Hello, and welcome to the Making It In Asheville podcast. This is your friendly neighborhood podcast where each week we sit down within Asheville. Maker, entrepreneur, small business owner, community member, ask them what they're making making and how they are making it in Asheville. And we are pretty much in the middle back half now of a e commerce focused season where we're sitting down with Asheville businesses that are selling physical things over the internet to people and also in person and also in trade shows. And so if you're interested in e commerce things, you've come to the right place. If you're interested in Nashville based businesses, you've come to the right place. Today we have on a very exciting, very funny, very witty, very we had to be discerning on which products we brought to the table as examples, business called High Cotton Highcotton.com. And we have Matthew Bishop here joining us. Matthew, please introduce yourself to the Making of Nashville podcast and tell us just like quickly, what is High Cotton today?
Okay. My name is Matthew Bishop. I'm one of the co owners of High Cotton Gifts and we create and sell products that are very humor based. Everything we do know, tongue in cheek, kind of some sort of messaging. So we have a variety of products. We do drink, coasters, doormats, car magnets, wall signs. But like I said, all of it ties in with some sort of funny saying or funny image for our different products.
As an example, I saw that as quoted by Karma Karma, I said I saw that, which I really dig. So and then what is your role at High Cotton? So I am Vice President of sales and like I said, one of the I manage. We also sell wholesale, so we work with seven different rep groups across the country. So I manage all the rep groups and all of those sales reps and then sort of manage then all of our different sales channels as well. So so much to ask. When was high cotton founded?
So High Cotton actually started like back in 1989. So you represent one of the older businesses that we've had on the podcast, not in Asheville, but that we've had on the podcast. I imagine a ton has happened from 1989 to today. When did you get involved in High Cotton? I came on with High Cotton right about 2009. Okay. Yeah.
Awesome. I would say like the decade mark, it's pretty much a before and after type line where most podcast guests we've had are after 2010 ish. So even that means that you've probably seen a ton in the ebbs and flows of retail at large. And I cannot wait to double click and learn a bit more. Give us a sense of the scale of this operation. So you mentioned a ton of different product types from coasters to car magnets, doormats, wall art, seven rep groups. We have had a guest on that talked a little bit about rep groups in the past. That seems like there's maybe an army of people selling products for you depending on how big those rep groups can be. So give us a sense of, like, are you in all 50 states? How do we think about the size of the business?
Yeah, well, I guess the way that you could look at it is essentially we're in probably twelve to 1500 brick and mortar stores across the country. So, like, mom and Pop Main Street kind of stuff? And definitely in every state, we don't necessarily have sales reps in every state, but we definitely have accounts in every state. And we work with mail order catalogs, online catalogs, so we do custom products for those types of customers and create and produce designs and products just for them that they sell on their sites or in their catalogs.
Wow. Okay. So the scale is huge. Give us a sense. I'm looking at, like I saw that karma. This might be a 25 year old concept, but talk us through how things get made and where this comes from. How do we do this?
Well, initially when the company was first founded, there were two founders. So there was one gentleman who was very business savvy and sort of drove that part of the business. And then the other partner was super creative, came from an advertising background, just like funny, funny, funny guy. So just like pages and pages and pages and pages of stuff, because I.
Imagine some of these might come. My mind goes, this sounds like old timey comedy. Like straight up, just like one liner stuff like counting the ten only makes it premeditated is funny. I'm sorry that I slapped you. It just seemed like you were going to keep talking forever and I panicked. These are true comedy moments here, captured as art. And so, yeah, okay. An ad type person just with a notebook. That is sharp.
Yeah. So for years, that was kind of the system or how they did things. And then in 2006, he passed away suddenly, and then it was kind of this like, what do we do for creativity now? You know what I mean? So that was a moment where we actually started looking sort of outside of the company for artists who are creating work that made sense to our customers. So we actually started working with artists and licensing their work on our products. So right now we work with probably six or seven different artists and license their work. And then we also still create content in house.
Wow. At just a high level licensing art from artists, what does that relationship look like? I have very little insight. Is it like per unit sold? Is it per that they give you? Yeah, it's based on sales. A percentage of sales.
