One of my favourite, super-exciting projects under Decoding Draupadi has been creating Merch. I have a number of personal reasons why but this piece is not about that. This is about a tiny, little and very-obvious reminder that sat right in front of me all this while but only clicked yesterday.

I don’t know how bigger companies work but here is what we did at DD. 

1. Woke up some day and thought, “Let’s do merch!”
2. Designed some samples, mockups, etc.
3. Did some weeks of analysis-paralysis and revisions
4. Got the first final samples, realised some mess-ups, made changes
5. Things got slow (More on this later)
6. Met with our new (who is old and mostly trusted) vendor
7. Hopefully, we’ll have our pieces ready to ship by the next week

Now, I have some thoughts on each of these steps. But today, we do not digress. Today, we talk about the things I thought of after meeting Shyam Ji, our Merch vendor.

Shyam Ji sits in a tiny office over what I think they call a warehouse. It is stocked with all kinds of printing materials and samples – paper bags of different sizes, lanyards with various clasps, T-shirts, polos, stickers, wedding invites, brochures, and whatnot. The office is mayhem but his desk is invariably clean and organised. 

This time I sit at his desk to talk T-shirts and stickers. If you don’t know much about Merch, stickers are of two types:

This is a Vinyl sticker.

That’s what people put on their laptops and cars and almirahs. It peels with no residue and is more durable outdoors. It is also very smooth to touch – like smooooOoOooOooOooooOOoth.

This is a BOPP sticker.

You might see this on your skin-care labels, sauce/jam/juice jars, etc. This is around you all the time – in all shapes and in an annoying, non-oil-resistant form. People say a big plus is that you can write on it but I don’t see how that helps anyone. 

Now, I am checking for the samples and prices of both of these sticker types and I am surprised to find out Vinyls cost more, WAY MORE than BOPPs. 

I ask Shyam Ji, “But why would that be?”

“Nobody uses them. When fewer people use something, they’re expensive.”

Now this makes logical sense. It does. But I have thought of nothing but laptop stickers for a while and in my mind, the entire world probably runs on shiny, Vinyl, laptop stickers at this point. 

Takeaway one: When you work with the same thing for a long time, you kind of build one really strong default viewpoint. And if you’re not a lucky one, there’s no saving from this. 

That is one of my big fears: Becoming a uni-directional hoe. (I copy these words from a really funny Tweet that I can not retrieve, but Chandi can confirm it exists.)

Takeaway 2: The world probably runs on a much larger scale which might not be obvious, comprehensible or even imaginable to me today.

How did I never notice BOPPS were all around me and Vinyls just weren’t? What obvious patterns am I missing? What about my own life – let alone the entire world – am I not seeing?

And more importantly, how do I get more observant? More analytical?

Takeaway 3: Some really great products are quite expensive. Mostly because not a lot of people use them. And not a lot of people use them because they’re too expensive. It’s sort of chicken-and-egg till there’s some really efficient, low-cost breakthrough. But isn’t it sad how we might lose some really smart technology to this?

The one example I care, and think a lot about is Solar Energy – I find it so smart and helpful in theory, why has the entire world not made a switch then? Yes, geographical constraints and efficiency and more, but isn’t it still worth it? OR IS IT NOT?

I will do my research and get back to you on this tom.

Bye now.

AK!

Ps: Shoutout to Prak for teaching me to use specific words like lanyards instead of ID-Card-Strap thingies.