Not a member? Sign up now
Man makes $120k in two days selling bin Laden t-shirts
By Jeff MillsMay 6th, 2011, 3:15 pmComments (24)
Twenty-three-year-old New Yorker Maurice Harary had dollar signs in his eyes last Sunday, after hearing the news of Osama bin Laden's demise. The opportunistic entrepreneur immediately created a website, Osamadeadtees.com, which he had up and running by 3:30 A.M. Monday. By Tuesday night, the dude had already sold over 10,000 tees at twelve bucks a pop.
It may be cynical cashing in, but it's also smart. Some of the celebrating may be overzealous, but no one's going to get jumped for wearing a t-shirt that trumpets the death of a national enemy. And people made money off the death of Mother Teresa as well. The almighty dollar has no truck with ideology. So one can proudly express their wish that bin Laden "rest in piss." Or if that's too crude, you can just rock a basic "Obama killed Osama" tee, and rile up your Republican friends.
A more established website, Zazzle, which allows customers to customize their own items, like t-shirts, mugs, and buttons, has reported handling thousands of bin-Laden-related orders this week as well, including one that was placed almost an hour prior to President Obama's official announcement. (Jesse Ventura shops on Zazzle?) Zazzle Marketing Director Mike Karns said, "It's been boiling up for ten years and this is the moment where people can finally express this sentiment."
Tags
Osama bin Laden
Commentarium (24 Comments)
well, someone had to do it. and you know, we can bluster about it as much as we want, but it was inevitable and at least it happened and we can move on with our lives.
Well there's some perfect symmetry in this guy's success. I assume Osama will be agitating in his watery grave knowing that his last performance has been subverted into the service of American free enterprise. Maybe our friend Maurice's second act will be to send a couple of container assignments of highly flammable American flags to Karachi to satisfy demand from the newly minted martyr's supporters? Now that would be cynical.
how american.
Thank you and you're welcome.
*Mother Teresa
SuperLike! And thanks
It's too bad selling 10,000 shirts at $12 a pop doesn't mean a profit of $120,000... most companies that sell their tees at $10-15 make less than $4 a tee, especially if they do good prints on decent tees.
Even at $4 a tee, that's still $40,000, not a bad haul either way!
Heck, even if it was only $0.50 a tee that is still a nice chunk of change to bring in in a 24-hour span!
It said he made $120,000. Not $120,000 profit.
"Man GROSSES $120k in two days selling bin Laden t-shirts"
There fixed.
Sadly Lawrence you dont know what youre talking about. I've worked in the garment industry for 15 years and none of what you said stacks up.
A cheap T can be bought for as little as a dollar, white T's especially. you can get even cheaper T's if you simply want event T which go for less than a dollar.
So lets say he buys a T for a dollar. the print will cost a minuscule amount, and lets say for simplicitys sake that cost a dollar too (it doesn't even cost a tenth or a fifth of that) and theres two colors there so double that. then lets say that it costs a dollar to set up the screens (again, spread over a run of 120,000 prints it would cost a microscopic amount) but i think you should really re-expose the screens as they may get worn over that amount of prints, so double that too. so...
White T shirt - $1.00
Black ink pass - $1.00
Red ink pass - $1.00
Expose two screens - $1.00
Expose another two screens - $1.00
thats a basic example of what it would cost him personally to print them with his own set up. but in reality you could print a shirt for not much more than its basic cost. so i think he was making in the region of ten dollars clear profit.
if he was getting a company to produce them for him i think they would charge the following...
a run of 100 T shirts - $6.50 per garment
a run of 1000 T shirts - $4.75 per garment
a run of 10,000 t shirts - £2.20 per garment
10,000 single pass black and single pass red printed on white garments would take a team of three people in the region of 5 days to print them at a normal rate.
I'll let you work out the profit margins but it most certainly is not $4.00 profit per garment. its more likely double of that.
And yet it still isn't $120,000.
Obvious troll is obvious.
where do you get tee's for a dollar and have it setup for a dollar more? i'd love to learn.. :)
too bad, but there is no proof obl is dead, other than the potus said so...
and we can always trust the government, right?
since there was a "burial at sea" there is no way to prove obl is dead...
Al Quaeda has admitted his death. Proof enough?
everybody says he is dead, but there is no corpse... he may be living a golden retire.
Duh, Al Qaeda agrees he's dead. Know how much pressure the US isn't putting on their operations if everybody thinks "we got him"? They may have him in the very next room but it is Good For Business if Al Qaeda says "Oh yeah, he's dead, so now there's nothing to worry about and you'll be leaving us alone now??"
Well God Bless America. Capitalism at it's finest.
dumb
Gran idea. Un éxito.
Excelente noticia!! Thx x la informacion facilitada, y seguir asi ya que es una pagina estupenda y gracias a ella estamos al dia.
pd: Visita y conoce las mejores Ofertas ADSL Vodafone,salu2.
Not true, lol.
1) No one would buy 25,000 (yes it said 25,000 on forbes) of those shirts.
2) Other sites that posted this story on the same day claim he made 300k.
3) No college student would give back 300k.
This guy is trying to gain attention through this stunt, and he made a big mistake associating his name with Osama shirts. Just a stupid thing to do.