Episode 269: The Obsession with Original Favorites, a chat with Pete Drago and Evan Toporek

Welcome to Skucast, the podcast for entrepreneurs in the promotional products industry. Skucast shines a light on our industry's best work, features maverick personalities, and discusses what's really involved in running a modern promotional products business. Skewcast is the official podcast of Common Skew.

We all love to wear brands from companies that mean a lot to us, and we each have our own obsessions. For me, I love media companies, The New Yorker, The New York Times. It's because I'm a word nerd and I'm a merch nerd like you. I was recently on The New Yorker merch shop. I fell in love with this soft and simple sweatshirt. Ordered it, didn't think a thing about it until it arrived, opened it, and had that experience we all love to create in this business when you receive great merch. The quality was incredible, and I immediately, like you do, started looking at the tag trying to find out who made it. It was made by a company called Original Favorites. In 2016, not that long ago, Original Favorites was created by Peter Drago and his business partner. David Boger, out of the need for a true luxury garment in the wholesale blanks space. They created a transparent approach to premium raw material sourcing and classic manufacturing, and he immediately attracted a roster of clients that includes some of the most recognizable names in the fashion, tech, and lifestyle industries. I knew mutual connections to Original Favorites, the folks at the admirable distributor company Canary, and equally admirable, my friend Toby Zaks with Zagwear, and I eventually connected with Peter Drago, President at Original Favorites, and Evan Toporek, an investor at Original Favorites. Now, Peter started Original Favorites with his business partner David, and Evan has a ton of street cred in this business. He was previously the co-owner and CEO of Alternative Apparel, which was acquired by Hanes in 2017. Now, why this episode is important: Number 1, clients are seeking higher quality merchandise experiences. As evidenced by some of the most notable distributors seeking this brand. Number 2, Original Favorites has created a scalable and a completely different selling model, which is worth talking about. And finally, and perhaps mainly, this apparel category is over 30% of this multi-billion-dollar industry, and there is a ton of confusion around organics, recycled, authentication, verification. Today we talk about all of It's a 401 conversation in sustainable apparel education, and they are a fascinating brand to watch. Now, before our chat with Peter and Evan, and speaking of merch and merch shops, we just released this really cool integration with Commscue Shops and Unsplash. Now, if you're tired of trying to find beautiful photos for your shops, now you can source high-res images from Unsplash's database to use in the design of your shops. And of course, Like we always do, it's built right into the platform for an easy but sophisticated in-app experience. You can check it out at commonsku.com/shops. Today's episode is brought to you by Commonsku, the work from anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more, visit commonsku.com. Now here's my chat with Pete and Evan.

Pete, why did you start Original Favorites? It seems that the blank apparel field is like oversaturated, but you thought it was missing something. What was that?

Well, it wasn't— it wasn't like we were set out to do this to begin with. I mean, we own a consumer brand and that was our intro into the apparel space, and we've had that brand since 2005. And our challenges were always around getting a good blank. So we just sort of navigated that by doing cut and sew, and we were always producing our own t-shirts and sweatshirts.. And over the years, folks would ask us sort of what, you know, where, where you get your bikes from, or, you know, who makes this tee. And we would always say, oh, it's just us doing it. It's, you know, side note, it's a, it's a terrible strategy for a small brand to be doing cut and sew t-shirts, really expensive and all you need. But we were really focused on fabric and fit, and that was two things that were not— those were two things that were not readily available on the blank front to the level that we wanted them. So finally, our consumer brand had sort of gotten to a plateau on a growth level, and we were sort of— the, the, the echoes of sort of, hey, where are you getting this from? Or, man, this is a really nice sweatshirt, sort of finally hit us where we said, let's just make some extras and, you know, we'll bring them in on the container and see if there's a market for this sort of, you know, really premium product. You, you're— you hit the nail on the head. I had zero interest in getting into the blank wholesale apparel space. It is loaded with brands that do what I think is a really good job of the whole cheap and soft situation, which is make the cheapest, softest garment possible. And it sort of has its quick little cycle and ends up in a landfill. And to get into that like $3— no, ours is $2.97, and they're going to shave it off here. Sort of, it was really unattractive. I just didn't want any part of it. And I said, the only way we would do this is if we took sort of an uncompromising approach to make a product that was significantly better than what was available in the marketplace and also was a lot more expensive. And that was a conscious effort to make something that instead of getting into the, you know, the sort of the mosh pit down there and trying to like elbow your way to get some space to own a little segment of this huge market, I wanted to be the sort of first name in the thought in this little premium market for brands that were looking to differentiate through quality.

