Mouse pad would be cool (and the aforementioned coffee cup). Can never have enough coffee mugs.

Looks like a coffee cup would be pretty popular. I'm not sure what the going rate is, I think it depends a lot on who makes it. A friend of mine made promotional mugs for his company and they cost him $5 apiece with two color screening, but he bought hundreds of them.

Jafo - designer luggage and signature perfume? would that really go with a baseball cap?

DavidK - I wouldn't go there if I were you, might be too much information.

Dave....it would make a statement.....just not sure what....hehe...

hehe, I don't recognize my hubby W/O a bbc on!

OK, all these things are physical things that need to be shipped and passed through customs for us international guys. What about trying to think of things that can be downloaded? A Wincustomize screensaver? If somebody knows a musician who'd be willing to share profit a Wincusto theme song could be cool. You know, digital ideas would be better IMO.

I know, that idea doesn't help the bandwidth issue, but they could be hosted at sites such as download.com and MP3.com.

Here's another idea. What about having a contest each month for the best skin suite. Anybody could enter the contest, everybody gets to vote (like the skinz T-SHirt contest), and the winner gets to have his suite up for sale on this site.
The suite doesn't need to be 10 applications, it could just be 4 apps, such as DesktopX (or Litestep), Windowblinds, Winamp (Or Coolplayer or WMP) and a 4th optional application like IconPackager ICQ Plus or KewlpAd.
Profits would be shared between Stardock and the skinner. Of course prices need to be reasonable, how about 5$ for a suite?
How about that?
That way there could be a new 5$ suite every month.

paxx...bad idea....Treetog would win every darn time....[at least until I cast those concrete gumboots for him and take him 'swimming']...

$5.00 items don't work out very well. The problem is: card processing. every order has 2.5% taken off as a fee, then $.30 per transaction. So, out of $5 you actually see $4.57 (that is with Stardock picking up the gateway fees and any chargeback issues). So, even if only 25% went to the skinner, WinCustomize would only see $3.43. Considering that this route would add bandwidth usage, I'm not sure how much it would help.

David, if your friend paid $5.00 per mug, he got ripped off. I have been looking into low runs of mugs (150) with 3 color imprint, and so far, it looks like it will be reasonable. Hats are also within range with a 2 to 3 color logo.

How much are you guys willing to pay for a mug or hat? Would you be more willing to buy several things at once (Like a mug, T-shirt and hat) if we keep the s/h a flat rate (Like $5 US/ $10 international) no matter how much you buy at one time?

All input is appreciated!

Even if Stardock gets 3.43$ per order, I believe mass could make it worthwhile. Every month a new suite would be introduced, but the older ones would still be available. So after one year, there are 12 suites to choose from. Given they are going to be excellent suites I am sure a lot of people will readily buy them. Sales would probably increase as more suite are available. Say 1000 people buy each suite every month, then there would be 1000 suites sold the first month, 2000 the second month, etc.
I don't think it's unreasonable to think that after a few months there would be more than 5000 suites sold every month. At 3.43$ a shot, that's more than 17 000$ of revenu for Stardock. I think it could help pay for the bandwith.
And the best thing is that there are practically no cost involved into putting it into place. So even if you only get half of that amount, well, you get 8 500$ a month and it didn't cost you anything.
You could still sell CDs, and T-Shirts, and such, but sell top quality skins as another additional revenue.
My suggestion.

The main problem is just the overhead in people time. Ever seen that Seinfeld episode where Jerry's getting a bunch of checks that are less than $1? Putting in that kind of royalty system or something for skinners could get painful.

I think it would make much more sense to have a Skinnerz CD which has suites that can be downloaded or sent as a CD for $19.95. So instead of having a bunch of $5 sales, you have a single $20 one.

Paxx the Quebec don't have enought compagny to offers job to everyones. A lot of compagny in Quebec don't have a lot of money.

You know why we have this problem in the province of Quebec? Because everyone wants FREE stuff. Nobody wants to pay for things like that.

So you really think we can sell 5000 suites every months? How can you tell this? Explain me, you are showing what you suggest but please, explain us all cost it may have and explain us how you can tell we can sell 5000 suites per month.

Hey! Who will make this great suites every months? Don't take this too personnal but I don't like the way you think about this.

I think I'd pay up to $8 for a coffee mug. Maybe more if neccessary. My friend's mugs were made in China and $5 was his landed cost, after duties and freight. Maybe he exaggerated to give them more value They were exceptional mugs though.

There's a lot of quality differences in promotional products. Sometimes it's worth it to buy a higher quality piece for a little more money (since these won't be given away).

I'm looking forward to whatever you guys decide to sell. I'm living on a day-to-day income of freelance work right now so I probably wouldn't buy any skin suites. Maybe I could rent one though

isn't renting skin illegal david?

I think it depends on what you do with it mig