Since its relaunch on August 2005, the Mozilla Store serves Mozilla users looking for yet another way to spread the word about Firefox, Thunderbird and the Mozilla project through a variety of apparel, books, CDs and other great items. To learn more about how it works and what’s coming in the near future, I talked to Marcia Knous, QA manager at the Mozilla Corporation and responsible for the Mozilla Store activities.

Mozilla Links: What are the goals of the Mozilla Store in terms of revenue, volume, reach and as a vehicle to spread the word about Mozilla products?

MK: Revenue is not even on my radar. My whole philosophy regarding the store is to use it as a vehicle to make our community excited about the product and also to reward the thousands of volunteers that work on our project in their spare time. I have to say whenever I am traveling and someone sees the Firefox branding, they get excited. In some circles, the tshirts continue to be prized items. I think lots of folks like the logo (designed by Jon Hicks), and I think that makes the tshirts that much more attractive.

As far as goals for the Mozilla Store, this year I hope to add a true community flavor by featuring a Community Member of the Month on the store page, wearing or using something from the store. This will require some work on the site design, and I am already brainstorming with both stores about how we can accomplish this.

Other goals are to increase our SKUs slightly, and try to offer some unique Tshirt designs that Mozilla community members will be proud to wear. Some ideas for new products that are currently in the mix are a Mozilla Gas Station Jacket and new Mozilla old school baseball hat. The Tshirt designs will also be retooled soon, so we should hopefully have some new designs up by spring.

ML: How are products selected?

MK: We have a fairly stable mix of products that have been mostly carried over from our old store (previous vendor). Our new vendor, Gateway CDI, has a merchandising department that generates ideas about new products based on the trends they see going on. Both Gateway and Merchandise Mania, our international vendor then handle fulfillment of the product (getting samples and then having it produced and warehoused).

Apparel is by far our top seller, so that is the primary merchandise focus at the store currently. BTW, I have an email alias set up for suggestions, and I do read and respond to all inquiries I get. I have generated some of the ideas for products, such as the Champion Hooded sweatshirt. In other cases, Firefox projects like the Crop Circle have generated ideas for new products.

ML: Which one is the top seller?

MK: Top selling item in the US Store for past three months is the Firefox Ogio Messenger bag. In March we expect to have that same bag available in the international store as well.

ML: Have you considered a partnership with a digital photo provider so Mozilla could license some imagery and users may order gift items directly from them while profit are shared with Mozilla?

MK: Not really that simple to do, since both the FF and Tbird logos are very difficult to get right. My feeling is that I don’t want products out there that don’t look right. It took both of our vendors some time to get the logo silkscreened right on Tshirts, as well as getting the embroidery down. I don’t want to farm that out and have to worry about shoddy looking Firefox logos showing up on shirts and other products.

Thanks to Marcia for taking the time and sharing some interesting facts!

Don’t forget to let us all know if you have grabbed an item from the Mozilla Store in Mozilla Link’s latest poll and share your comments here.