Gorilla Deck Bicycle Playing Cards

[AlbinoDragon]

We're on the fence about doing this Kickstarter or not.

The plan is to do a one time printing of 1,000 decks to get the design out into the world since it was one we really liked but it never reached funding.

Is this something anyone would be interested in? If so, how many decks and what country?

See the Kickstarter preview link here.

[Fess]

I remember the campaigns for this deck. I wouldn't mind backing the "Silver Back" edition of the deck myself. Something would have to be extremely tempting for me to go more than two or three decks since I am not too into apes myself, gifts you see.

Roll the dice I say, maybe there is suddenly a ton of ape loving peoples running around that were absent before. Whats the worst that could happen?

[Don Boyer]

I remember this deck.  It had a cool, whimsical design, better than a lot of other "gorilla" concepts I've seen come and go.  It's a fun deck, great for neighborhood poker!

If the budget is right, go for it.

[Fess]

Whoa, just saw the price on these. I think that's very expensive for a cross your fingers and pray it comes out right USPCC printed deck. Two is my absolute highest I would back here.

[Don Boyer]

Considering the differences in the design between your back and the Rider Back, you could conceivably forgo printing with USPC and use a less-expensive company that's known to make better-aligned decks, both with faces to backs and backs to borders.

[Rob Wright]

I really liked this when it was originally tried. The pricing is at the top of the money chain for me. I might do 1 at that price. Have you thought of dropping the Bicycle logo, and maybe making a Gorilla logo that is similar to the Bicycle?

[jsantafe]

Nice art, for sure, but again not sending outside the US. I see you are asking for interest outside the US, but it's difficult to get a clear sample of that population either here or in UC. True there's people from Australia, UK and Asia, but the vast majority are from the US.
So it's a shame when a project says "shipping only to the US", but you probably knew that before. I can see the logic in previous projects with copyrights difficulties, but in this one, I fail to understand the reason, other than convenience, which I can't argue against besides saying that you are missing a part of this community.

[Don Boyer]

Nice art, for sure, but again not sending outside the US. I see you are asking for interest outside the US, but it's difficult to get a clear sample of that population either here or in UC. True there's people from Australia, UK and Asia, but the vast majority are from the US.
So it's a shame when a project says "shipping only to the US", but you probably knew that before. I can see the logic in previous projects with copyrights difficulties, but in this one, I fail to understand the reason, other than convenience, which I can't argue against besides saying that you are missing a part of this community.

I'm inclined to agree with this statement.  The licensed properties are one thing - your license extends only to certain countries and that's it; you can't legally sell them elsewhere.  But this is an original property that you own.  There should be no impediments to selling outside the US.  A large and growing share of the custom card market is in Asia these days, has been for a handful of years, but with all the licensed decks you've been making over at AD, you haven't been able to sell to them.  All the card designers I've spoken to with international sales all say the same thing - a LOT of their decks are sold to Asian buyers.

[ecNate]

Nice art, for sure, but again not sending outside the US. I see you are asking for interest outside the US, but it's difficult to get a clear sample of that population either here or in UC. True there's people from Australia, UK and Asia, but the vast majority are from the US.
So it's a shame when a project says "shipping only to the US", but you probably knew that before. I can see the logic in previous projects with copyrights difficulties, but in this one, I fail to understand the reason, other than convenience, which I can't argue against besides saying that you are missing a part of this community.

Wow a mature response for once regarding this issue, respect.  This is well worded and I think offers some caution on ignoring international.  I think you are correct in the assumption they are doing this out of convenience and also avoiding the rage of those who will complain about international shipping costs if they do include it.  As you may know, they have been very up front with some of their early projects and costs.  http://albinodragon.com/blog/dragon-crate-kickstarter-analysis/

An interesting metric here is that even though international shipping only accounts for 25% of the backers, it was about 50% of the total shipping costs.

Keep this in mind when offering shipping worldwide.

Also don't forget how much more time intensive shipping international packages can be. You'll ultimately have a lot of data processing to do trying to correct international addresses as well as filling out accurate customs forms.

Based on this, I would have to believe they found it either too much of a pain or they would have to charge so much for international shipping to account for cost and time, not to mention the previous problems with fraud due to lack of ability to fully track in some countries.  Either that or they would have to partially account for this in the cost of the deck itself and raise the cost for everybody.  However, at the current price of $15/deck it seems they should be able to handle it.  That said, not sure who will buy many if at all at that price. 

My impression and assumption is that international buyers have increased lately and they may end up with more than 25% which Don also seems to agree with, especially in AP.  It should be possible to also lower the price of the deck overall to increase the appeal, but then also charge appropriately for international shipping without the cost being too high for you all. jsantafe has a good point here.  From my perspective the price HAS to come done to a reasonable one considering what this deck is (not licensed and not embellished with embossing, foil, inner printing, etc), but you should also consider including international to make it a success, even if that means charging a little more for shipping to those that want it and dealing with the 'not fair' crowd.

[Don Boyer]

An interesting thought - Legends PCC and Expert PCC now offer fulfillment services not just in the US but internationally as well.  Using a less-expensive printer and having them do at least the international fulfillment for you might be a viable alternative, allowing you to make the deck for less money and include the international portion of the marketplace.  You leverage their expertise at dealing with Customs forms and the like and let them do the heavy lifting getting decks to international buyers, while handling the domestic deliveries in-house - or not, if they offer you a less-expensive alternative, giving all deliveries over to them.  There's costs involved, to be sure, but the lower printing costs might offset them.

If you prefer the "made in USA" label, Gamblers Warehouse is also the Liberty Playing Card Company and has the capacity to print their own decks.  They're based in the Austin, Texas metropolitan area.  GW handles domestic fulfillment for EPCC as well as doing their own fulfillment for their sales site, playingcards.net.

[AlbinoDragon]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

We probably won't be making the deck since it seems like there simply isn't enough interest to get the numbers we need to even break even (let alone actually make any money on the project).

Here is a more in-depth look at why: http://albinodragon.com/blog/gorilla-deck-adventures-in-decision-making/

And Don, Gambler's is located in Arlington, not Austin.

[ecNate]

This is FINALLY live!  With any luck it will fund and we can actually get our hands on it!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1460165270/gorilla-deck-bicycle-playing-cards

[PrincessTrouble]

Funded!