Give Your Manufacturing a Productivity Boost With a Production Partner

This is a guest post by Meredith Keller. Meredith co-founded apparel label Ex-Boyfriend with partner Matt Snow. The company has been working with a manufacturing partner for 2 years, and in that time has shipped products to over 1,000 cities around the world. The company's products have been featured by media outlets such as Animal Planet, Bust, Nickelodeon, iVillage, Gizmodo, MSNBC, The Baltimore Sun and many others. You can read more about Meredith's experiences running a business at Smaller Box. Smaller Box covers topics of interest to creative entrepreneurs including marketing, publicity, branding, social media and much more.

My story from the beginning

The story of my own brand is a long and convoluted one. My partner and I started selling handmade wares online several years ago and we were able to find some success. People liked what we were creating. The problem was they liked it a little too much. The constant work of designing, marketing, making, customer service, shipping, etc. wore on us and we wanted to give up entirely. At the time we were both working full time at day jobs and this micro-business was devouring all of our free time. The financial rewards weren't enough to justify quitting our jobs and we were having a tough time making enough product to keep up with the demand."

Re-assessing what value we brought to the marketplace and getting out of manufacturing, we realized that it wasn't so much that people were in love with the products we were creating (things like wallets, wrist cuffs, neck ties), they were into the illustrations we were creating and putting on the finished products. We were also totally fed up with making things, and for a brief time, dumped all of our illustrations on Cafe Press so we could get all the production and shipping work out of our hair.

Things were better, but not good. We liked not having to deal with making. We liked not having to handle shipping. The problem was we didn't like Cafe Press. We felt their commission was too large and we didn't like that the customers belonged to them and not us. We felt they were hindering our ability to connect with our customers and build our brand. We didn't like that they dictated what could be included in our product line. They had too much control and this wasn't the solution for us.

Finding the right solution for our business

We re-grouped and thought “there must be a small print shop we can partner with.” We wanted a print shop that we could have a closer working relationship with. We wanted them to handle our production and fulfillment, but we wanted to work with them to determine what items we'd print our art on, and how our art would be printed. We wanted 100% control over our customers' experience on our website and we wanted 100% of the brand relationship to be with us, without any third party involvement.

I spent months tearing up the internet looking for a shop to partner with. I read every obscure message board I could find that was even remotely related to clothing and accessory production. I left no stone unturned. I came away with a list of prospective shops to work with and eventually settled on the one we use today.

Finally, we are exactly where we want to be with our business. We found a true partner that produces our products as we envision them and even ships them for us. We are able to work with them to source new products and determine production methods. Their help frees us to up really work on the other aspects of our business. We now have the time and energy to devote to marketing, wholesale, customer service, and other activities that help us grow our business. We still work like crazy, but my partner now works on our business full time. Having production outsourced has allowed us to grow the business to a point where it's financially viable as a full time job.

Does this sound like you?

If you were nodding along reading this story and thinking you're on the same trajectory, stay tuned for Part 2 of this post. I'll share my tips on finding the right production partner for your business.

Share your tips on how you have scaled your business, in the comments!

Image Credit :: Meredith Keller