Yeah. Evan, I have a question for you. But Pete, for one thing, so we can clarify for the listening audience, I am— the reason we're sitting here is because I ordered a sweatshirt from The New Yorker's website and I got it in and I thought, man, the quality on this is amazing. So sure enough, I'm like, I got to— I've got to talk to who made this sweatshirt. And that led us to this conversation right now. So go back to product and fit. What was it you saw missing in the marketplace and what were you nailing in terms of the premium piece that you found a puzzle, a missing piece of the puzzle?

Well, there's a few things I feel like, you know, a luxury product, you have to be able to identify your raw materials to call something a luxury product. I think that goes across the board from anything from like leather handbags to really premium wine, you know, you're talking about single vineyard sites in Burgundy where you've got really amazing viticultural practices taking place. Take that up through the culinary side, Michelin-starred restaurants. You're not getting a steak at the local grocery store. Those are, you know, really highly regarded cuts from particular ranches and they're treated a certain way. So when it comes to apparel, there was this lack of weight. There was not a lot of heavyweight options. That was one thing. And I think sometimes you can't, you can't just get by on head and weight. That's part of the equation, right? But also to look at the actual cotton you were sourcing, you know, and how it was sourced. And then on top of that, the construction methods, like a sweatshirt is really a modest product. If you look at a basic sweatshirt or a hoodie in this case, it's just, you know, it's, it's a casual garment. But if you add in double folded side gussets and you do reverse flatlock stitching all around it, and you, you know, really get down into the yarn level as far as making your own fabric and you, you know, construct it to pull it all together in a classic style. I feel like there's steps there that get bypassed by most of the blank companies because, and understandably, there's an enormous market for the, again, cheap and soft product. But you mentioned The New Yorker. That's like the perfect example of like, that's the kind of client that makes total sense for our brand, right? Yeah. They care about every touchpoint. It's not just their publication, but like, how do they represent their brand? And that's really who finds us to be the right fit.

Yeah, we publish a newsletter called The Backpack. We publish it every day, the first and third Friday of each month. And we just highlighted an article. Fashion pundits are calling the hoodie the, the number one high fashion garment for the year in addition to denim. So it's interesting, interesting. Your product's perfect for that. Evan, you're no stranger to the apparel world. Can you share a bit of a thumbnail sketch of why you're here, how you and Pete connected, and what your role is?

Yeah, I mean, I guess long story short, about a 20— over a 22-year period with a business partner and a lot of great people working with us, we built a brand called Alternative Apparel. Really was the first eco fashion brand in the blanks business. Very early on, we broke down our supply chain found the nastiness that's there. There's a lot of nastiness if you dig into other supply chains. You need to get in there and see how your stuff is made. And we were one of the first brands to incorporate, you know, recycled polyester from PET and plastic bottles, organic cotton, dyes that didn't emit in the atmosphere. And we grew that brand, eventually selling it to, I guess, the founder of the t-shirt, Hanesbrands. In 2017. So it was a great outcome for all. Then at that point, I was just wondering what to do next and really thought I could share much of what I had done wrong over the years. That's where I learned the most, thankfully ending up on a high note, but share it with others because I've always been drawn to, you know, creative brands, creative people, entrepreneurs, and felt like I could help them get there as well. So through a mutual friend, I got an Original Favorites sweatshirt. Somebody said, you got to see what these guys are doing. It's very different. And I fell in love like you did. Felt like opening, you know, my first Apple product.

Just right. Interesting.

Yeah. And met Pete and Dave, and that was in 2019. And now I'm invested with them and advising them, and they're doing things in a different way than we did, which, which is necessary in today's world.

That speaks so much about the product. It says for itself, obviously, when both of us get this product in and we're like, who made this? This is amazing, Pete. When you first opened, your intent was to start a conversation with brands directly, to operate more like a D2C, but directly to brands, right?

Yeah, we sort of call it like, you know, instead of direct-to-consumer, it's direct-to-brand, D2B. It's, it's our, our way of trying to make sure we control the conversation and touchpoints just like any brand. Now, we have zero interest in getting involved on the decorating side or being between a promotional company and a client. But you want to make sure that the client's educated on when they're asking for what they're looking for, because most people will come to a decorator or a promotional company and sort of say, we want a t-shirt and make it nice. And that's fine. There's a lot of brands out there that fit that void well, quite well. And then there's other companies that are like, no, we want a Supima cotton t-shirt. And, you know, when they do that, there's not a lot of options out there. We're one of the only companies, I think, in the world that makes a Supima cotton blank. And it's not that others can't, there's plenty of opportunity to do that. It's just really expensive. And I think that is, again, a very small part of the marketplace that's looking for something to differentiate through quality. And that's where our digital efforts and our entire brand was around having it look and feel more of a consumer brand, which would be familiar to someone when they were looking at it. They would get it, you know, more easily, I think, digitally. Right. And that allowed us to sort of avoid the traditional ramping up period of sales reps and trade shows and roller bags and fabric swatches. We had the conversation more directly digitally to start.