Percentage of sales on the items. And you can have a thousand of them sitting in a warehouse in Asheville, but it's not until they move. What about the difference between moving as wholesale, like, to a mom and pop shop in Philadelphia versus selling to a customer? Is it tracked at the very, very end of the purchase or just wholesale means that it's sold at the very. End of yeah, yeah. So at the time it's sold wholesale, it's paid, and at the time it sells retail, it's paid.
Interesting. Cool. That seems like a lot of tracking. You'd have to do a lot of. I mean, it is, but our system generates reports and it's pretty straightforward. Amazing. Yeah. Awesome. Okay, so it's all based on SKU. So it's just like it's pink and. Then a check gets printed. It's not even boom, done. Someone's with a pen in a notebook. Okay, exactly. Okay, so now there's a team of artists and then internally you're creating work as well. And on the website I remember seeing made domestically.
Yeah. All of our stuff is made in the US. Which is impressive. Where how is there like a place that just does coasters? Yeah, just like a coaster mean we're fortunate to have two of our production facilities actually here in North Carolina, both kind of in the Winston Salem area. Amazing. And then we have well, no three, so our screen printer as so our doormats are screen printed, so all the different products kind of are manufactured in different places because it's a different process.
And I have to imagine at some point someone might have said, hey, why don't you make this stuff overseas? And so is there a why that keeps you all producing locally? Is it for efficiency, like smaller batch sizes and it's local. How are you thinking about where this is made? Because I love that it's made in.
Yeah, no, I think it started out with when the company first started, we also did all of our own production manufacturing. So at that time the company was based outside of Hilton Head, so huge facility down there that did all of the products down there and did all of the shipping as well. So there came a point where it just made sense to sort of do that, to outsource that, because it just. What are you going to be great at?
Yeah, it's a lot. So having had all of that production already in the US. And sort of jobs, so we just made a commitment to just keeping it all US. Based. And it does, it helps us as far as inventory. We're not having to buy huge quantities or containers like that if we're buying things overseas. And because our facilities, our production facilities are located so close to our fulfillment center, we have deliveries within like a day or two.
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Thinking about attempting to make sense of the scale because I've seen your storage and co warehousing here and it's such an efficient use of space because most of your products are like, this is the thickest thing on the table. And it's like I don't think in millimeters, but it's like a quarter of an inch maybe. Yeah.
So you can have so much stuff in such a small amount of space. That 1500 locations. Was it in the US? Tons and tons and tons and tons of product. That sounds like to me we have. 500 SKUs.
Spread across all the time. How do you think about products over time? So I have to imagine some things have had like crazy longevity. The concept was a home run. I don't know when I saw that came to be, but I have to imagine that's not going anywhere. If you made it this year, it'll be here 25 years from now. If you made it 30 years ago, it'll be here 30 years from now. Yeah. How quickly do you give up on a concept? If it's like, not selling, if it's created, is it just always going to be an option by way of design or art? How have you thought about it over time?
I think that we definitely give things like a cycle. And it's amazing how when we get together to start putting together the new catalog, so we're going sifting through all the ideas that we've sort of accumulated over the last six months and deciding what's coming to the top and what deserves a little attention. It's always amazing that the design sometimes that you're in love with and you're like, this is a no brainer. It gets out in the world and like, nothing, like, nobody gets it. You know what I mean? So we try not to shut to turn it off too quick because a lot of times it just needs some time to build momentum. But you can usually tell in about a year if something is going to make it or not.
And are there examples of art that has just been a 30 year staple? Absolutely. We number our doormats. Like the first doormat was like M one. It volleys between number one and number two. Best selling is M 41, which was at the very beginning. And it says, Hi, I'm Matt. And it just for 20. Does it look like a name tag?
No, they all kind of have a similar background. And then it's just simple screen printing. But it's like from the very beginning it's been in every year. It's just sometimes it's number one, sometimes it's number two. What is the next Matte concept doormat that you make? What number might it be? Approximately 534. Oh my goodness. And we're into the this point.
