| Company Spotlight: Cutter & Buck Article Reprinted From Wearables Magazine 2/15/10
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| Joel Freet is the manager of corporate sales for Cutter & Buck
Wearables: What type of wearables does the company offer?
Wearables: What new trends will be or have been introduced for 2010?
Wearables: What markets are attracted to CB the most?
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Monday, February 15, 2010
Supplier Profile: Cutter & Buck
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The ABC's of B2C
September 2009
Author: Kimberly Hundley
Killer Apparel Group
7585 E. Redfield Road, Suite 105, Scottsdale
(480) 248-9248
www.CarefreeCasuals.com, www.KillerChef.com Twitter @KillerChef
Laser focus. That’s what Aaron Tucker says took his online retail business to new heights in the midst of a recession. “We opened our doors Sept. 1 of last year and will have generated about $1 million in revenue by the end of August, which isn’t bad for our first year.”
Killer Apparel Group is now the parent company of three apparel websites: www.CarefreeCasuals.com, www.KillerChef.com and www.TrueUniform.com. When Tucker launched his new enterprise last year, he wasn’t exactly starting from scratch. He bought the company outright from Uniforms Manufacturing (UMI), the old family business he’d been involved with since his teen days.
After college, Tucker had tackled new markets for UMI, a longtime maker of industrial work and prison clothing. He targeted commercial businesses, landing clients such as Home Depot and Discount Tires, then braved the field of logoed apparel and other promotional products. His entrepreneurial mind always clicking away, he noticed a hole in the ad specialty marketplace.
An Idea Was Born
“There was a trend where bigger-name retailers were starting to produce products for this corporate apparel market, but nobody was consolidating it into one area for repurchasing,” he says. Because high-end companies such as Cutter & Buck required promotional product distributors to have a direct account with them—and make a minimum purchase that might start at $5,000—smaller guys didn’t have the wherewithal to buy the clothing.
Tucker leaped into the void, committing to volume, pulling together brands and creating a one-stop-shop for the promotions industry.
In 2004, the products available were up on the Internet for all to see. The website had been geared for corporate customers conducting B2B transactions. And a funny thing happened. “I never thought someone might want to buy one golf shirt with me,” Tucker says. “But they did. We were getting growth on the retail side.”
Realization
Tucker took measures to completely revise the site’s focus from a B2B to B2C, business to consumer. Product reviews and live chat were enabled to build client trust. The company threw out the purchasing methodology that allowed distributors to send in purchase orders that had to be hand-entered into the computer system. “We put the accountability on the customer as far as getting the order right,” Tucker says.
As more items were added, Carefree Casuals took shape as a top provider of “lifestyle fashions, lifestyle values.” Shoppers were finding the familiar quality brands they loved—such as Tommy Bahama and Lee Jeans—at incredible prices.
“One way we found early traction was getting on some comparative shopping sites,” Tucker says. When savvy buyers visited sites such as www.Shopzilla.com, they would see Carefree Casuals’ deals listed next to competitors’ higher prices.
“We buy a lot of the same garments at cost that department stores would buy,” Tucker says of his merchandise offerings. “We get a discount because we are a reseller.”
Unlike brick-and-mortar stores or manufacturers, however, Carefree Casuals doesn’t have to stock inventory or worry about keeping up with seasonality. They operate lean and pass the savings on to the customer. “We’re really a data maintenance business,” Tucker explains. About 3,000 items, for example, are on both www.CarefreeCasuals.com and www.KillerChef.com. As prices, colors, and sizes come and go, a mountain of data must be maintained. Tucker outsources the majority of this task to a firm in India because it’s cost-effective, allowing Killer Apparel to operate with just six employees and keep up the profit-margin.
“I’ve heard of so many companies over-hiring, and staff sunk them because they felt obligated to keep these people employed rather than maintain the health of the business,” Tucker says. “When you’re in startup mode, every dollar makes a difference.”
Killer Time
Shortly after making cash-cow www.CarefreeCasuals.com his own, Tucker launched the hospitality-clothing line www.KillerChef.com. The timing could hardly have been worse as the recession rolled through hotels and restaurants. Still, Tucker is optimistic the website will eventually prosper, because he sees a shimmering unfulfilled need.
A single billion-dollar company “pretty much owns” the hospitality industry’s apparel market, he explains. “We’re looking to chew at their heels a little bit and offer something we don’t believe they offer: local service.”