It was more than just the product and even the sustainability story and Pete, Dave being great guys that drew me to the brand. I mean, you've heard of digital native consumer brands and you understand how those experiences are more efficient and everything that Pete described, nothing's lost in translation. These guys were the first company I had seen that were building a digitally native, you know, wholesale blanks brand and entirely scalable. So from a business point of view, because we all aren't just in this to have fun, I've just seen how fast the business has grown and you haven't had to throw people at problems and your customers have felt the same level of service since day one with them. And it's all because they've mastered really this digital experience, which I don't think any other brand has in that industry.

Yeah. So to clarify that, to make sure that folks like me understand what we're talking about here, you built this amazing product, then you built this amazing experience on the website, and you sort of cut out all of this huge area of difficulty around the rep model and some of the traditional things you thought were broken. And your attempt was, let's talk directly to the brands, like make it as efficient as possible. Is that correct?

Yeah.

You decidedly didn't want to decorate. You want to only handle blanks. And now that you've worked with folks like our mutual friends at Canary, what is your approximate split working with brands? Like, you started out direct to consumer, then you start talking directly to brands, then you start working with distributors and agencies. So what's that split look like, Pete, as far as revenue?

It's at this point, that's an interesting question because I don't know if I have those numbers in front of me, but it has grown dramatically. I would say noticeably, even without the math in front of me, because we, we had this conversation last week where we, we have sort of realized that our relationships with the Canaries— you mentioned Canaries, a great partner of ours. They're so talented and they do a terrific job of communicating our quality and like our approach to the clients that will care about that sort of thing. Yeah. And it's become— I mean, these are our largest customers are without a doubt the sort of really premium promotional brands in the space that are promotional companies that are helping brands and companies develop their proper— like, I hate the term swag because it's just such a— it sort of denigrates the concept. It sort of treats it like it's something just kind of junk. But they are— they do such a good job of pairing the right brands and manufacturers with the right companies out there. I would say it's, it's probably 50/50 now, whereas maybe in the past it would have been, I think on that earlier podcast we did, it might have been like 90/10 at that point in terms of brand versus promotional or decoration.

So you've built a unique structure. I want to go back to that for a minute. You have no sales reps. You have this incredible attention to design. You have this high-quality, authentic product and service. How has this different approach to the business kept you focused on your mission and how has it really helped you amp your sales. It seems like this clear focus of yours— and Evan, you noticed a few things. You noticed the high-quality product. You noticed that their go-to-market strategy was very unique compared to competitors. Um, it seems like your signal-to-noise ratio would be pretty strong.

Yeah, I mean, Pete, if you want me to throw one thing out there too, as mentioned, I mean, I think that the SKU overload has just— it's too much for the industry. There's tools to filter out and find what you want, but there's like this pressure other brands feel to constantly introduce. And I think you can speed through the development process, not watch every little detail, and just put more crap out there. And, and I think what's been great about Original Favorites is it's a very limited product line, and they hear it, we hear it. But nothing's going to enter that product line unless it's been worked on for a long time and the materials have been sourced properly and the specs have been done right and the right color choices have been made. So I wouldn't, you know, expect this brand to be covering all bases. But yeah, what it does, it will do well.

And that echoes the name. That's our name is Original Favorite, right? Right. It's the idea that this is your original favorite, your original favorite t-shirt. Favorite sweatshirt, the thing you reach for first in the drawer. And as to Evan's point, fast fashion has sort of got us in this mindset. And thankfully there's been some big pushback on that lately, but this idea that like we're just going to rip through stuff and the apparel is going to just enter our closet and be in the trash 3, 4 weeks later because you wash it and it falls apart. And that has worked its way all the way through the blanks business where, as Evan said, the pressure to constantly invent the trend of the hour is so prevalent in that industry, and we want no part of that. I want nothing to do with it. It is the furthest thing from being sustainable. But not only that, there are so many companies out there just waiting for some runway picks to immediately send a photo to the factory to bang out this whatever new cut that they need as cheaply and quickly as possible and to get it out in the consumer's hands. And then they'll, you know, decorate it and wash it and wear it until it's out of style. And if you make We have that phrase, classics uncompromised. If you're making classics, then they're classic. And that sort of echoes my own personal closet. Like, it's not very big. Everything in there I like, I care about. It's stuff I wear over and over again because I think it's really good. And that in itself is a more sustainable model to fashion than this concept of just constantly churning out new data all the time.

