this happened a couple weeks ago and was big news in the promo-products world.  Staples (everyone knows this company) bought American Identity.  American Idenity is an old big company that sells promotional products to fortune 500 companies through a personal sales force.  funny thing is, staples' typical customer is small businesses that must travel to a staples store in order to buy office supplies.  these seem to be opposite ends of the market but the 'contract' chief (staples big business division that personally sells to larger companies) was the staples representative quoted in the press release. 

couple thoughts:
1. American Identity was owned by a private equity company and the debt market is less than favorable so it was likely a distress sale for AI.
2. Staples has a ton of cash on its books it needs to put to work as evidenced by their stock buyback announcement yesterday
3. staples has always wanted into the promo-products business as evidenced by their recent relationship with Awards.com (the company that sued kinkos for $900mm.
4. American Identity is likely getting their butt kicked by smaller promo-products guys that have little overhead and rock-bottom pricing from Broder (the big apparel supplier in our industry).  Broder has flattened pricing so much that there is only a few percentage points pricing advantage to be a larger customer (we know this first-hand).  this makes it easy for any home-based, part-time broker or embroiderer to compete "on price" with $200mm companies like American Identity that has overhead, legacy costs, salesperson commissions, etc.  its becoming more of a cottage industry and maybe AI thinks they can out-market the little guys with Staples extensive list of customers and locations.

What a shock!  they came out with printed tees.  even VistaPrint got 'em out faster.

AND, they "extended" their no minimums until July 31st!  WOW.  in response, we were thinking of sending out an email promoting we extended our no minimum offer until July 31st.......2009!

this years ride was completely opposite of last year except the incredible feeling of helping to raise money for the brain tumor society.  it poured rain and we brought little drew on a child seat on the back of my bike.  it was tough riding a mountain bike 25 miles with a 30lb weight on the back....and we pushed it, finishing in 1 1/2 hours.

BUT, we were thrilled to ride for Nathan and have drew along with us for added support.  thanks to all the donors, all the volunteers and the COPS.  I can't imagine i'm saying this but the police were a huge help.  the waltham, lincoln, weston and concord police were super!  they gave us the right of way (granted it was early sunday morning) at almost every intersection

OK....now that the issue is no longer current (to save me some embarrassment), our company was featured in the boston business journal may 4th.  it was fun doing the article and sean mcfadden was great.  it was really an 'entrepreneur story' how sometimes you need to change direction even when its painful sales-wise.  i liked this part and to some degree the possibility we may reach potential customers willing to give us a try.  so that's good.

and the potentially bad:
1.now every broker is calling trying to sell me something or asking if i'm in the "maaaahket" (boston accent way of asking if i'll invest with them)
2. even though we're very different from small mom-and-pop embroiderers and we have a patented embroidery studio, you become their competitive target
3. the curse of the press.  i remember back in the bubble when there was an article in the same section of the BBJ on logowire and they're now long gone.  I was at their closing auction trying to buy some technology.

I still have the article on Starbelly (a famous flame-out in our business) with an eerily similar picture to mine of Bradley keywell on my wall.  These folks not only went out of business but they put HALO out of business too and then got sued by an old landlord.  Funny thing is Bradley keywell is now teaching business at the university of Michigan....Go wolverines!

Closer to home, Keene Advertising is a local promo products broker I used to sell contract embroidery to.  they have moved out of boston and seemingly run a much smaller shop after being featured in the boston business journal by….of all authors, sean McFadden!

http://www.bizjournals.com/salespower/2004/08/27/

 

So, I was worried about the ‘karma’ thing too.  But, the way I see it, trying new things is always good (even if they’re bad) because it creates movement in one direction or the other.

Kristen (here) and emily(from wwf) launched the World Wildlife Federation online store on tuesday!  it's looks great and seems to be catching on.  fantastic organization, of course, and the best logo in the world.

VistaPrint just came out with printed t-shirts.....which is cool....but the unfortunate thing is they took us off their partner offer page.  maybe they think we compete with them now (which we don't....since we primarily do embroidery)... but kind of a bummer. 

funny thing is they came to the t-shirt game waaaay late and as i've mentioned before this market will become a bloodbath.  its become waaay to easy to print a t-shirt.  zazzle, spreadshirt, snorgtees, vistaprint, cafepress and thousands of tiny online companies are going to compete in this market.  vistaprint will obviously lead the way in driving the price down!

t-shirts should be $3 customized by the end of this year...whether you're buying 1 or 100

Chris and I always joke that every project is in "beta" so we can sound cool.....but now we really do have something in beta mode!....and we've already 'cliche'd' ourselves!

We just launched our new store program in 'beta' as I said and hoping it'll take a couple weeks for us to get it, what, out of beta?  Anyway, on to the fun stuff, the new store features:

1. ok, another jargon word we try to stay away from, the store is an API......which means nothing to most, but gives a more advanced user the ability to develop a store, take the html and edit it client side......meaning you can create a store, get the html, plug it into your static website, then change the layout, look, feel, pictures, etc (basically anything) then when someone clicks 'add to cart' they pass to our cart and checkout process.  we receive the order, charge the card, send out the custom garments and instantly give you a credit for your profit margin

2. every garment on our website can be used on your store

3. you may include printed and embroidered apparel

4. you may use our stock designs and lettering and pay no set-up charge

5. they is no monthly fee

6. obviously, no inventory

7. you may use credits instantly to purchase your own garments

8. you can earn 10% (average order is $300) referring folks to the corporate casuals' main site

Chris just launched our cool new checkout path using ajax!!!...along with a lot of other features i'll post later this weekend.  new checkout for embroidered and custom t-shirts is now just a three click process.  Items in the cart, add logos (in one convenient screen) and checkout.  couldn't be more simple.

the site is also dressed up with a few new 'look and feel' updates....more sunday night....