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An Experiment in Retail: Orange County Shop Aims to Turn Surf/Skate Market Upside-Down
Costa Mesa, CA – May 21, 2007 -- Orange County retailer AntiApparel.com is officially launching with an aim to shake up the surf and skate apparel industry by taking a unique approach: selling only smaller, up-and-coming apparel brands.
“You won’t find Quiksilver, Hurley, Volcom, Billabong or any of the other big brands here” says AntiApparel.com Co-founder Sean Brady. “We only sell smaller surf and skate brands that we see as having the potential to be the ‘next big thing’. Many of these brands have great quality and designs but lack the necessary funds, popularity, or connections to compete for shelf space in surf/skate stores.”
Sean, along with friend and AntiApparel.com Co-founder Adam Paddock, got the idea behind AnitApparel.com at the summer 2005 ASR tradeshow, the action sports industries largest tradeshow.
“While walking through the tradeshow we saw a half dozen apparel brands that we never heard of before” Adam said. “We took a look at the lines and liked what we saw. To our surprise, we found that many of the brands were not in any stores and were even having problems booking appointments (to show their lines to store buyers).”
After signing a handful of Orange County’s best up-and-coming brands including Fyasko, Tavik, Monument, Notion, F54, Atwater, and Draven, Sean and Adam created a tester website and used Google Adwords and Myspace to market the soft opening of the store.
“We are really excited about the response we got. We have not even begun to market our site and we are already getting orders from all over the U.S, Japan, and Australia.” says Sean. “Many industry insiders had doubts regarding our business model, but I guess the idea not to sell any larger traditional labels and focus on up-and-coming brands does sound a little backwards.”
“The success of AntiApparel.com depends upon finding the best up-and-coming brands before other stores and growing with each brand” Says Adam. “We are always looking for new brands with good quality and unique designs. We like to support rider owned brands both by carrying them in our stores and undertaking co-op marketing.”
AntiApparel.com will officially open on May 25th, 2007 with 17 surf and skate brands from Orange County, Hawaii, and Florida. However the store aims to continuously add more up-and-coming brands from all over the U.S.
An Experiment in Retail: Orange County Shop Aims to Turn Surf/Skate Market Upside-Down
May 22, 2007
Costa Mesa, CA – May 21, 2007 -- Orange County retailer AntiApparel.com is officially launching with an aim to shake up the surf and skate apparel industry by taking a unique approach: selling only smaller, up-and-coming apparel brands.
“You won’t find Quiksilver, Hurley, Volcom, Billabong or any of the other big brands here” says AntiApparel.com Co-founder Sean Brady. “We only sell smaller surf and skate brands that we see as having the potential to be the ‘next big thing’. Many of these brands have great quality and designs but lack the necessary funds, popularity, or connections to compete for shelf space in surf/skate stores.”
Sean, along with friend and AntiApparel.com Co-founder Adam Paddock, got the idea behind AnitApparel.com at the summer 2005 ASR tradeshow, the action sports industries largest tradeshow.
“While walking through the tradeshow we saw a half dozen apparel brands that we never heard of before” Adam said. “We took a look at the lines and liked what we saw. To our surprise, we found that many of the brands were not in any stores and were even having problems booking appointments (to show their lines to store buyers).”
After signing a handful of Orange County’s best up-and-coming brands including Fyasko, Tavik, Monument, Notion, F54, Atwater, and Draven, Sean and Adam created a tester website and used Google Adwords and Myspace to market the soft opening of the store.
“We are really excited about the response we got. We have not even begun to market our site and we are already getting orders from all over the U.S, Japan, and Australia.” says Sean. “Many industry insiders had doubts regarding our business model, but I guess the idea not to sell any larger traditional labels and focus on up-and-coming brands does sound a little backwards.”
“The success of AntiApparel.com depends upon finding the best up-and-coming brands before other stores and growing with each brand” Says Adam. “We are always looking for new brands with good quality and unique designs. We like to support rider owned brands both by carrying them in our stores and undertaking co-op marketing.”
AntiApparel.com will officially open on May 25th, 2007 with 17 surf and skate brands from Orange County, Hawaii, and Florida. However the store aims to continuously add more up-and-coming brands from all over the U.S.