Yesterday was an advertising and product day.  We launched our Free Custom Hat Offer on the blog Valleywag.com which is part of gawker media.  These are very popular blogs on the west coast and in new york city, so we hope to create a little buzz!  I don't think the ad will show until tomorrow but we're hoping this will give us some word of mouth advertising.  We're getting some traction advertising on cafepress.com and chris split out some of the best converting cpc keywords into their own campaign.  Second, I looked into Public Relations and contacted a friend for a resource in the local area.  With the Free hat offer, I feel one well placed news story about it would give this program a huge boost.  We'll see if we can find someone local to help us really get the free hat offer out to the public. 

Then the Patagonia rep Andy came by to show us the spring '06 product line.  Great products as usual but the new news was their committment to stocking popular styles.  Patagonia is used to selling to typical outdoor retailers which means they have stock six months before the season starts. the retailers place a large, mixed order and wait 3-4 months for delivery.  With their direct catalog and interent business they have been stocking more and more product each year.  Now Andy has come on and secured a more corporate type inventory: a bunch of styles, few colors, many sizes and lots of units in each.  What does this mean for us and our customers?  This year we will be able to offer more Patagonia styles then ever before because we know they'll have the stock and folks to help us pushy corporate folks.  Patagonia is my favorite brand (as everyone knows all too well at our shop) and I'm thrilled we can offer more of it in 2006.  Our customers can always be sure of Patagonia's quality.  Unlike the big brands like ralph lauren, they do not license their name to other manufacturers (which creates top of the line polo on madison ave. and cheap polo you find at sears discounted 30%) so you can always be sure you're getting retail patagonia quality!  Anyway, more to do today.  be back soon.