Hello. Are you watching on YouTube, listening on your favorite podcast player? If you're not on YouTube, perhaps consider it because behind us you would notice that we are in an absolutely beautiful space. And that, Space, is our seasoned sponsor. Ernest readymade? Warehousing and so if you're not familiar with Ernest, it is fantastic. I am joined here by my wife, Sarah Ubertaccio, founder of QB Cucina and one of Ernest newest clients. Yeah. Excited to be back on the podcast.
Great to have you back. Episode 110 if you haven't listened before, but what we want to talk about today is why you chose Ernest and what makes Ernest stand out, let's say, compared to finding a new office space in town to fulfill from as a very high level. Ernest is a 30,000 square foot facility on Sweden Creek, just south of Asheville. Huge facility, beautiful facility. Why did you choose to go with Ernest instead of any other place in Asheville?
Yeah, well, I have a small growing business e commerce. We sell pasta tools and Italian kitchenware, and we currently outgrew the space that we were in and really needed a different kind of space. And so I love Ernest. I love the fact that as we grow, Ernest can scale with us. So they have different sized co warehousing spaces, so if we grow bigger, we can just quickly move over to a different space within the same building, which is a really huge time saver. I also really love that they have daily, sometimes multiple times a day pickups from Ups, FedEx, and USPS, so we don't have to worry about packages getting lost or stolen and our team doesn't have to drop them off at the post office, and it just saves us all a bunch of time and headache. And also, they have temperature controlled rooms, which, for a business like us, one of our products is pasta flour. It's really sensitive to temperature. It's really, really important for us to make sure that our products are secure and not getting damaged while they're being stored in our warehouse. And I love all the other amenities. They have a photography studio so we can quickly photograph our products. They have a full break room. They have coworking space that we're able to use for our meetings with team members and other people that may come to see us. And then just the sense of community being around other small businesses is something that we currently don't have, and I'm really, really looking forward to connecting with others here.
I love that ernestready.com, if you've not visited that before or you can check out Makingitinasheville.com Ernest. And we have a bunch of information about the partnership we've built for this season, as well as some perhaps special discounts and incentives. If you happen to be an ecommerce business or the right fit for Ernest, you should definitely check out Makingintashville.com Ernest Ernest and back to the episode. Okay. Yeah. So 41 is early days. Wow. Any other obvious standout pieces, whether it's car magnets or coasters?
I mean, the coasters are definitely our best selling item, and I think that a lot of that is just the doormats as well. But the coasters, especially just the functionality of a coaster, you can't go wrong. It's a great price point, like retail $354, depending discretionary. Yeah. And it's a great little pickup item. You don't know what to get somebody for a present. And you can always find something that's going to work for the sense of humor, for the person you're getting it for, and slip it in a card and you're good to go.
Yeah, I can see that being the case. Any particular coasters that stand out? So we have three on the table today. We have three on the table today. I read one earlier. I'm sorry I slapped you. You didn't seem like you would ever stop talking, and I panicked with just the sweetest little I Love Lucy type era face. Smiling.
Yeah. So this is one of our licensed artists. It's a company called Ephemera, and he has this tremendous collection of vintage photography, and he also has a great sense of humor. So his kind of sort of design aesthetic is always paired with these sort of very interesting vintage ladies. It's really a lot of fun.
I love it. All right, so then let's talk about how you've thought about sales over the last almost 15 years at High Cotton. So clearly this seems like a heavily weighted towards wholesale business. Walk us through lightly what wholesale looks like. You have these I want to say distributors, but that's not the word for it. What is the word? Sales reps. Sales reps, manufacturers reps. Yeah, exactly.
So you have these rep agencies or rep teams. Do those happen inbound do they say, hey, we saw your product, we want to rep you? Are you googling reps for California?
How does that of? I think initially, before we started working with rep groups, you can sort of go and set up your own booth and kind of run your own show kind of thing. And I think what happened was imagine during trade show had trade show. Yeah, for sure. And I think during one of those shows, the sales manager at the time just visited, sort of checked out some of the showrooms and found one that they thought, oh, we would do great in here, and you open the conversation and hopefully they like your product and want to take you on.