So far, Killer Chef is having more success with independently owned hotels than with franchises tied into big contracts. Recent clients include the Airpark’s Xona Resorts and Thunderbird Suites.
Before the end of the year, Killer Apparel Group will unveil its third site www.TrueUniform.com, focused on hunting gear, the outdoors and work apparel. The company will continue to focus on the four key factors that make its business model work: 1) product reviews 2) offer brands that shoppers know 3) build trust with product recommendations, reliable sizing charts and clear descriptions, and 4) a fair return policy.
Sitting at the helm of his own business has restored Tucker’s passion for his work. He credits the Entrepreneur’s Organization in the Valley for giving him the guidance and inspiration to finally break the family ties.
To others with independent dreams, he says, “As long as you’re laser focused on what you’re passionate about and your target market, I think you’ll be successful in almost any market.”
Tucker’s BIZ Tips
What should business owners and would-be entrepreneurs keep in mind as they chase their dreams? Aaron Tucker, director of Killer Apparel Group, offers this advice.
• Cash is king. You can only go as far as your cash.
• You don’t necessarily have to defer your dreams; you just have to make sure you’re very focused. When I decided it was time to leave my other business, I didn’t even think about going to get a job from someone else. I was preprogrammed that I was taking www.CarefreeCasuals.com. I was laser focused and continue to be. You can run your dream business out of your house, and you can do it part-time, but be laser focused on it.
• Read Norm Brodsky’s book The Knack. There is no such thing as job security anymore; the only security is your own sense of self-worth and your knowledge about how to earn a living.
• Make sure you are watching your numbers regularly. You can’t manage what you can’t measure, so if you don’t have good numbers, you can't effectively run your company. Especially with an Internet business—there is a lot of analytics.
• While someone else is making cutbacks and trying to save themselves money, you have a great opportunity to get out there and compete.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Is Insect Repellent Safe For FR Clothing?
There has been much discussion about the use of DEET insect repellent because of concern about West Nile Virus. DEET (chemical name, N, N-diethyl-meta-toluamide) is the active ingredient in many insect repellent products. It is used to repel biting pests such as mosquitoes and ticks. Products containing DEET currently are available to the public in a variety of liquids, lotions, sprays, and impregnated materials (e.g., wristbands). DEET is designed for direct application to human skin to repel insects, rather than kill them.
DEET is the active ingredient in the most successful & popular insect repellents and is HIGHLY flammable, especially in concentrated form.There are products that contain about 26% DEET, which is the most you can buy over the counter. However, 100% DEET spray is available on the Internet.
The best advice is to spray any insect repellent ONLY on skin and never on clothes. There is a significant risk that clothing sprayed with DEET could ignite and continue to burn if exposed to an ignition hazard. In this scenario the DEET is serving as a fuel source.Thursday, July 23, 2009
Sprucing Up F&B Sales
By Mary Boltz Chapman, Contributing Editor -- Hotels, 7/1/2009
When The Peninsula Chicago began offering single-malt scotch flights, its public relations staff spread the word through local newspapers and magazines. Its finding, however, was that the best marketing is the buzz that spreads through the bar when someone orders it: Three 1-ounce pours in etched glasses are stacked on a handcrafted wooden ladder.
"We knew it would take off," says Director of Food & Beverage Pradeep Raman. "We started getting regular guests ordering it, which attracts onlookers."
The
Raman says the flights are selling well, at a pace of about five to 10 on weekdays and 20 or more on weekend days. He credits in part the merchandising that happens when a guest sees someone else drinking it. The server or bar manager will walk customers through the experience, discussing each single malt and its characteristics. Guests also receive a card listing details on each scotch.
The handcrafted, etched glassware bearing the hotel's name is prominently on display behind the bar, and bartenders are happy to tell inquiring guests about the flights.
At Doubletree Hotel Chicago Magnificent Mile, bar staff also serve as marketers, telling the story of the infused vodka flights featuring flavors grown on site.
Executive Chef Scott Walton grows vegetables and herbs in a deck garden for the hotel's Markethouse restaurant. Taking a cue from the restaurant's seasonal slant, Walton began infusing vodkas with fruits from local purveyors for the hotel bar, which was completed in December. A recent US$15 flight included raspberry, vanilla and pomegranate.
This summer, Walton will include infusions from the fruits of his own labor, such as lemon balm, chocolate mint and tomatoes. He also is planning a bacon-infused vodka with pork from a local farmer. Flights combine flavors from savory to sweet.
