice; I don't make purchases based on piggyback "charity marketing".

The "you have to wait to buy it" scheme would seal the deal -- as I would simply not bother coming back to the site if it does not have a reliable production line.

As hjo3 mentioned, I would simply find this whole marketing scheme useless and annoying.
posted by Jade Dragon at 2:44 AM on October 23, 2007

No I wouldn't. Socks are a commodity item to me, and I don't give a damn about most charities as I believe most are poor solutions to the problems they address. Also, you must be pretty confident to think you can move 400 pairs a month right off the bat, let alone sell out by halfway through the month.

That said, good luck -- it's always a pleasure to see a successful entrepreneur.
posted by MaxK at 3:38 AM on October 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

It would depend entirely on the merits of the socks in question. Donating to charity just gets marked down mentally as x amount "spent on socks". Having to wait would annoy me and require a significant coolness factor increase in the socks. Organic gets ignored. Actually the thing that interests me the most is this numbered concept. "Have you seen sock three? I can't find it anywhere..."
posted by anaelith at 3:48 AM on October 23, 2007

I hate it. You are capping production at an (arbitrary?) low number and then putting that number on the socks to make the product cool among conspicuous consumers. ("Ooo, thanks, honey! Limited-edition socks!") If your socks are so great, forget the numbering and instead make a few more socks. Also, you are giving 3 percent of the money to some charity (which one?), but maybe people could donate much more money by buying reasonably priced, unnumbered socks and giving their savings (probably a lot more than 3 percent) to a charity of their choice, so you're giving consumerists a false sense of goodness just so you can sell socks and make a buck. People may even donate less to charity after buying your socks because your advertising gives them a sense of satisfaction ("There, I've donated.") and they have less money to drop into the Salvation Army bucket.

Unless you can show me that your annoyingly hard to find handmade socks are actually worth blowing the extra money on (somehow that much better than machine-made socks), give me abundant, comfortable, machine-manufactured socks at a much lower price and maybe I'll do good with the money I do not put into your pocket.
posted by pracowity at 3:56 AM on October 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

The "limited, numbered" aspect would be completely irrelevant to me. If I liked the socks, then I wouldn't be annoyed that they were temporarily unavailable. I would also not be intrigued - I'd just shrug, chalk it up to the limitations of a small business, and try to remember to come back another day. That said, I would also almost certainly not remember to ever come back and see if the next batch had been completed, so I'd want you to have some way of notifying me when the new batch is ready - an RSS feed or an email list or something.
posted by Stacey at 4:13 AM on October 23, 2007

Oh yeah, I should have noted - the charity aspect is also irrelevant to me. Unless it's one of a handful of charities I do not want to support, in which case I would pass up the socks no matter how cute or readily available they were.
posted by Stacey at 4:17 AM on October 23, 2007

I might find it interesting if there was something truly special about them - green socks with yellow dots and multicoloured tassles or whatnot.
It would be the kind of thing I might buy for a friend because it reminded me of them - and then I could wait (or pre-order, or bookmark). And then the extra price (assuming these would be expensive, which consensus seems to be so far) might be worth it for the novelty effect.

Ditto on charity not being a determining factor in that case (unless, perhaps, it's a charity I know "friend" supports, then it might be an extra gesture).
posted by ClarissaWAM at 4:39 AM on October 23, 2007

I work for a company that makes socks using organic cotton and they are not cheap - limiting your production to 400 would make these astronomically expensive (unless you were using sweatshops in Asia or your basement). We also have products that have a portion of the profits go to charity and they don't sell any better or worse than the similar, non-charity items.
posted by blackkar at 4:58 AM on October 23, 2007

Check out Mahar Drygoods for a company that sells handmade items... I know from trying to buy the baby pants that they are limited in number naturally by the speed of the hand-knitting maker of them. I wanted to buy these baby pants and was put on a list and emailed when they were next available. I couldn't go to the site till the end of that day and when I did, they were sold out again.
posted by xo at 5:26 AM on October 23, 2007

1) The charity angle would make me much less likely to buy the socks. It's improbable that you would choose one of the few charities I wish to support, and, even then, I would be annoyed at the imposition and losing the tax deduction.

