We see that a humble beginning selling rock & roll tour t-shirts can lead to bigger and better things.

We also see that event merchandising works because the fans are responding to the logo designs and excitement of the event. Thirdly, we have learned that there are companies out there looking out for the best interests of the colleges, making sure that they share in the profits generated by sales of merchandise bearing their names and likewise looking out for your interests by making sure that these items are licensed and that the factories and distributors are selling you a quality product.


Now Back to the 'Intersecting Lines of Destiny'

Over time, the rock & roll tour merchandise game evolved from a moderately fun way to keep the fans happy and generate extra cash for the bands, to more of a corporate business. Several large companies began to consolidate (I don't want to say "monopolize" since it has such nasty connotation) the business and gathered most of the BIG acts by offering large guarantees on the front end. The smaller firms couldn't compete and sought "other" markets for their printed wares. As part of this latter group, I began selling t-shirts and eventually all those other items I mentioned to other customers (radio stations, record companies, ad agencies, business-to-business companies, etc.).

And I beheld all the tchachkes that surrounded me and realized that, verily, I had become a full-fledged Promotional Product Sales Dog.

Over time I could not help but notice that more and still more people were declaring themselves promotional products salespeople. Of course any growing industry should expect a commensurate growth in salespeople, but the sheer number of men, women and undecideds who were starting to sell the same stuff as I did was growing exponentially (that's a fancy-schmancy word for "out of control".) There was (and is) no formal training of any kind required to declare oneself a promo sales rep. If you have a pulse and a factory catalog, congratulations -- you're in.

The realization hit me that I had to find a way to differentiate my company and the products we offered from this burgeoning group of new salespeople... but how to do it? Remember, everyone was selling the same stuff. As luck would have it, I got a chance to revisit the past by partnering with a company that specialized in event merchandising. Our specialty was the college bowl games, where we would set up our merchandise displays and sell t-shirts, caps and an assortment of other collegiate game day souvenirs to the fans. It was rock & roll tour merchandising all over again, but this time with the merchandise done in the schools' colors.


Hot Market

The name given to the merchandise sales at these events is "Hot Market". It is named thus because during the day or the weekend of the event you can (and do) sell the souvenirs for a whole lot. Shirts and caps were routinely sold for $20 to $25 each.

But the day after the event, you couldn't give the merchandise away. So, things went quickly from red hot demand one day to "where'd everybody go?" the next.

Over a period of 2 years our warehouse began to seriously fill up with leftover merchandise (the unsold stuff) from each of the events. There was nothing wrong with any of the stuff -- it was just dated product with no place to go.

And then, I had an idea. One that would begin my travels to here, Collegiate Luggage and college-branded Victorinox® Swiss Army Luggage.