Walton says depending on flavor, the bar goes through a decanter of infused vodka every seven days. As at The Peninsula, glassware set out on the bar and customer buzz act as merchandising.
The Courtyard by Marriott brand might not attract the same customers as those upscale and luxury hotels, but it does put experience first. Since the brand overhauled its lobby—and with it the in-house restaurant—food and beverage sales are up 22% in redesigned hotels.
The changes in the lobby, made based on customer research and observations, include visual cues to "atmospheres" for relaxing, working and dining, says Courtyard Vice President and Global Brand Manager Brian King. He says the overhaul gives guests more control of their experience.
Taking cues from fast-casual restaurant concepts like Panera, the restaurant allows customers to grab food from the counter for takeout; order and pay, then sit and be served; or take advantage of traditional full service. About half of sales are from counter service. The branded foodservice concept is called The Bistro. Eat. Drink. Connect. "Connect speaks to the social aspect and the business aspect," King says, referring to guests toting laptops.
King says popular breakfasts include a US$3.75 oatmeal with fruit and nuts, and sandwiches such as the bacon, egg and cheddar on a croissant with bistro potatoes or fresh fruit for US$6.50. At lunch and dinner, customers go for sandwiches, such as the US$8.50 Caesar Wrap with coleslaw and chips, and pizzas such as the US$7.25 Tomato Mozzarella. The menu also includes soups, salads, entrées and snacks, and beverages range from Starbucks coffee to a full bar.
In hotels that have The Bistro, sales per occupied room are up 18%. "We have an offering that gives guests control and choice," King says.
Since the first redesign in November 2007, 42 Bistros are up and running, and King expects to have 100 done by the end of the year. Courtyard has 833 properties worldwide and plans to incorporate The Bistro wherever possible in its hotels in
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Will guests notice as upscale hotels shed workers to survive?
by Barbara De Lollis
Reprinted from USA Today
Good morning! I'm back from Manhattan, where I spent Monday and Tuesday attending the 31st annual New York University's International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference.
It's arguably the most important gathering of the year for the industry, where the top execs of the USA's major hotel-brand companies, hotel owners, investment bankers and other industry movers and shakers go to rub elbows and (in better times) do deals. Not surprisingly, the tone this year was somber as people pondered whether travel demand has hit bottom yet (answer? probably.) One of the other constant themes was the lack of access to capital, which is rippling through the industry in meaningful ways such as smaller hotel payrolls.
During one session, Strategic Hotels CEO Laurence Geller talked about the impact on staffing. I found his take especially interesting because Strategic's portfolio includes three Four Seasons, three InterContinentals, two Ritz-Carltons, two Fairmonts and one Loews. This is the same category that's been disproportionately hit by the double whammy of both the recession and the trend among big companies to scrap their old habit of gathering at luxury hotels to avoid negative perceptions.
"As I look about it there’s two roles we can play we can fix what we’ve got," he said. "I can’t alter the capital markets but what we can alter are the operations of the hotels. That’s what's happened. For the first time, I believe, we’ve had systemic organizational change throughout hotels. (We) lost 15 to 20% of labor. Probably a quarter to one third of that won’t ever come back so your margins are going to be higher. You’ve just got to muddle through. It may take longer (than prior industry downturns), but the halcyon days for this industry have to be ahead."
Charles Henry of Hotel Capital Advisers followed by saying that what he's seeing in the industry "has proved to me that we're all slashing costs like mad. Hopefully we’re not slashing so much that they effect the customer."
When travelers Travis Parker of Los Angeles emailed me to say that he was told of service changes up front - as soon as he checked in last month at the luxury J.W. Marriott Guancaste Resort and Spa in Costa Rica for a 10-day stay.
"(I) was advised at check in that due to hotel occupancy (25%) that one of the hotel's five restaurants would not be serving dinner," he said. Since the resort has four other restaurants and room service, he says he didn't mind, but other another guest who loved that particular restaurant might've balked.
Editorial by Aaron Tucker
During my visits to properties across the State of
The above said I believe now is the opportunity to get lean and stay lean. Examine your infrastructure and make your vendors are competing to earn your business. Killer Chef & Hospitality supplies service related apparel to properties Nationwide. We provide uniform options for everything from Front Desk through Maintenance in an arena where a few major competitors rule the landscape. One of our competitors is responsible for nearly 50% of the service apparel business and has locked up many Properties with term contracts that were negotiated during a substantially different economic environment. Properties often times signed these contracts without being fully aware of their options in the marketplace.
