So…we’ve been kicking around this idea for a while, as one of our internal projects, as an outlet for our product design and branding skills. We all know online shopping in general is bigger than ever, but we are also aware of the insane competition in the industry, and we don’t wanna be just like everyone else…So the obvious question is, “How will our shop be different?”

Here’s some notes on the topic we scribbled over Gyro’s at Zorba’s.

• Branded Mini-Shops
• Containing collections of products
• Each under the umbrella of AIRSH(O)P
• New Sales Model : Kickstarter meets Online shop
• Pre-order functionality
• generate interest and critical mass before production.
• Scarcity, limited availability tactics
• Early-adopter pricing
• discounts for sharing
• 3 Product Types
• traditional products: selling/fulfilling stocked items
• Affiliate products: curated items related to the mini-shop’s brand, style (mailbox money!)
• Pre-order product: see above–also see Groupon, United Pixel Workers, threadless
• Using The Shopify Platform
• how do we work within Shopify’s constraints to build this model?
• can we spin off custom-designed Shopify themes? REVENUE!

So, we’ve already started production on a Shopify theme, and there’s no shortage of good product ideas.  Add that to our trial by fire (literally) experience creating the Central Texas Wildfire Relief T-Shirt campaign, and we feel this is a great concept and worthy experiment to try.  Got any advice? Product ideas? We’d love to hear from you.