Absolutely agree wholeheartedly. I was talking with Peter Martichoux, the, the founder of Chameleon Like, and, he made a comment that more and more buyers, end buyers are wanting clarity, obviously around purchasing, sourcing, things like that. And that's why he was stressing that his own brand to the end client was really important, just as yours is. And you're, you're really a step ahead of folks because you communicated to the end client to begin with so that as I am a distributor, an agency working with a very, very good client of mine, I don't mind telling them, hey, here's our partner because you have all these amazing resources on your website. I'm not just selling it. What I'm trying to get at is there is so much confusion around cotton and organics and recycled, and the confusion has just grown. You would think the more educated we've gotten, the more difficult it's got to clarify this. So let me ask you this about understanding cotton and organics. Why don't you use recycled cotton?

Pete? Well, there are a number of ways you can go about taking a sustainable approach. And recycled cotton is relevant today. It's— people talk about it, it's— it's— you hear about it a lot. There are some serious downside to it. And part of our tenet, of our tenets, of our core competency and our entire belief is around quality. And when you are getting into recycling cotton, to start, we are, we are taking an already crappy product essentially that's being recycled, and we are then trying to reuse it. And every time we do that, we are breaking the fibers down further and potentially introducing more elements to that process. Whereas our belief is let's just make it really good to start and use extra long staple cotton, for example, on t-shirts. And that shirt's going to last significantly longer. It's also going to be 100% cotton and it will be biodegradable if it does end up somewhere in a landfill. But to use better quality to start means it lasts longer, which means we're buying less, which means we're using less to try and recreate something from something that's already in, in not so many words, a crack. And short staple fiber cotton is, is used, torn, used and torn, and it gets weaker and weaker and weaker. It's got a shorter life cycle each time. So our thing is, instead of Band-Aids, let's get prevention and let's go back and try to, instead of throwing medicine at something, let's, let's start at the beginning and get it right to start.

Yeah. So by falling for the word recycle, really we're, we're creating more landfill. By using cheaper product. Evan, you've, you've probably been through every version of this evolution in cotton and organics and things like that. This is, this is also probably a reason why you decided this is a great investment is because look at where this is going and where the market is demanding it. Yeah.

And transparency. I mean, because they use Supima, they trace everything back to the field. You know, I haven't yet been with them on the trip, but they spend each year, they spend time with the folks at Supima. They bring that story back to customers like you guys that can share it with your customers. But most importantly, everything is just so traceable. Yeah. And it's because you get that with what you pay for. You get that, you know, that insurance that you're actually dealing with the proper company that's doing it right. To go to your point about you're hearing so much, it's confusing things because companies are only choosing to promote what they're doing in their lens that's sustainable. And most of them aren't taking it to this level. So they'll talk about having their lights on a timer so it turns off when they leave from work that day. That's one level. Okay, that's okay. But they're not investing in the product and down to the yard, into the field, to the mill to be able to tell a story like Original Favorites can.

Yeah. Pete, help us understand GOTS organic cotton. Why is that important?

Am I pronouncing that right? Yeah, yeah. It stands for the Global Organic Textile Standard. So that's the sort of the organization that helps to validate and confirm organic certification. You know, greenwashing— and our website, we've got a lot of information on this. There's people much smarter than me and more involved that go into this process to help us figure out the right way to do things. And it started at the beginning with us wanting to have a transparent look into our supply chain. And that term again is tossed out like crazy, just like sustainability, right? It's like organic. What does that mean? Well, organic means a lot of different things depending upon who you're asking. And along the supply chain, from the farmer to the gin to the yarn spinner to the fabric maker to the manufacturer, to the importer, to the company that's distributing it at any point along the way. There's a lot of people's hands involved here. And what part of this is organic? Is the cotton grown organically? And if so, what do we have to help prove that? And there's not a lot of— currently, at least historically, there's not a lot of— I don't know, I call it like a consequence to sort of just putting something on the website and just have— yeah, the it's very vague, it's a wide term. And so we brought in a third party 'cause not that we didn't trust the farmers, but I'm not there. Like with Supima, for example, as Evan mentioned, we're in the dirt. Like I go out to the farm, we know the farmers, that's down to really molecular level. Like we know everything about it. When you're getting into, you know, regular short staple cotton or even basic long staple cottons, and if you're not in the actual cotton fields, You're being told something. And so we were like, you need a third party to come in. And GOTS is the most comprehensive organic certification body in the world. So it's expensive.