So as someone who's never been to a trade show, what I'm hearing is seems like there would be a giant room of independent wholesale vendor types, and then people are walking around as buyers, and then there might be like a smaller room, but it's all thoughtful. And that's a rep group trying to be cooler than the general public. Right. And so if you can get your product in that room, these people already have accounts. People are coming to see them. The traffic is already there.
Traffic is already there. And so we want to be in the rep group rooms at trade shows traditionally for higher volume or more like.
Yeah, just for I feel like especially initially, I think that it's just a great way to get your product out there and get it seen. And for us, it just has always been a really good relationship with the various groups, and it's very sort of cyclical. Like, the Gift and home trade shows are twice a year, so it's January and then again in July, but then we show in Atlanta and Dallas and Las Vegas and Seattle, and then we have groups that don't have showrooms that are just like on the road showing our products.
Cyclical. One of the questions I was going to have about the trade shows in general, I imagine Pandemic meaningfully changed wholesale and trade show experiences. What other trends have you seen in the last I mean, maybe we talk about that for a moment. Has anything changed since 2021? 2022 ish in the last year or two. I imagine 2020 was like a wash, nothing to talk about. But is it like back with a Vengeance because people missed it, missed going to Vegas and looking at home goods? Is it different, or are people running web based versions of trade shows that are actually working? How have they evolved?
Well, definitely after 2020, it's like everyone sort of like during that year, I think everyone was scrambling to sort of figure out what's next. And I think that following that, when travel opened up again and people were comfortable with that, we did see kind of a surge of people coming back to the shows. But I think that what has been created in that time where people weren't going to shows or the shows weren't even open. Yeah, it didn't exist.
Like a lot of us in our businesses, we found alternate ways of finding and getting what we needed. And I think that this has created for a lot of people a new norm, because they're like, why do I need to spend money to go to a show? And it's like, I have all of this access now that's available to me online. We've definitely seen that at the shows. As far as attendance, it's like you've got your diehard people who are always searching for the new now next for them. They need to be present and see it and touch it and feel it and that kind of thing. So you'll always have those kind of people's people. But I think that a lot of the people that used to travel are, like I said, they've just found ways that are better for them.
Sure. And how did high cotton evolve? I imagine there have been changes in Y'all's business since the Pandemic. What was your way of finding steady ground where I imagine most of your retailers locations probably also had soap, so maybe we're able to stay open. You know what I mean? I can imagine the overlap of like, no, it's essential we have soaps. But how did your business get affected? How did your playbook or strategy change since the Pandemic?
I think for us, it was one like a lot of people. I mean, we already had our wholesale site, our retail site, those were already in place when the pandemic happened. Unlike a lot of people who kind of scrambled to like get there as a means of, you know, being able to stay in business while their physical stores were closed. So, I mean, we were lucky in that sense because we weren't building a new customer. We already had an existing customer. But when the bottom fell out of the wholesale side of it, with stores being closed and that kind of thing, I mean, we definitely did see a surge in the retail side of our business because people are home and they need something to do. So buying funny things online was a good thing, peace of mind, anything to bring a smile to their face at a very challenging time. And the fact that we do everything domestically, it really allowed us to. We didn't find ourselves in a situation like a lot of people with the shipping container we're sitting on so much inventory, we were able to immediately scale back and adjust accordingly, which was a huge savior for us.
Oh my goodness. I can only imagine and I'm thinking of finished product attempting to come across on a shipping container and how cost might have exploded for people. But then I'm also imagining that the parts that your producers domestically might use probably come from all over the world and you might have felt some cost spike when shipping containers, like five X, whatever normal bit.
Not so much. Not so much. Yeah, I just think because, I mean, we saw increases like everyone did, but it wasn't, I think, as drastic as a lot of the people who were getting finished products and then transportation went up. It became insane. So having your factory 2 hours east is not like best case scenario.
Yeah, I would say the other thing that on that sort of rebound, I think what was hard know, pretty much across the board, a lot of manufacturers here in the US is that they just didn't have workers, so they maybe laid off people and then couldn't get people back. And it took a while for maybe they're running three shifts and now they're down to two shifts. So raw product like the material that we use to create our coasters, it went from like a three month to a six month time. So it's like just things that you just are not expecting and you're just kind of trying to roll with it, but at the same time it's like you've got to get the sales while they're there. Sure, yeah.
