Monday, January 19, 2009

And if that wasn't enough!!...

Hello again! Two posts in one day, I know, I know... I should get a hobby.

But I have some great news! We are now able to offer a cheaper shipping option for our U.S. customers.

So here are the options (new and old):

USPS First Class Mail (3-6 days) - $2.50
USPS Priority Mail (2 days) - $5
Hand Pick Up - $0 Available for customers buying shirts online, to pick up at the Fremont Market, an event or from one of the two of us personally.

The First Class Mail option cuts the shipping cost in half and only adds one more day!

You've waited this long for your Choke Tee... another day is nothing!

NEW HOODIE: Giraffe's a bit warmer now!

We had an amazing day at the Market yesterday!

The sun was out and so were all the people. It was the first time that we weren't freezing for 8 hours. I was super thankful for that. And we definitely have a better time with each other when we're not both so pissed that it's cold outside :).


We launched the Giraffe Hoodie yesterday on the website and at the market to rave reviews. People love it and it's definitely hoodie weather right now!
It's an American Apparel hoodie (of course!) in Dark Heather Grey and it comes in sizes from extra small to large. It's the same design as the original Giraffe tee, but the printing changes from hoodie to hoodie because of the pocket seams. It looks really great and we've alerady sold a few of them! Check it out on the website!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

What's Been Going On?

Well, a lot has happened since those first few days.

We haven't really enjoyed the success at the market as we did our first three weekends, but that is to be expected. It's January now and people are holding their wallets close to their butt pockets. We expected it to happen. It's hard to sell tees when you're freezing your butt off. We're excited for the day when we can actually wear the tees to the markets, without 3 layers on top of them.

Anyways, we're getting ready to start the process of a Spring/Summer line. We decided to combine the two since we should have been working on Spring last fall. Oops! It's time to play catch up now! So our Spring line might include a few new tees, a hoodie and some scarves! We're excited about the new designs and we'll share them on here as soon as they have been chosen. (We definitely have a few good designs to choose from.)

In the mean time, we just ran a reprint of the Giraffe tee. We had it printed on some women's heather grey tees and a few hoodies, too! It should be updated on the website by the weekend and will be available at Sunday's Fremont Market. Hope to see you there!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Pink is the New Shirt Company

So it’s been a crazy week!

We placed another order for more shirts from American Apparel on Sunday night so that we could print more of our Seattle design. It seemed to be a fan favorite at the Market, so we wanted to have more going into the holiday season. We ended up getting those delivered on Saturday, just in time for the Market on Sunday.

Matt sold shirts at his work’s Trunk Show on Thursday and Friday. We ended up selling quite a few shirts!

Throughout the week, we emailed a bunch of bloggers a few pictures of our designs to see if we could create some kind of buzz with the online store. Check out some of them, click the name to link: Alex Garcia in Seattle and Blogazar. Matt and I thought it would be fun to send a picture into Pink is the New Blog, which is a pretty popular blog that we’ve both been reading for several years. The guy that runs the blog posts pictures that readers send in mostly with the theme, “Pink is the New…(fill in the blank)”. So we sent in one of the picture with Lindsey on it, in a Shut the Front Door tee. It’s the brown one, with pink letters and it had our website on the bottom. We didn’t really even think about it… I guess we figured it was a long shot. Long story, short… on Saturday we got an order from someone in Alaska.

Then Chicago, then Washington, D.C and Michigan. And the orders for the shirt poured in. Needless to say, we’re out of the Shut the Front Door tee now. We placed an order for more shirts from American Apparel on Sunday night again and we called our screen printers to let them know we needed them as soon as possible. I’m hoping that we get them before Sunday for the Market. Plus it’s the last weekend before Christmas and we’re hoping that the buzz will lead to more people seeing it.

It was pretty crazy for everything to blow up in one week. We’ve had to go to the Post Office every night to mail off shirts. I’m hoping that soon, we’ll streamline that whole process. Especially this time of year, the lines are super long. But for now, I don’t mind at all. It’s nice to be doing something that is for us. That we created.

Anyways, we’ll be at the Fremont Market on Sunday again this week. Maybe we’ll see you there!

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Launch Day!

We finally did it! We launched our shirt company today! And you made it here! Thank you, by the way!

After about four months of good times, bad times and all the times in between, we finally completed Round 1.

We spent all day today at the Fremont Market in Seattle, WA. It was rainy and cold... but we had quite a few shoppers. Our first sale was to a guy who spent 4 seconds at our booth, ending with "My son will wear anything" and he bought one. It was very anti-climatic and Matt and I just looked at each other, like "OK, what do we do now?" He left happy though. We knew we were in for a treat when one lady walked up and asked, "what is this?", pointing to the Giraffe shirt. Matt said, "it's a Giraffe!" and the lady replied, "Oh, I thought it was a slug. With a crown on." Oh geez.

Our little booth got quite a bit of action throughout the afternoon though. We ended up selling 14 shirts, to a wide range of people. Someday, when I'm not so busy updating the website, taking pictures, folding tees or designing I'll share the store about how our little Choke Shirt Co. came to be. For now, I'm going to get started on my next batch of things to do. Thanks for stopping by... and happy shopping!