Yes.

It takes a long time. Yes. It's really laborious to go through the process. However, what we get is at least somebody coming in and saying, yes, this is organic. Every step along the way has been verified. And it's not just organic. It's beyond that. With GOTS, they go into the supply chain. To look at socioeconomic factors. What are the factories like? Are they meeting social compliance? Are they meeting labor laws? And then there's a whole other host within that about dyes, the Oeko-Tex 100, you know, non-harmful, no formaldehydes or toxins in any of the dyes. So when I see people write like organic on something and that's it, which like, well, we need to ask questions as consumers. It's up to us, right? To like demand proof. Like show me something. Don't just write there's enough class action lawsuits out there across the board. And there's a ton of stuff in Western China right now with the whole Uyghur region and what's going on there that we're sort of finding out. And it's like, oh, if we leave people up to them to just write something down or put a stamp on something, we'll get the answers we want. But do you really know the detail about it? And so it was up to us to ask those questions. And I think consumers are at that point now where they want answers too. They want validation. They want, they want verification. They want things to be authenticated. Yep.

And that's the other reason why we're talking here today is because some folks might be asking why I'm obsessing over this particular topic. And it's because the demand from end clients has skyrocketed. I've never seen the demand for transparency, for sourcing. And this is the world we live in now. And so I wanted to— and plus, you look at a minimum 30 to 40% of this multibillion-dollar industry is spent— a minimum 30 to 40% is spent in this category, as we both know, and Evan especially knows very, very well. And that figure is probably conservative. Um, but it is astounding, the category. So help me, one more thing, Pete. What's the difference between GOTS and then— I'm going to mess this name up—

OEKO-TEX certified apparel? OEKO-TEX. So the OEKO-TEX certification sits within GOTS. Like, you can go get a separate OEKO-TEX 100, uh, okay, certification for your dyes, but if you have the GOTS certification, it's nested within it, covers it. And so I think there is also this, this sort of selective, we'll pick the things that we want to rest our laurels on and sort of advertise to our consumers. And brands are only as sustainable as they are required to be by their end users, the way I sort of look at it. And so it's, it's, it's how much of an inconvenience are we willing to take on to satisfy the absolute bare minimum of requirement that our customers are going to ask? And as the bar gets raised higher, it becomes more complicated for them to actually go through. So people will take the OCA tags and be like, we have non-harmful dyes, we're organic. Well, that's a part of it, but there's a lot of other things that go into that too. And so it's up to us to like, again, educate as to what the certifications are and who's trustworthy, but then also for us to demand that we get those from these suppliers. If that's important to you. Some people it doesn't matter to, and that's fine too.

Right.

Evan, I have a question for you, but one more thing on this, and you both know the answer to this one, but Supima cotton is a brand of cotton.

Is that correct?

Yeah, I mean, Pete, you can go into the origins. It's a fascinating history.

You know, it's, it's solely, it's solely sourced in the US, Pete.

It is, but it's Pima. Correct.

Now there's really, yeah, there's Peru too, but even its origins are back to the US.

Yeah. So it originated in the Southwest and it migrated to Peru. It's called Pima there. If it meets certain qualifications in the US, grown here, the USDA has to validate and verify fiber length, where it was grown, cotton farming practices, then it could be called Supima, which stands for Superior Pima. And that's a portmanteau for those words. So Supima can only be grown in the US. And quite frankly, the most regulated state, California, in the most regulated country, probably in the world, the US, you've got cotton being grown there and 90% of it's coming from the San Joaquin Valley where it is. It's unbelievable the level of verification. It gets into forensic sciences. There's actual molecular seen that goes on to value. And you can't say that about really any other premium cotton grown globally.

Yeah, that's amazing. I grew up in Texas, and so I grew up around a lot of cotton fields there as well. Um, it's funny, I, I also, I think the, the market's taste for quality products, and I think it's meeting the sustainable demand, has been so incredible. Um, I'm wearing right now, I'm wearing, this is a Mertz Schwanen t-shirt out of Germany, and these guys do such amazing work on these heirloom-type looms. And, and the market has sort of changed. Evan, have you seen that change in terms of when you were starting and now there's this demand that wasn't there before?

