Part 2: Da Brand
Welcome back to another edition of “Behind The Thread” where we're giving you an exclusive behind-the-scenes look into what it's like starting & running a small business in Hawaiʻi.
Today we wanted to share with you how our creations come to life!
When I first started creating pieces for our clothing brand, I was honestly scared. I wanted to try out this business with little to no risk and money up front.
I scoured the internet for ways to simply start a t-shirt brand without having to hold inventory–lo & behold the power of print-on-demand! It seemed like the perfect way to launch our business with little upfront costs and no inventory to hold.
What started off as the dream way to start our business, slowly turned into a nightmare.
It began with the wholesale sample costs. Because all of our designs were created online–it was difficult to judge the quality of material, feel of the material, and actual design placement and size.
We wanted to ensure that each of the pieces we created were up to our quality standards so we ordered basically one of each garment–which added up to well over $900 😳
High wholesale prices meant that our sales prices were going to have to be higher than we originally thought in order to turn a profit.
It took nearly a month to receive all of our samples–and needless to say–we were extremely disappointed. Not only was the quality of the material absolute rubbah (rubbish) but also the quality of the printed designs suffered as well as the size and placement.
I couldnʻt see myself buying something of this quality and even more, I couldnʻt find it in myself to sell such poor quality apparel. I felt I had no choice but to deactivate all the items on our website.
Feeling defeated, I didnʻt know how to continue with the business. Yet, I was determined to find a solution that worked.
I then recalled a conversation that I had with another small business owner from Big Island nearly 5 years ago. The owner at the time was shutting down her baby clothing and accessories business and while I was bummed, I thought maybe she wouldnʻt mind sharing how she was able to manufacture her pieces. She told me at the time she used Alibaba (a business to business marketplace that allows you to connect with manufacturers primarily in China to purchase pre-made or custom items at wholesale pricing) to source her items but didnʻt give much information beyond that.
I decided to look more into it and was quite hesitant to try anything outside of the US. Begrudgingly, I created an account and started looking into types of items we could get manufactured.
We found a couple of amazing manufacturers who were able to produce our Tyvek totes and decided to give them a try and order samples. We were cautiously optimistic. Our samples finally arrived and we were beyond stoked with the production, quality, and pricing. We negotiated some pricing with our favorite manufacturer and decided to give it a go and put in our first bulk order.
After ordering samples of items such as swimwear, pareos, baby blankets, and the like from various manufacturers, we were getting deeper into our financial investment. And the samples we were getting were hit or miss. Compromising on quality is not in our book, so we had to let many of our ideas of bringing in some of these items go (for now).
We knew we really wanted to produce casual t-shirts and tank tops and happened upon a seemingly favorable manufacturer. Spoiler alert: they ended up being the manufacturers from hell!
We were so anxious to get our business up and running, we passed up the opportunity to get samples. We figured, “how could you f* up t-shirts and tank top?” Well you can! We were happy with the quality of the material and the printing, but when it came to fit—let’s just say that if “shmedium” is your jam then this is just right for you. It just wasn’t quite what I wanted.
I felt even more defeated as now we had all this inventory and it all wasn’t what I was expecting. I let it all sit in my house—all 25 boxes—for a few months. I didn’t know what to do or what I was going to do. I knew that the quality was amazing but it came down to the fit. How was I going to make this work?
It took THREE months for me to figure something out. And another TWO months after that to feel comfortable enough to start selling our things in person. I knew that when I marketed it to people, that I would be honest—explaining to each of my customers about the fit and suggesting sizing up when needed.
When we finally took the leap and started looking into local pop-up markets we could get into to start really getting our names out there as well as connecting with people, things slowly started to come together.
I’m blessed to have family who run the Kumu Hula Association of Northern California and I reached out to my aunty to see if we could become vendors for their annual hula festival.
When I reached out to her in March, she said, “Of course! But you should come to the May Day event also.” An overwhelming sense of vulnerability came over me and I told her I wasn’t ready. And she said, “Well then, get your sh*t together and get ready Girl!”
<<pictured above: Our first ever pop-up even | May Day Festival in Hayward, CA>>
It was just the honest kick in the booty I needed! I was gonna make it happen no matter what. We asked my in-laws to fly down for a week to take care of the kids while we went to California. We packed several suitcases full of inventory, signage, and business cards.
Since my aunty was in charge of all the vendors, I stayed close to her to observe and absorb as much as I could. I paid attention to the different vendor set-ups and displays as I soon found out that these were the two KEY elements that could make or break your pop-up events.
<<pictured above is our first pop-up event in Hawai’i at the Lōkahi Kailua Market>>
Stay tuned for more from our blog as weʻll continue to give you some insight to our world “Behind The Thread”.
Much light, love, & aloha,
Jerrica