Talk me through sales. So you said the world kind of transitioned to buying online. You had already had an ecommerce infrastructure in place. I imagine it wasn't maybe a meaningful part of the business, but not a large percentage overall of your business at the time. Right. What learning curves. What changes, if any, did you make once the world went online?
I think for us, it was really just sort of I think we just started approaching the whole retail side of the business differently, just recognizing that. I feel like maybe historically it was just kind of there as sort of like marketing, and for those people that maybe were traveling and saw something and got home and be like, oh, but never really put a lot of effort into it. And I think that coming through the pandemic, it just really made us take a look at if we're going to have this, we need to make it work and fine tune it and get it to the best that it can be. So I think that that was definitely over those first few months, it was just doing everything we could to just make it a better experience for the customer, work out shipping details, like everything that was just going to impact us in the long run. Just things that we could see short term, that we could make changes and just have an immediate impact.
Yeah, I have to imagine so different. Imagine you're shipping boxes of stuff normally, and then this probably all fits in standard envelope type, which makes for the best type of product. If you're going to be in product sales, software is rounds to zero, and then things that fit in normal mailers is the best next option, it seems. Absolutely. So where was fulfillment for ecommerce happening at that time?
So at that time, the doormats, because of the way that the doormats are sold as individual units, all of the other products are sold in sets at a wholesale level. So the doormats we could always ship through our other fulfillment center, but the coasters and the magnets, since you need to break out the set and sell an individual item. Initially, we were doing all of that through our office. So orders would come in and we would pack it and ship it ourselves. And then we just got to the point to where with COVID the whole office situation shifted and we're working from home. And then so it's like, okay, so who takes that on in their basement kind of thing. You know what I mean? So then we were fortunate enough to find Ernest and just it was a perfect fit for us with these sort of small individual item shipments.
Yeah. Where was your office before when the pandemic hit? We were over on Charlote Street. Yeah. By Taco Temple. Right there. Our first apartment when we moved into Asheville was the Manor Inn. So just further up and on the right. So we were neighbors. Yeah. I wonder if that's maybe I've seen maybe I saw it. That's funny. So that's fun. And then work from home can't possibly keep doing this. This is not it's just not cost.
Effective for any you know, it's like for whoever's going to do it to take time out of their day to do that, take them away from what they should be focusing on and once again, leave it to the people who know. So their opening here just kind of coincided with us also coming to the realization that we needed to make a change and it was just a perfect situation.
I love it. Yeah. My wife also is one of the newer tenants here. And it is a big asset to be able to have a space that is built for fulfilling her products are not necessarily all fit in postage traditionally. So scheduling pickups and drop offs and being able to do all that stuff, it's a mental burden if not a time saver, that is just for sure.
Yeah, because it all has to be happening in a timely manner. It's like you can't just go to the post office once a week, you know what I mean? Or go to Ups. It needs to be happening on a daily basis. Amazon set the you can't you can't not ship it ASAP.
I've heard someone say the best thing a business can do is have your order has shipped email, hit as fast as possible after your order has been placed. There's a small joy and it could take longer once it's been shipped. Or like, here is your tracking number. It doesn't need to be 24 hours. It doesn't need to be same day, but knowing that, hey, it's on its way, it's the question that consumers have. Oh, for sure. And for us, we've been able to get that to a 24 hours turnaround.
Do you fulfill ecommerce anywhere else than here? Yeah. So the doormats we do in Winston Salem, so that's where we do all of our wholesale fulfillment is with the company there. Well, so e commerce comes out of earnest and then doormats and wholesale Winston Salem. That makes a lot of sense. When thinking about growing the e commerce portion of your business, what thoughts do you have? What ideas, what things have you been testing or trying, if any?
