I'm not even bothering reading the usual multiple paragraphs of enlightenment put forth here. Long and short great original post, I'm going to e-mail OGR (already have a few of their shirts) and while Drew is totally horning in on your post (cause he never does that), he does have some cool stuff which I also own.
PS to Drew - you can't sell what you don't have. I've enquired about a couple things over the past two years - don't have it..... Some long sleeve button down shirts would be cool...hint, hint.
You should, you might learn something about the overrated Bronco t shirt business.
As you are well aware, and as I've said before, briefness is often not my strong suit. If you can only comprehend 140 characters at a time, perhaps you could start a Bronco Twitter group. I'm out on that for sure! ;D
No, I never intended to "horn in". I made an offer to possibly bring his idea to market (with our money and to sell it through our established site), then I got asked a couple direct questions by others. I guess I should have just ignored them completely?
So, if that is the definition of horning in, I wish more would do it to me. I'd often love to have someone else fund some of my other ideas and handle the inventory and order fulfillment of them for me!
And you (Ted) just posed questions more subtlety when you commented and then asked by a suggestion of something not practical, but perhaps I should just ignore that so I do not use any more bandwidth in this thread to actually answer your request or comment? Nice try! Yes, my Vendor/Sponsor status helps Jon pay for some of that bandwih on here, so I will cash in on a bit of that here. ;D
If JR wants to pursue something with OGR, have at it. It became clear that was the only option he was actually interested in, which is why I retracted my previous offer. I first thought he just had an idea and wanted to get it to market, so I offered. I never made a stipulation on design criteria or that there had to be an OBR logo or .com, he assumed all of that. The only criteria I'd have is that there was an apparent demand for it among the group to make it worth investing in, pretty simple really.
I'm still not sure about this faux turf war JR has repeatedly alluded to. We all know there are several of us on here who are Sponsors/Vendors (and a few who probably are not) who have repeatedly brought some cool shirts to market for the group over the past 10+ years. We also know there have been many other shirts made by large companies as well. For the handful of us in the community that has made them, it is a side gig at best from what I have seen. Mostly just because we like to make something cool that other Bronco folks will also enjoy.
Personally, I'm more of the thought to promote the Bronco we all like versus myself by the thought that we are cool simply because we are getting older, balder and fatter, but hey, that's just me. When people know you are a Bronco guy, they will know you are cool by proxy regardless of your age of gender.
Ted is correct, we are often out of items. Welcome to the catch 22 of a limited run, niche market. We do our best to guess on sizes, but always end up with too many of some and run out of others, and it does not always follow the same trend as the last design. We usually can not justify the setup and minimum run quantity just to restock the couple sizes that are out. Most designs only have 144-200 shirts per run spread over 4-7 sizes, so you can not just set up to run one or two sizes that are out for 10-20 shirts. Not with actual quality screen printed shirts. Direct to garment is another process that has its own challenges.
We decided earlier this year to clear out what we have, then do only one or two designs at a time, until they are all gone, then replace with another. Trying to manage 60+ SKUs of 6-7 designs and a range of sizes for a small market is for the birds! I'm sure Ted saw Nick at the Super Celebration surrounded by 12-15 totes of product, yet many sizes were out.
Sorry Ted, but long sleeve button downs you want will likely not happen as they are rarely, if ever requested. The OBR line of shirts has been exclusively screen printed items so far. We could never justify a run of the size needed to pay for the screen costs of a specialized shirt like that, and still sell it is a reasonable price. Not to mention that screen printed and button down generally do not go together (unless perhaps a short sleeve, mechanics style Red Kap / Dickies garage type work shirt like we have done twice now).
An embroidered MEB shirt, sure. Nick has has done those in polo, Henley and long sleeve button versions and has the digitized embroidery file. We could also do the OBR logo that is on our hats onto a shirt for you if that is what you want. Nick does the embroidery for both OBR and MEB in house and therefore can even do those as a one off custom order since that does not require a batch process like screen printing to be cost effective.
See, when I get asked things, it takes a thought out response to actually answer them. So, if in the future that is too much, feel free to use the skim technique you used previously and just leave out the comments or suggestions directed towards me.
So there you have it, the "how sausage is made" of the niche Bronco shirt world for Ted, and Good luck with your pursuit to JR.
If anyone has any other related questions, requests, ideas or comments for me, please send me a PM. I am unsubscribing from this one since I have already spent too much time here in JRs thread.
