Having been a biz man I'd go with the gift shop. What is needed is someone with marketing verve and some computer skills. I'd look to Monk Rock for inspiration. It needs some standard stuff like Scapulars. It also needs some unique Fisheaters stuff which others will want and pull them here. I'm no marketeer but lets exercise our minds, what of a Fisheater bathrobe which comes in Franciscan brown with a cowl for weaing at home to play on the computer. It could be offered in the colors appropriate for other orders, too. It probably should link to Breviaries for sale and Diurnals, Missals, etc. Click and buy and FE gets a percentage. Hoodies would probably sell. Perhaps a Fisheaters cookbook which is down loadable and needs no printing, and for a small monthly subscription you get all of the additions every month. This could go for every article in the front too. They could be sold in PDF for small money that would add up. A small gold or silver plated dagger for letter opening something like a knife used by a monk for eating in an Abbey say 1245 would be a hot item. Latin inscripted of course.
tim
Good ideas, Tim. I think the "Franciscan" bathrobe is a very cool idea, good to wear for morning prayers or reading the Office, too.
(Duh, i just re-read your post and saw you already mentioned other orders, but I mentioned colors so I'll leave what i wrote below.)
Other orders' habits might give ideas for other robes, though the main colors are neutrals, white, black, and grey -- and brown, which Carmelites also wear, and Cistercians, I think. Benedictine monks wear brown but the sisters wear black with a white coif if they wear the traditional habit. There is an order of sisters with pink habits and Marian blue robes would be popular with women, I'd think, yet not too feminine for men.
Maybe robes could be offered with the Sacred Heart and/or Immaculate Heart on the back?
Should they all have Fisheaters logos on them? I know they're for home wear but people do walk out to get the paper or the mail in their robes, at least in some places, or to walk the dog, and you can invite neighbors in when you're wearing a modest robe. Definitely shirts and hoodies need to advertise the site.
Also, what about purple robes for Advent and Lent? Lighter weight summer robes in green? After Easter, green is the main liturgical color until Advent. White and gold ones for Christmas, Easter, other Holy Days? I know this is too many to begin with but we need to think of the future.
