As a wholesaler of funny t-shirts, Crooked Monkey has always found creative ways to get our t-shirts into the hands of the end consumer (that's you!).

In the beginning we used to drive around in our Honda Civic--making appointments and delivering shirts on site. Then we started attending tradeshows--really launching our brand further. We started to get recognized at these tradeshows and attending more and more of them. At the height of our love of tradeshows, we probably attended 20 shows/year. Buyers from retail stores all over the country, and the world, came to check out our newest lines and see what new wholesale opportunities were available for them.

Then came the recession. Buyers realized that a trip to Las Vegas, with all the associated costs, was just not in the cards, baby. They decided, and rightfully so, that they'd rather use their money on clothing, and not on frivolous trips. By August of 2008, we decided that Crooked Monkey would significantly reduce its presence at tradeshows and increase its direct contact with stores--either thru road trips (returning to the glory days), phone calls, emails, and other methods.

It is with a bitter sweet feeling that I report that we made the right decision. The Tradeshow is dead. They have become a waste of time. Crooked Monkey has managed to reduce its presence at shows, while still growing during this great recession--proof that quality and awesomeness at the right price is priceless.

Here's one other issue that really irks me about tradeshows. The slowing economy causes less retailers to attend tradeshows. Meaning that wholesalers, like Crooked Monkey, sell less clothes at these shows. The logical progression would be that Tradeshows should drop the price of their shows and offer incentives--yet they continue to charge astronomical prices. How does that make any sense? Not a sermon, just a thought.

Oh and the picture below is from our first ever tradeshow 3 years ago! That's Jon, Della and Me.

Labels: About us, Boutiques, not a sermon just a thought, Office Stories, recession, reflections, retail, ruminations, Tradeshows, wholesale

Last week was the semi-annual MAGIC tradeshow at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Since we are primarily a wholesaler of funny t-shirts, this is a great spot for us to show our line and introduce our retailers to our new funny and graphic t-shirts.

The graphic shirts, were a big hit at the show, and we'll be introducing them to our website very soon. I love the new graphic shirts because they look awesome. Although they're not funny, they still work within our demographic, and it opens up a whole new market for Crooked Monkey. Pretty soon we won't just be the funniest t-shirt company, but the provider of all awesome t-shirts in the world. Quite a lofty goal, I know, but with your help we can make it happen.The tradeshow itself was certainly less attended than in previous years--there were 1/3 less wholesale exhibitors and probably the same drop in the numbers of retailers attending. We met a bunch of great people out there and got picked up a by few high end stores in Italy. Our shirts will now be in the fashion capital of the world--watch out.

We stayed at the Wynn. If you haven't been there yet, I'd suggest checking it out. It's sweeeet. They've also got a European Pool. The club there, Tryst, is tons of fun--and overlooks waterfalls.

We returned on Friday and are ready to get back to creating awesome shirts, like the one below.

Labels: Italy, Las Vegas, Tradeshows, wholesale

Since we are primarily a wholesale funny t-shirt company, we don't get to hear from our satisfied customers as much as we'd like. When we do hear the love stories, we get all tingly inside and are motivated to create even funnier t-shirts.

This particular story is a bit bittersweet. A customer emailed us today asking for her favorite Crooked Monkey shirt. Only issue is, we don't (and never have) carried that tee. She was convinced that it was a Crooked Monkey original, but after an intense round of emails she conceded that in fact, the CEO and founder of Crooked Monkey would recognize a Crooked Monkey slogan when he saw it.

But even greater than her belief that all funny t-shirts can only be produced by Crooked Monkey, is that she decided to stop looking for the shirt she was hoping for, and pick up a C Monkey shirt instead.

Colette W. wrote:
"Ahhh that’s too bad! It was in the Crooked Monkey section and I thought I saw the little monkey on the back. Oh well…

Will head over to the online store now – I’d rather support Crooked Monkey anyway."

She was looking for a Rehab t-shirt. We gave her a discount and a few meds.

Labels: customer service, Customer stories, wholesale

I haven't really gotten a chance to blog/talk about Las Vegas. Crooked Monkey Funny t-shirts took quite a large booth this time at the tradeshow out there. It was twice the size of last year's booth, and it really helped increase our Wholesale Funny t-shirt customer base. We got it into a slew of new stores and introduced our fall line. We've got a great picture of Ben wearing our I recyle boys t-shirt.

If you'll notice in that picture my tri's look pretty big. Well there's two way to grow those babies. You can either spend time in the gym or wear smaller shirts. I've chosen the latter.

Back to the topic at hand. Tipping in Las Vegas. It's such a ridiculous "custom" in Las Vegas. Every single person in the entire city expects hand outs. My brother and I played a little game where we tallied up all the tips that we were expected to give in a day. I also had a pocket in my wallet that was dedicated to tips--I figured I needed about $50 in singles a day to satiate the Las Vegas obssession with tipping. At the end of my trip I was giving bills to anyone walking within a five foot radius--lest I upset someone for not being forthcoming in offering tips.

Next year, instead of handing out tips, I'm going to hand out our "I do it for the tips" t-shirt. Maybe that'll cheer them up.

Labels: Las Vegas, Life stories, Tradeshows, wholesale

Over the last week we've had some issues with our processing center and we've been working tirelessly to get it back up and running so that people can finally enjoy their C monkey funny t-shirts.

It's been pretty annoying dealing with it--we've had to switch over merchant services and jump through hoops just to get back up and running.

Customer service is real important to us so we contacted each and every individual who tried to order one of our funny t-shirts over the last week. We emailed them with a discount code apologizing for our issues and offered 20% off their order.

So thanks to BB&T for getting everything finalized. I'm pretty psyched. Now that we're at the top of page 2 for Funny t-shirts, we're getting a bunch more orders and we can finally process them. Our wholesale customers of funny t-shirts are also now back on track--thank god!

Labels: customer service, thank god, wholesale