SPECIALTY PROGRAMS

Situation:

A leading shipping company sponsors 69 colleges and has the rights to co-brand its logo with the collegiate logos on approved merchandise. For several years, they unsuccessfully tried to offer collegiate merchandise to its 400,000 employees. The challenge was that the math didn’t work to pre-decorate items for that many schools. They needed us to offer 20 items per school in the school colors, with no minimums and no inventory liability. Very few, if any, companies have the technology and capabilities to run a program like this that is profitable and reasonably priced.

Execution:

Using the tools in our system and partnering with a licensee, we were able to build a very customized online store with a great selection of licensed T-shirts, polos, jackets, hoodies, bags and drinkware in multiple colors. All items were pre-approved by each school and royalties were collected. Everything was decorated on demand, with no inventory. Our calculations estimated that their cost to run this as a traditional inventory program would have been over $61K per school and over $4.2M total.

Success:

Once we understood their challenges, we were able to leverage our extensive JIT embroidery, heat transfer and laser etching, plus our technology and processes to make this program work. The client had talked with over 30 companies, including many of the industry leaders, about running this program. Every company – except iCoStore – said it wasn’t possible.