Killer Chef & Hospitality represents the VF Imagewear Line of Hospitality Apparel. We have worked hard with our manufacturer to develop what we consider to be the best service uniform value in the industry. In support of this achievement Killer Chef has created three mini-catalogs tailored to a property’s service level. Many of these items were designed specifically to replace a competitor’s garment at a tremendous value without sacrificing quality. For more information on our line as well as the additional services we provide please contact us at 480-248-9248.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Guide to Restaurant Uniforms
By Frances Sharpe
Along with the architecture and décor – and of course the food – your staff's uniforms make a powerful visual statement about your restaurant's style and identity. With nothing more than a quick glance at a waitress uniform, diners can tell if your establishment promises an upscale gourmet experience, an ethnic flavor or a budget-conscious bite. Of course, uniforms need to be functional, too.
Keep form and function in mind when choosing:
1. Front-of-the-house uniforms such as waiter and waitress uniforms
2. Back-of-the-house uniforms such as chef clothing
Action Steps
Here are some of the best contacts and resources to help you get it done.
Server aprons are an essential
Whether you outfit your wait staff in full waiter and waitress uniforms or let them wear their own clothing, aprons are a must. Servers use them to stash order pads, pens, checks, corkscrews, bottle openers, table scrapers and more. Choose a style that fits your image and has enough pockets.
Choose colors to fit your décor. Depending on the type of restaurant you have, options include long- or short-sleeve button-down shirts, tuxedo shirts, polo shirts, T-shirts or waiter jackets. In some instances, a vest may be desirable as well. Most restaurateurs request that workers wear a specific color of pants of their own choosing. However, pants can be ordered as well if you desire a unified look.
Chef uniforms are designed for comfort, function and style. If you have an open kitchen area where diners can see your kitchen in action, chef clothing style will play a bigger role.
Shoes are part of restaurant uniforms, too
Your servers and chefs are on their feet constantly, which makes comfortable shoes a requirement. Many restaurant owners let their workers wear their own shoes in a specified color. If you prefer a more consistent look, choose shoes designed for long hours of standing that are also slip resistant.
Accessories can fill out your look
Neckwear, gloves, cummerbunds, suspenders, hats – these accessories can add flair to ho-hum restaurant uniforms.
Specialty restaurant uniforms
If you run a sushi restaurant, a Mexican eatery or some other ethnic restaurant, look for uniforms that fit your theme.
Personalize restaurant uniforms with custom embroidery
Adding an embroidered name or logo – your own logo or a stock logo, such as a steaming cup of coffee, a sombrero or a wine glass – to your uniforms can reinforce your restaurant's image. Embroidering your server's name on each uniform can improve server-diner relations. When placing your company name or server's name, choose a font that fits with your brand. For example, consider elegant script for a sophisticated look, sans-serif for a sleek modern feel and fun styles for a kid-friendly approach.
Tips & Tactics
Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide
• Fabrics: Look for easy-care garments that are stain-repellant and wrinkle resistant -- especially for chef clothing.
• Picking up the tab: Businesses must cover the costs of all restaurant uniforms. However, if you simply request that servers wear a specific and common color for shirts, pants or shoes, employees are responsible for the costs.
• Shoes: Most restaurant owners simply ask servers to wear shoes of a certain color and style, for example, black athletic shoes.
For more tips as well as the best values in hotel and restaurant apparel be sure to visit us at Killer Chef & Hospitality.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
13 Rules for the Start Up Business
February 2009
One of the things I always tell startups is a principle I learned from Paul Buchheit: it's better to make a few people really happy than to make a lot of people semi-happy. I was saying recently to a reporter that if I could only tell startups 10 things, this would be one of them. Then I thought: what would the other 9 be?
When I made the list there turned out to be 13:
1. Pick good cofounders.
Cofounders are for a startup what location is for real estate. You can change anything about a house except where it is. In a startup you can change your idea easily, but changing your cofounders is hard. And the success of a startup is almost always a function of its founders.
2. Launch fast.
The reason to launch fast is not so much that it's critical to get your product to market early, but that you haven't really started working on it till you've launched. Launching teaches you what you should have been building. Till you know that you're wasting your time. So the main value of whatever you launch with is as a pretext for engaging users.