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's basically everything's become more casual, which is great. I mean, look, you were a little bit older than Pete, but to go to a nice restaurant, you had to put on what was perceived to be nice clothes back in the day. You just mentioned, right? In fashion hoodies. What did you call it? It's going to be the—

yeah, yeah, it's the new fashion statement.

It's the new fashion. Nobody's going to look at you funny if you wear a hoodie to your steak, right? Steak restaurant tonight. So there's, there's definitely work from home. People want to just feel better when they're doing activities. And so there's less need for more variety in your wardrobe and there's more occasions for use for what you're wearing. So yeah, now all of a sudden it's okay to wear comfortable clothes, but you still have great taste, you really need to find the intersection of the two. And I think that's why your clients are willing to pay more for what used to be commoditized items in the past.

They get to wear them more often, right? And minimalism and capsule collections and everyone's— there's a, there's a new market for this. Pete, let's talk a little bit about working with brands and helping us work with our clients, because we're not the experts in cotton. You are. That's why I wanted to have that conversation about that. And this is a very general question, but how do we work with our clients and educate our clients better in this process?

Well, I don't— we don't do a whole lot of pitching. So I think that's a good question. I would say if I'm in your shoes and I'm looking, it depends upon the client, right? Doesn't it? Sort of the clients here versus the ones that really don't. And it's not— I don't know that it's your job to make them care.

I think at the end of the day, it's a good point.

There are so many options out there. It's like find the right fit for them. And we tell that to people often when they ask us about things that they say, oh, well, this is really expensive. And we'll say, yeah, no, we're super expensive. We are the most— I like that answer. That's something that they need to know because if they're a brand, for example, and they're, and they're saying, well, I need to sell this t-shirt at $25, I tell them, go call Bella and they'll make a great t-shirt for what you need at the price you need it. It's right. Oh, you're not going to compare the two. It's a very different product. However, if you're going to sell it at $25, we're not the fit there. We're for probably 2 to 3% of this marketplace that's willing to spend more. So once you get that customer there, that's like, hey, I want something premium. At that point, I think it's about finding what's important to them and making sure that this will meet those needs. But, and we might be wrong for this, we don't really push or try to convert people. There's so many people out there that are looking for this. It's about us getting in front of those people that care. Yeah, because I can't make somebody care about where something came from if that's not part of who they are.

And yeah, that's a, that's a really good point. I am, you know, as you know, I was a distributor agency and I would be leading with a lot of this product. I would be absolutely leading with this guy that touches on, I think, a very consumer-driven need and demand right now. Thank you. Your website is exceptional. It's beautiful. It's very helpful. It's incredibly functional. You've worked hard at building resource lists on your site to help educate the market. You have a list of approved decorators. Like, by the way, how did they meet your standard and become approved?

Are these just folks you know? So it started off as like a way to help connect our clients with decoration because they would ask us, they'd say, great, here's what— here's my order. And then where do I send my artwork? And we'd be like, no, no, that's not what we do. Let us help you find someone that's near you that can help decorate. And so we had like a list of the top decorators kind of in each market that we were aware of, people that we would be shipping to on behalf of our client. And it'd be usually someone that we saw good work from or we heard from a client. We'd sort of just ping them and be like, hey, how did things go? And they'd say, oh, they were great, right on time, price was as quoted, good quality. So we started to like create this as a resource for them to make it easier because I felt like we didn't— to compete with like print on demand and people that offer those decoration tools, it's hard because that's a convenience. And so we tried to make it as convenient as possible for our stuff to get decorated. Also, and not to like brag about it because I don't take any credit for this, but our product does decorate quite well when you're using high-quality material. You get a smooth surface which allows for great printing. Yeah, great. You like to print on our stuff. So that is, uh, it was a lot easier for us to meet some of these folks and to, you know, have them take a look at what we were doing and then to get examples of their work too.

Also, they're not blends too. I mean, when you have blends, not to get too technical, those fibers fight for space, they cause pilling, it makes it difficult to have a great smooth surface to print on.

So actually, that's an incredible point. I mean, it's a very educational point that you just made in that regard. So you have a better substrate with the purer quality.

Correct.

You've made also investments in mobile.

It's funny, I'll jump in and correct you. Keep mentioning website. I would, I would advise anybody that wants to have their first experience with Original Favorites Use your phone, use a tablet. It's not just digital first, it's mobile first.

