Just One More Shirt!
One of the suckiest things we have to deal with is add-ons. After we’ve gone through all the effort and time to procure product, create and set-up the design and customize the apparel…there’s nothing worse (and very costly) than having to do it all over again for just one more item.
That being said…we take a deep breath and we just do it. Why?
Because that one freakin kid who joined the team late wouldn’t have their jersey for the game, or the kid who got forgotten about would feel left out and that just sucks. So we do it because when it comes down to it, our good customers are worth the hassle.
Last week we got a call on Tuesday about a rushed add-on jersey the coach needed by Thursday for a tourney. Our normal turnaround is 2-weeks, so yes we had to make it a priority. Did we lose money on the job? Sure did! With our overhead, our COPO (cost of processing an order) is $70. So every order we process needs to at least cover that amount above and beyond the cost of the blank product. There’s no way we could get enough to cover that on just one jersey.
So why did we do it? Because the customer’s lifetime value will cover the loss in the long run. A good way to lose a customer is to ignore them when they really need your help – this also happens to be the best time to earn their loyalty. Interesting how great opportunities come at very inconvenient times.
Would we do this for everyone? Nope! Why? Well, because not every customer is the same. If we have an established and loyal relationship, you bet we’ll work the OT to get them taken care of. If it’s some schmuck who’ll likely never order from us again, then we probably won’t. That’s the tough part, determining if it’s worth it for just one more shirt.
In other news…
We’re gearing up for back to school in our Hurricane store. We’ve stocked up with new Tiger t-shirt designs and we’ve got some cool fitted hats coming down the pipeline in the next few weeks.
Also, we’ve got $3 Hillsports t-shirts for those of you who’d like to represent.
And thanks to everyone that grabbed up all our extra stock we had in our Dungeon at our Garage Sale over the weekend. So many people were thanking us for selling them blank shirts for $1. No, THANK YOU for taking all that inventory off our hands! It was certainly worth our time and we even added a few bucks to our Fun Fund so we could get a foosball table for our office!