3. Let your idea evolve.
This is the second half of launching fast. Launch fast and iterate. It's a big mistake to treat a startup as if it were merely a matter of implementing some brilliant initial idea. As in an essay, most of the ideas appear in the implementing.
4. Understand your users.
You can envision the wealth created by a startup as a rectangle, where one side is the number of users and the other is how much you improve their lives. The second dimension is the one you have most control over. And indeed, the growth in the first will be driven by how well you do in the second. As in science, the hard part is not answering questions but asking them: the hard part is seeing something new that users lack. The better you understand them the better the odds of doing that. That's why so many successful startups make something the founders needed.
5. Better to make a few users love you than a lot ambivalent.
Ideally you want to make large numbers of users love you, but you can't expect to hit that right away. Initially you have to choose between satisfying all the needs of a subset of potential users, or satisfying a subset of the needs of all potential users. Take the first. It's easier to expand userwise than satisfactionwise. And perhaps more importantly, it's harder to lie to yourself. If you think you're 85% of the way to a great product, how do you know it's not 70%? Or 10%? Whereas it's easy to know how many users you have.
6. Offer surprisingly good customer service.
Customers are used to being maltreated. Most of the companies they deal with are quasi-monopolies that get away with atrocious customer service. Your own ideas about what's possible have been unconsciously lowered by such experiences. Try making your customer service not merely good, but surprisingly good. Go out of your way to make people happy. They'll be overwhelmed; you'll see. In the earliest stages of a startup, it pays to offer customer service on a level that wouldn't scale, because it's a way of learning about your users.
7. You make what you measure.
I learned this one from Joe Kraus. Merely measuring something has an uncanny tendency to improve it. If you want to make your user numbers go up, put a big piece of paper on your wall and every day plot the number of users. You'll be delighted when it goes up and disappointed when it goes down. Pretty soon you'll start noticing what makes the number go up, and you'll start to do more of that. Corollary: be careful what you measure.
8. Spend little.
I can't emphasize how important it is for a startup to be cheap. Most startups fail before they make something people want, and the most common form of failure is running out of money. So being cheap is (almost) interchangeable with iterating rapidly. But it's more than that. A culture of cheapness keeps companies young in something like the way exercise keeps people young.
9. Get ramen profitable.
"Ramen profitable" means a startup makes just enough to pay the founders' living expenses. It's not rapid prototyping for business models (though it can be), but more a way of hacking the investment process. Once you cross over into ramen profitable, it completely changes your relationship with investors. It's also great for morale.
10. Avoid distractions.
Nothing kills startups like distractions. The worst type are those that pay money: day jobs, consulting, profitable side-projects. The startup may have more long-term potential, but you'll always interrupt working on it to answer calls from people paying you now. Paradoxically, fundraising is this type of distraction, so try to minimize that too.
11. Don't get demoralized.
Though the immediate cause of death in a startup tends to be running out of money, the underlying cause is usually lack of focus. Either the company is run by stupid people (which can't be fixed with advice) or the people are smart but got demoralized. Starting a startup is a huge moral weight. Understand this and make a conscious effort not to be ground down by it, just as you'd be careful to bend at the knees when picking up a heavy box.
12. Don't give up.
Even if you get demoralized, don't give up. You can get surprisingly far by just not giving up. This isn't true in all fields. There are a lot of people who couldn't become good mathematicians no matter how long they persisted. But startups aren't like that. Sheer effort is usually enough, so long as you keep morphing your idea.
13. Deals fall through.
One of the most useful skills we learned from Viaweb was not getting our hopes up. We probably had 20 deals of various types fall through. After the first 10 or so we learned to treat deals as background processes that we should ignore till they terminated. It's very dangerous to morale to start to depend on deals closing, not just because they so often don't, but because it makes them less likely to.
Understand your users. That's the key. The essential task in a startup is to create wealth; the dimension of wealth you have most control over is how much you improve users' lives; and the hardest part of that is knowing what to make for them. Once you know what to make, it's mere effort to make it, and most decent hackers are capable of that.
Understanding your users is part of half the principles in this list. That's the reason to launch early, to understand your users. Evolving your idea is the embodiment of understanding your users. Understanding your users well will tend to push you toward making something that makes a few people deeply happy. The most important reason for having surprisingly good customer service is that it helps you understand your users. And understanding your users will even ensure your morale, because when everything else is collapsing around you, having just ten users who love you will keep you going.
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