And that's a differentiator too. I'm unpacking this too. I don't want everyone to think I'm just here selling original favorites. I'm unpacking this because I see great product and a great brand and a great experience. I'm also in the middle of a lot of research on buyers and how they think and how they buy. And by 2025, 80% of B2B buyers are going to be buying through or complementary with a digital experience of some kind. Now, when 4-imprint style shopping cart appeared on the scene, everyone thought that is where the entire industry is going. And instead, what's happened in this $25 to $50 million, wherever the category is, into a billion industry, is that digital buyers have been creating their own boutique experiences with shops, but they are accustomed to now this digital experience. And so you're way ahead of the curve in terms of this mobile app. Um, is—

are you finding traction with it? Yeah, mobile is a huge part of our, you know, traffic. And because at the beginning our first clients were a lot of brands, small brands like startups, brands and brands just trying to figure out a way to differentiate, we developed, uh, the, the whole experience to be mobile first and then to make it desktop second so that it would be great desktop experience. However, it had to start by being a great mobile experience to dictate how the desktop was going to look. We created a shopping experience and a cart that if the blanks industry, generally speaking, the sites have been very clunky. They have this weird login backend thing. Consumer, they don't have a familiarity from a visual perspective. We wanted to make it look like a consumer brand site because that was familiar to people. And then also within this grid, how do you create a grid on mobile? Because the grid to add your products to the cart in bulk, requires it to be shrunk so far down. So we created this sort of toggle experience where you can pick out a product and see all colors within one size of that product and then toggle right or left from your phone and then quickly add to your cart. This was extremely important early on because we did not have inventory positions like we do today when we're not as we are today and stuff would be restocked and oftentimes it would sell out right away, which Again, that's like a consumer brand strategy on scarcity. We had no interest in trying to make cool kids that were sold out of stuff. We wanted the Canaries of the world to be confident knowing that they needed 10,000 black hoodies. Got it. No problem. And that is now the function of us trying to make sure that people could get to their phone quickly and order now becomes a benefit to clients that they can take their time, but they can do it on their phone. And that was because again, when stuff would sell out, people would be at dinner and then clients would email us and say, you guys just restocked and the stuff's gone. I wanted them to be able to like quickly slip away, add items to their cart, and then check out on their phone, which from a wholesale perspective, that's just not commonly found even today. It's just, it's the site's out there.

It's a really great point. I mean, we're making the same investments. Our decorator matrix that we've created through Commonsku is one of the most popular things we've launched in a while because everybody wants those right there at their fingertips. I, um, I had one question about Original Favorites as a brand. Since you're very fashion forward, um, and, and you focus on these basics but incredibly high quality, are year to date, are you seeing any trends, Pete, that surprise you?

So t-shirts are up for us versus hoodies, but we're not like trend-based. So like last year I'd say we sold more hooded sweatshirts than we did tees. That could be related to the fact that we had a very mild East Coast winter, you know, and people are buying lighter weight stuff. As Evan mentioned earlier, we have a very narrow SKU range and that's intentional. We only make a few products. We try to be really good at those particular products. So aside from like the year started off slower in January than last January and then picking up steam sort of apexing last year through kind of the last 60 days, aside from that and a macro level, there's really not a lot that we see other than black. Natural and heather gray continue to be the most popular colors.

And that just seems to be— Don't tell anybody the secret, Pete. Nobody knows that.

Hey Pete, has that changed or has that just been constant?

It's just been constant. And I think black, Evan told us at the very beginning, and I want to make sure I mention this too, Evan's been like an unbelievable resource. You talk about his experience, you know, being a co-founder and growing Alternative to the size it grew to, to then sell. You talk about a wealth of resources. I mean, he's been like an unbelievable resource. And he said, you have to have black in stock at all times. Colors. And we're at this time, we're trying to add color and like show this beautiful rainbow on the site. And he's like, just make sure you are not passing up opportunity with your core colors because you could build a collection around black, you cannot build it around mustard. So that's great. So yes, uh, black has been always popular.

That has not changed.

I have this question for both of you. Evan, since we're talking about you, uh, what brands do you keep an eye on for inspiring you and your work. Evan, you do all kinds of investments. You've got other things going on, as we were talking right before we started recording. Um, what brands are you following since you've been in the space for a long time that inspire you outside of obviously your investment and original favorites?

Outside of it, yeah, I, I'm, I'm into storytelling. So, uh, I'm a Jean and Willie— is that how you pronounce it?

The guys?

Oh yeah, I'm a Jean and Willie.

