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Thinkgeek Alternative for EU Residents?
Sam Lowry asks: "I was looking for a kind of Thinkgeek alternative for
European consumers for whom the shipping price at Thinkgeek
is sometimes bigger than the price of the gadgets. As for now, I could not find any. Do they actually exist? European geeks should feel desperate not to be able to offer themselves a Debian mug or a /. T-shirt." Sometimes it's difficult to get the necessary clearences to ship certain things overseas (like products with caffeine additives, for one). Maybe some entrepreneurial person will take a look at this and correct the problem...
What we really need is a franchise , such that we can then buy exactly the same stuff (well, perhaps made under license in Europe) and pay local P&P...
"truth is like a bar of soap in the bath of life: very hard to find and even harder to hold onto." Terry Pratchett
aus also is in desperate need of a thinkgeek alternative.. as far as i know the only geeklike online shop here is everythin linux, not good enough for the 'general geeks' who want a "i read ur email" shirt, a "WTF?" mug or a cool lava lamp ;(.
anyone know of any?
stuff
Why can't they ship to APO, AE???
I'm with the US military here in Germany and if I want to order something I need to order it to a friend in the states and he has to ship it to me.
There is no cost differance between shipping to APO than to anyother location within the USA!
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
That you idiots have a problem with manipulative advertising in almost every form, but regard ThinkGeek as some sort of 'community' icon.
ThinkGeek is the Slashdot equivalent of 'South of the Border' on the North Carolina-South Carolina border or any gaudy tourist trap.
It's pretty damn sad that VA Linux is so desperate for ad dollars that it needs to plant troll advertising as a legitimate 'Ask Slashdot Question'.
This is almost as pathetic as the multiple front-page ads (...err stories) for the dude who sells Atari 2600 games.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Last time i was in downtown London i bought one of those gigabot's. A geek-tamagotchi, i got sick of it within the hour, it'll drive you completly mad. It does look kewl with a joint stuck in its mouth |o)
It doesn't have "i 0wn u" t-shirts, but it's better than nothin...
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It's pretty damned sad that you can't see the question for what it is (a request for help, and a valid Ask Slashdot) than as a "troll for VA ad dollars". Not a once do I even mention VA in the story (I even say entrepreneurial in the text! Since when does "entrepreneurial" imply "VA Linux"?)
I posted this question due to the fact that there have been several questions hitting the bin mentioning that ThinkGeek has problems sending certain products to certain countries. There's not a damned thing they can do about it, either. Simple things like caffeine-added products (Penguin Mints, anyone) are ILLEGAL to send to places like Sweden!
So there are people out there that can't get what they want from ThinkGeek and they are looking for alternatives. Just what in the hell is wrong, or amazing in all of that?
Where do the Japanese (OK, I can't read a Japanese web site -- Australian, then) buy cool gizmos online? Where do the Brits shop for toys when they shop on their Nokias? What do the Italians buy when they want to upstage their German friends?
Inquiring geeks want to know!
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Why not get together with other people and make one big purchase?
That would seem to make the shipping price a much lower percentage of the entire cost of the purchase than you would get by only ordering stuff for yourself.
Enjoy!
You can get special iron on transfers for your ink jet printer...
Pirate T-shirt HOWTO
Most important point - wash the T-Shirt dry it and iron it before transfering your design. This gets the starch out of the fabric and gives you a nice smooth surface to transfer to.
Now fire up the GIMP and make your first T-shirt which should be a test T-shirt to see what the colors look like after transfer. Make a range of color swatches in various tints (don't forget to identify the color formula used i.e. % of Cyan, yellow, Magenta and black). No reason to waste a T-shirt so type in "The original pirate T-shirt color swatch shirt"! Maybe add a pirate flag motif...
Once you have printed the transfer and ironed it on let it cool down then check which colors print best.
Now go over to Think Geek and check out some T-shirt designs. Another good spot is http://www.unamerican.com. Make your design and don't forget to sign it "I stole this T-shirt design from...". Hey! Credit where credit is due.
This HOWTO is to be used only in countries where postage rates prohibit importing the real thing.
Copyleft all rights reversed... Blah Blah
realkiwi
ThinkGeek is 6 or so people. We aren't ALL MegaCorps over here in the US. . . . And if I put a warehouse in Asia, I'm not sure New Zealand is the spot I'd want it. Singapore, maybe. Indonesia, perhaps. But not at the absolute edge of Australasia: the logistics aren't smart.
Up here in Canada I too avoid shopping at Thinkgeek because of the bloody ridiculous shipping charges. When one is already paying in US dollars (vs our "weak" Canadian dollar) getting gouged on shipping totally sucks. Thankfully, the "other" geek t-shirt'n'stuff place, CopyLeft.net has much more reasonable shipping to north of the border. It was only a couple of bucks on the last T-Shirt I ordered (the oh so spiffy BOFH t-shirt). I have no idea how their shipping is to Europe, but given that their shipping to Canada was a fraction of what Thinkgeek wanted, my guess is it would be a comparable difference.
Sigh...your comment is semantically flawed. To wit: American[1] is not American[2]. The huge American corporations that "talk about global markets" (and more to the point, lobby for them and otherwise try to shove them down our throats) are established around the world. Look around in any country where people have money. See all the Coca-Cola billboards? McDonald's franchises? People wearing Nikes?
Americans are the first to talk about global markets, yet they fail to open branches outside USA. Clueless... If ThinkGeek's people had half a brain, they would already have a warehouse in Ireland and another one in New Zealand, to serve the European and Asia-Pacific markets.
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
Try Kangaroot, it's a Belgian company. They sell software, books and some gadgets.
For Canadians who live near the border (about 90% of us), it's not difficult to find a post office on the US side of the border, and use that as your shipping address. For example, in Vancouver there is a *wonderful* little post office 10 meters over the border in Point Roberts WA, just 30 minutes drive from downtown, and you can even take the city bus there to pick up your loot (one of the Delta/Tswassen buses goes right to the border)! The customs officials there are very laid-back and will generally wave you through if you give them a big smile and a "howdy". And even if you get charged duty, you'll still save big on the shipping costs.
I adblock all animated gifs.
Blessed be the prime numbered slashdotters