2) I can't recall the last time I ordered something that was backordered or otherwise expected to be delayed.

3) That being said, the way to win my business is by offering bespoke socks. My feet are different odd sizes, and regular socks never fit well, so I would happily pay and wait for custom-made socks.
posted by backupjesus at 5:40 AM on October 23, 2007

There's very little that intrigues me about the proposition, but hand-numbered, limited edition in theory could work (just look at Made By Niki and her numbered lingerie). I wouldn't recommend donating 3% of the price to charity, but maybe x% of your profits to charity - that's the difference between compelling someone else to donate and donating yourself.

Most of this is about brand - if you can create something unique enough and lovely enough that it's a luxury item, then the limited numbering and production cap start to make sense. But you probably can't brand it as hippy-granola-socks or whatever, I would check out someone like Eco Boudoir to get an idea of how to luxury brand an "organic" product.

(Sorry, my area is lingerie so that's all I know to point you to, but i think the general concepts still hold)
posted by ukdanae at 5:44 AM on October 23, 2007

I'd be intrigued, but the charity aspect doesn't affect me one way or the other. I like the limited edition, cool, handmade aspect.
posted by KAS at 6:59 AM on October 23, 2007

I think you have two very good ideas wrapped around your socks. Keep in mind, for all of the people here who say they're turned off by the idea of either donating some of the proceeds to charity or the limited quantities, that you only need to find X people that like both ideas.

Your goal isn't to appeal to everyone, and the scarcity and charity aspect both would definitely appeal to a certain type of person.
posted by drezdn at 7:21 AM on October 23, 2007

I buy clips from DevilandMouse, who also sells on Etsy. It takes me like a month to get my clips, but I don't care I want the clips. Granted, they are customized, but if I wanted the socks, since its a luxury item, what's the rush?

I agree that 3% of the price sounds a bit wank, and that 10% of the profits is more persuasive. Then you can define profits as narrowly as you need. People that are into organic cotton specifically will probably be inspired by a donation to a relevant charity.

You could also send socks to Inuit children in Alaska instead of donating money to a charity. For every ten pairs of socks random hippies purchased, one pair would go to an Eskimo. Just an idea.
posted by letahl at 7:26 AM on October 23, 2007

I don't buy that "giving a % of the cost to charity is to deprive people of their right to choose what to do with their money". It's simply not so. If Coca-Cola gave a % of their profit to a well chosen charity it would simply make a difference for the better. They wouldn't reduce anyones freedom.

And those who claim that charity is unconstructive is making a great generalisation, often to justify not giving anything. There is constructive forms of charity and you only have to some research to find them.

Giving to charity and making numbered limited edititions is a way to give some identity and symbolic value to the socks, but they'll probably need more. A strong, purely estethical identity and/or a name designers support would probably give them some essence.
posted by okokok at 11:16 AM on October 23, 2007

Since socks aren't a collector's item, I wouldn't care, nor pay extra, just because they were numbered.

It would seriously annoy me not being able to order at my leisure, or to feel rushed to buy so that I wouldn't have to wait till the next month. Also, if someone sees your socks and is ready to buy, but finds out they have to wait till next month, you may lose a lot of impulse buyers who will either change their minds or just forget to come back later.

Sorry to be cynical, but charity wouldn't make a difference to me either, since it's such a small amount and I don't get to choose which charity. I can give a more substantial amount of my own money to the charity of my choice.
posted by IndigoRain at 4:52 PM on October 23, 2007

Thanks for the answers everyone! Just to clear some stuff up:

1) December 15th was an arbitrary date (would have made more sense if I had said March 15th, for instance.

2) I'm not going to be selling socks but I was interested in how people would respond to a monthly limit.

Thanks again, your replies were awesome and definitely answered my question.
posted by 913 at 7:06 PM on October 23, 2007