Austin, I was just in their Austin store. That they lead with story and yeah, and just that's the kind of brand I love shopping there when I go up there. But yeah, I think that just as we've described here, you know, I've always been a bit of a fan of James Purse, to be honest with you. No real corners cut there. Lifestyle over product and genuine, authentically done. There's a lot of brands that we've helped out, man, that we were— want to give out a secret that I shouldn't here, but For the first 10 years of their business, we made everything for Aviator Nation. For all of a sudden, I've got a teenage girl now that thinks it's the greatest thing since— I mean, honestly, in this business, when you support brands, you have to let them fly sometimes. They certainly need a blanks provider anymore. But when you're selling some of these great creative startup brands, it is cool to see some of them pop and really become kind of iconic.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know. I watch things that are outside. We should draw inspiration outside of our industry more often. Great point. Absolutely. So, so I appreciate brands, car brands, different entertainment brands, and try to see how they're controlling their experience and talking to their audience. And we should be bringing that in to what we do.

It's a really great point. Yeah, that was— Steve Jobs was really good at that. Pete, how about you? What brands inspire you?

Who do you watch? So, uh, on the apparel side, I'm just a sucker for a lot of the Japanese designers and brands. Uh, just always had kind of have been the adherence to traditional practices, the approach of consistency, but also like, as Evan said, authenticity. That's always the thing that I kind of freak out over. And whether it be like a, you know, sweater from a company that makes fishing sweaters from, you know, the north islands of like Scotland to you know, a watch manufacturer that, you know, makes everything in-house and puts the whole thing together, you know, in Germany. I think there's a lot of just different things that I am drawn to. It's usually brands though, and it's usually brand first and it's usually based around like a, like a core competency that they haven't wavered from over a long period of time.

Yeah, the Japanese cotton, the obsession over Japanese cotton, same thing with denim, is, is been fascinating to watch. Yeah.

Last question, Pete.

What's your view of the future of the market for your segment? I mean, do you see continued growth opportunities on the horizon? Do you see us moving from moving to higher premium product and that increasing?

What's your gut feel? I think it follows other industries. And I, again, I always equate— I tend to equate stuff to the culinary world a lot. But if you look at restaurants, The menu situation, it used to be a very simple one-line menu. Now it's, we're getting into the, we're getting into the ranch level of where this protein's coming from or where the veggies are coming from. And I think that's not going away. Look at coffee. I mean, look how specific we're getting now. Right. I feel like there's just an inevitability. Not everybody's going to care that much and that's okay. But the people that do, that's not going away. You don't go backwards to just generic stuff when you've gotten into specialized things. And so I feel like The, uh, with the onset of now the Textile Genesis platform and the blockchain technology behind tracking where the cotton's coming from through companies like Orotane to get your footprint of like literally within 50 feet of where that plant was grown. When you're getting into the forensics of it, you can't, it's difficult to think about just something coming from anywhere when it could have some unsavory components to it. So I think we are moving in a direction that's not going backwards. And I feel like turning this big sort of oil tanker around that these large distributor companies are going to have to deal with this. There's a lot of moving that's going to have to happen for them to get in line with what the consumers are going to be expecting.

Evan, you've seen a lot. You've seen both sides of this business.

Alternative was—

I remember when alternative came on the scene, it was such a unique product. It was such— and we could get it. That was the interesting thing. We could get it. And what's your view of the future of the market? You've got tons of experience looking at this space.

How do you see it? I'm, I'm concerned about kind of this race to the bottom. And, and, you know, to grow, we even had to find ways to sell things at cheaper prices. There's just constant pressure to grow that way. So I think it's overskewed. I think it's overbranded. And honestly, at the end of the day, it creates too much things that are being tossed. I think Pete's example of sustainability being get something you can use for a long time applies to this industry, maybe even more so to the hard goods segment where we constantly get these corporate giveaways that we never use. And so I think pressure will come from end use and we're going to have to find a way to satisfy that great feeling you get when you get something cool and, you know, swag, as they put it. But it has to be longer lasting and it's got to be something that just doesn't end up in a trash can. Yeah, I really— I think we need to call upon the big ones, the big wholesale distributors and the huge promotional products companies to start doing a little less is more. You'll find that maybe you can drive better margins that way too, because there's not such a race to the bottom. And all that really does is create waste and to me, lower profit margins, to be honest with you.

Yeah, absolutely. Pete and Evan, thank you so much for spending the time with us today to talk about all of this. I really enjoyed it and love your product. I'm obviously obsessed about it and thanks.

You're doing amazing work. Your office setup is aspirational to us both. Well, we've always loved the way you've set that thing up. So it's like, I want Pete's. So there you go. At first we think it's just, what do you call it, one of the backgrounds, but the—

right.

Sophisticated. I have cars moving that way, right?

Right, right.

Thank you, my friends. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of SKU Cast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SKU Cast on iTunes or to our blog community.comandskew.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.