Our Freedom From The Press shirts don't start a revolution, but we got some great feedback

We recently sent our newest shirt designs over to our pals at StartupSchwag to be sold on their store.

After three years of stuffing shirts into mailers, I thought it was time I obsoleted myself. We've been pleased with the Startup Schwag service and thought we'd give them a try (yes, we get a monthly schwag bag of web 2.0 gear that ends up getting awarded to the winners of our StarCraft matches).

Instead of including a paper note like we used to, a similar form-letter gets sent once you make a purchase:

Thanks. Despite the fact that this is one of those form letters, we really do mean it.

For the first three years of reddit, I stuffed all of our shirt orders myself. As we’ve grown, my hands have grown tired of stuffing shirts and long for the time they spend frolicking on a keyboard. After watching Startup Schwag deliver high quality product with equally impressive customer service, I’ve asked them to handle our order fulfillment.

You already make reddit work by using it, but now you’ve gone a step further and bought a shirt--risking the envy of all your peers.If you’re ever not satisfied with reddit, please let us know why (feedback@reddit.com). Likewise, if you’re not satisfied with your shirt, please contact Startup Schwag support (support@startupschwag.com ) or return it within 30 days to the address below for a full refund or exchange (please indicate). However, if you are satisfied with your shirt, please wear it every single day.

On behalf of the team, thanks again,
Alexis Ohanian
reddit co-founder

Well, we just got our first response and I couldn't have asked for a better one:

From: [redacted]
Date: February 5, 2009 10:53:05 AM CST
To: Startup Schwag
Subject: Re: Reddit - Freedom From the Press Purchase

Best email I've ever gotten after making a purchase. Thank you for the service you provide. [redacted]

With about 5 million of you visiting the site a month, keeping the site feeling small is certainly a challenge (as I think about all the feedback emails I have to reply to) but these days it matters more than ever before. Thanks to all of you who have ever bought anything from reddit as well as those of you who've only visited. We're happy to serve you.

Unless you're a spammer, then you can die in a fire.

Teaser: the reddit store has another big update coming later this week.