I think the thing that we have realized, as has probably most people out there, is just social media and the impact that social media can have on your business. And I think that once again, it was one of those things that we just like, we can do it. We can take care of this. It's not a big deal. And recently with kind of the shift over here to have them take care of this, we also decided that, you know what, we need to find somebody and hire somebody who's just going to manage all that digital marketing for us. So we have someone in place now for us, that's our biggest opportunity because it's never been consistent. And for all of that, Facebook, Instagram, all of it, it needs to be consistent. You have to have that consistent contact with the customer or with the. People out there and we're about three months in right now and we're definitely seeing really positive impact.
Yeah, I can imagine you all having, for lack of a better term, like a meme account. So just funny, funny, funny and potentially a bunch of setups that make the products perfect. It's just like, oh, there's a story. And the resolution is here is the coaster that succinctly puts a bow on it, so to speak. And it could feel like skits, it could feel like written. But I just imagine that an account that is as funny as your products is almost guaranteed once you guys step into this in a big way.
Yeah, and I think for us too, it's like we've really tried to just have those moments for us. That's what social media is for us. I think right now we're at like 25% product, 75% humor to where it might not always be our products, which are very funny, obviously, but we like to post things that we find funny that aren't ours and we just want to share that with the people out there. So it's more about content or less about product, just more about bringing a smile to people's face.
I'm sure it does and I can imagine that your account will grow with consistency. Right? I mean, it's a given. People stick around with funny and outrageous and so you on some of these seem to do both. Yes. Which is wonderful. So social media management, is that in house or did you hire like a consultant? Yeah, we hired a consultant. Anything else that you have outsourced other than like manufacturing?
No, that's pretty much it. We do all our art design in house and like all of that production prep kind of stuff. We all manage that in house. How big is the team at this point? We're like three. Yeah, it seems like potentially a lot or very dialed systems at this point.
I think, once again, like, a lot of people came through COVID sort of fine tuning and really seeing what was necessary and reevaluating all of their processes. And I think for us, it really allowed us to find those areas where maybe things were unnecessary and find solutions for that or just sort of get rid of it altogether. But I think through that we have been able to find ways to just sort of keep everybody at a good pace without anyone feeling overwhelmed and we're still doing what we need to do.
That is the dream. It seems to me like we've interviewed a lot of businesses at this point but let's just say a million. It's hyperbolic but there are millions of business types. The outcome I think most people if they were being honest with themselves want is like simple, fun, challenging. You can't just be simple and fun. There needs to be challenge. You need to have problems to solve, you need to have the feeling of fulfillment, taking a concept, making it real. So it's not all necessarily rainbows and butterflies, but but it does seem like you're making funny things, selling them, putting smiles on people's faces. And if you can keep that in perspective, this is great. This is so fun.
Yeah. No, we say to each other all the time, we're like, we're so fortunate. This is our lives. We make funny stuff. And I have to imagine with the nature of the business, you could arguably travel anywhere, and it's a business expense. At this point because you're seeing an account. It's just kind of work from anywhere.
Work from anywhere, travel anywhere. You go into any gift shop in some town, like our products there. This is a quality control trip. That's why I'm in Wherever. That's awesome when thinking about the future. Right? So you have social media. Are there any milestones that we're looking forward to as the business in the quarter ahead? Q Four 2023 or the year ahead?
I think for us, for a lot of people, I think that 2023 has been sort of a reset because last year was so great. I think for a lot of people that I think this year is kind of like, okay, so what's kind of the new norm? It's like, what are we actually basing our projections on having last year being such a banner year? So I think for us, it's just sort of like, sort of finding our way through this year and then sort of figuring out then, based on that, what next steps are for 2024. But I think with fourth quarter right on our heels, that I think that we're definitely seeing some strengthening within the wholesale side of the business. I think that a lot of people are just playing it really close. It's like they're only ordering what they need, that type of thing. But I think that a lot of people have, just from talking to people at the trade shows and retailers on the phone, whatnot people are feeling really positive about fourth quarter. So I think we'll definitely see those people sort of gaining a little bit of more confidence and sales sort of catching some momentum moving into fourth quarter.
We interrupt this episode with a horror story, an e commerce horror story that my wife Sarah Upertachio experienced. But I'm going to preface, she's not alone. You might be an e commerce store owner. You might have a friend who's an e commerce store owner. And this story is universal, though specific. Sarah, please take it away.
