42 | February 2014 • www.specialty-coffee.com
"You can't exactly wear the same T-shirt every day," Martin
says.
Keeping things fresh might not seem easy. Shops without a
lot of money to spend experimenting with merchandise might
just call up the screen printer and order another batch of the
shirts that nally sold out.
Big vendors, however, are taking great pains to compete with
those local short-run printers. And with precision technology,
fast turnaround and no warehousing, they can be a great place
to start testing a new merchandising plan.
Sarah Segal, the head of public relations at CafePress, said
they work hard to let a design evolve into a salable product.
"CafePress is very chameleon, we really try to adapt to every
client and every seller's needs," Segal says. "If you're talking
about a small retailer, most start with baby steps."
Like O'Neill's lunch pails, starting with a mass produced
goods can turn into a big hit. Segal says nding inspiration for
unique merchandise is easy by browsing their most popular
designs, and breathing life into a new idea is possible with
their vast product oerings.
"We oer upwards of 650 base products that they can put
their images on," she says. "Some of those newer products
include things like shower curtains, purse hooks, cuinks—
we just added socks. One of my favorites is scarves. Basically,
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Photo By Nicholas Upton
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