Yeah, well, I own a small business called QB Kuchina, and we sell Italian pasta tools and kitchenware. And in our previous space, where we were fulfilling from one day, my employee was packaging up a bunch of packages to ship via Ups, and Ups did not pick up from this location, and so she was going to package them up and take them out to the car and drive them to Ups. Well, it was raining a lot that day. As it tends to here in Asheville.
Yes, as it tends to here in Asheville. And on her way, taking the dolly out to her car, some packages flew off. The dolly were soaking wet. She was soaking wet. And then she had to repackage them, like, go back up to the office and repackage them because they were ruined and couldn't be shipped out.
And A, I'm so sorry to hear that story. That's a heartbreaker. Now you don't have to worry about that happening anymore because you work at Ernest Readymade Warehouse and they have daily pickups and deliveries from FedEx Ups, and.
It'S like, it's like suddenly we have a valet and concierge at our fingertips, which is amazing. They have daily pickups from all the major shipping carriers, and they have a huge loading dock, so we can receive our shipments very easily, 24 hours of the day, every day of the week, which is amazing.
To learn more about Ernest Readymade Warehouse, visit makingintinasheville.com Ernest E-R-N-E-S-T. We have all sorts of information about this season, about our sponsor, Ernest Ready Made, and offer a very special incentive for those of you who are small business owners in Asheville who could benefit from this facility. Back to the episode. Here's hoping. Yeah, I think that there has been, at least with everyone that we've talked to, some sort of especially when in the selling of products stuff, something in 2022 felt like consumers had money in their pocket and it was burning a hole and they needed to put it to use somewhere. And so they were buying our stuff. And I don't pretend to know micro or macroeconomic trends, but there does seem to be slightly more, let's say, conservative spending values, but I suspect it might, to your point, come back before people have been saving it up, saying, like, when is the bottom going to fall out? People were talking about recession. Is my money worth less? What is actually going on?
Yeah, CBD. I think for retailers, I think that people who are store owners, very few of them are new to this, you know what I mean? They've been in the business for ten plus years, so they're very aware of their market. So I think that most people that I talk to, it's not that business is bad, it's just slightly off. And I think that they're just feeling it out. And like I said, most people that I talk to, they're not suffering.
Yeah. They had a 20% growth year last year and couldn't really pin any particular thing that they did to have caused it. And now it's like, flat. And we're like, wait, but 10% over the last two years would have been great. Absolutely. We're flat to last year, what happened? And it's like, oh, yeah, last year was an anomaly. Yeah.
No, I mean, I talked to people last year who, like I said, a lot of them have been in business 1520 years, and it's like they had their best holiday season ever last year. Without doing anything necessarily new. So it's not like have you ever run ads as a business? We have. How does that work for you? Not great for us. Yeah, we haven't found that to be a really viable channel for us, it seems to me.
My guess was that the average product cost does not make ads, traditional ads, the best possible channel for you. Some of the strongest examples is, like, there's this company and I'm forgetting its name right now. I can see it, but they do these survival kits. You just have to buy them, and you put them in the car, or you put them in the basement or whatever it is, but it's like a $500 thing. And so they spend so much money on their ads because one person buys and then all the thousands of people who didn't buy it, or hundreds, probably more accurately, who didn't buy it, are, like, washed out. Right. And so if you're running at a break even, you'd have to do a really efficient ad buying process to get if someone buys one cozy or a coaster, shoot, we lost money. Hope they buy a four pack or whatever.
Right. So that was one of my questions. If ads had happened, what was the way is it in, like, a trade show magazine? Is it some sort of banner walking into a physical place versus digital? I was wondering what your relationship no.
I mean, we've definitely played with that in the past and just haven't really seen the return on that kind of stuff. And I think that especially, like, the trade show kind of stuff. I mean, we usually do sort of like we'll do like, a group ad with our agency where they sort of highlight all of the manufacturers that they represent. But unless it's like you're doing something that's new and hasn't been seen before and you really need to bring people's attention to it, those kind of larger banner type situations at the trade shows just really don't make a lot of sense.
And then a tactical, perhaps two in the weeds question, I noticed on most of the products, I'll see a high cotton ink or high cotton alone. Have you ever put highcotton.com? We haven't. We do it on the barcodes, on the back. Smart. Yeah. So we do have it in that sense. So all the products have that on them, but that's just kind of our trademark.
Yeah, it's so interesting. I'm wondering did I mean, I imagine it was a long time ago, but did high cotton have there been when I Googled you, there's like, a restaurant called High Cotton. I imagine it's like a common phrase. What is the trademark? Did you have any insight into the trademarking process, or have you ever had to try to defend art or products over time.
We haven't. The trademark was kind of an interesting process for us. We started selling initially when we started selling the doormats on Amazon, we're probably a couple years in, and we just kind of noticed some bad reviews and some pricing things that were coming up. So we started researching it and realized that overseas manufacturers were knocking off our designs, essentially, like screenshot and putting it on a far inferior product and shipping it directly from we. For whatever reason, we didn't have a trademark in place at that time. And the only way that Amazon will protect you is if you can prove the rights.
Wow. So it was a very challenging process for us, but because we're able to relate it specifically to products, it wasn't as difficult as, say, like, High Cotton, the restaurant that would apply to restaurants with the name High Cotton. So, fortunately for us, no one else was attempting to use High Cotton in relation to gift items. Wild. And I can't believe it's just now that I'm realizing so does Amazon play a role in your like, if there was a pie of Amazon, what does.
That look like as a percent within sort of direct to. Don'T we not a major channel. No. Okay.
It was initially for us, and then, because Amazon is this beast that requires a lot of we after sort of that counterfeit scenario that we had to work through, we decided to do some key partnerships with some resellers who that's all they do all day long is run their Amazon store. So we sell to them, they sell to customers, and then we sell on Amazon. We have a seller central account, but it's more of like a backup to where if anyone's out of stock on something, then we'll always be in stock on it. So we've never put a lot of effort into that, nor do we want to, because like I said, in order for it to really be successful, you need a person. And that's all they do all day, every day, is just manage Amazon. So we have, like I said, taken on some key partnerships and allow those people to just do it for us.
I love it. It seems like you all have a pretty dialed system. Are there any philosophies or perhaps books or coaching or whatever that has gotten you all to this place where it seems like focus on the things that you're particularly great at or want to spend time on, and then key partners, earnest key partners, the rep groups to handle parts of the business that can be more efficient. How did you get to this place? Was it like this in 2009 as much?
No. I think as things have shifted over the years, we have a much better digital representation. So we didn't have a wholesale website for years and years and years. So that was an opportunity for us. Our retail site initially, like everyone else, we sourced through an agency. So you'd submit things, and it would take a week or ten days for things to happen. And then shopify appeared, and it was the game changer, because now you have full control over everything, and any plugin that you want is there. So that was a game changer for sure for us, just sort of coming to that realization that we could do all of that and handle it ourselves and have the control that we wanted without having to source it out to someone else. So that was a big step for us.
Wow. Yeah.
Well, I'm inspired, and I mean this in the best way. I think that there's often this effort to change the world, so to speak, in entrepreneurship or business generally. And then I look at these coasters and magnets, and I'm smiling, and I go, A sticker business, a coaster business that has an effect however you want to define that effect, but like, a good effect, that's as noble as anything else. And you can make probably run a hell of a business if you do it right and it doesn't need to. I mean, I don't know what your weeks look like, but it seems like you've progressed and grown a business such that some portion of it, like, fulfillment here is being handled by teams. And that's aspirational to me, I'm in a season where I'm like, how do we find efficiency? How do we double down, triple down, ten X the things that we're most dangerous at? And I look at this and I go, okay, noted. So thank you for sharing the story. I'll ask I said it a couple of times highcotton.com. How else might people, if they were.
Interested in connecting, find you instagram high underscore Cotton? Facebook is high. Cotton, Inc. Perfect. And we'll have links to all of that stuff in the show notes. I'm tickled. And we'll work potentially on something, maybe a collaboration or some sort of discount code on an ecommerce purchase that'll be in the show notes as well on our website if we work something out. But thank you so much for being here. This is wonderful. Thanks for having me. You close.