Five Or Six For Friday
It has been well over a week since our last update. Typical end of month business issues and other pressing matters slowed the normal update cycle of this journal which will now resume a more normal schedule. Business continues strong with the golf season now upon us.
High end promotional golf bags such as the Callaway Terrafirma X Stand Bag will likely dominate the market this spring. Callaway is an ever popular name offering status, style and quality in one convenient promotional golf bag package. Callaway offers a comprehensive line of products including golf balls, golf bags and other golf items and accessories.
We have also added a couple of new briefs including the Leeds Incline Deluxe Brief which is part of the larger line of incline products. All are reasonably priced and offer excellent quality construction with 600d materials. We like this piece as it features dual role capabilities as both a carry bag and a shoulder bag. The Leeds Urban Passage Vertical Pack has a shoulder strap and hideaway backpack straps which means it too fits the dual roll as a shoulder bag or backpack. Technically you could probably cram a small laptop in this pack as well but remember it is not heavily padded so you would want to be careful not to damage the laptop when removing the pack from your back. The last dual role pack to be added this week was the Leeds Transit Deluxe Compu Messenger Bag at around $20. This is another one of those promotional items that has a name that irks us a bit. It would be nice if in the year 2008 ASI or PPAI could pull all of their members together and establish standardized names for products. Some manufacturers would call this a straight computer bag, others computer brief and still others compu messenger bags. Sometimes the manufacturers will use a dash other times they do not. It greatly confuses customers as one vendors brief is another vendors messenger bag. It does not appear to be intentional rather it is the result of confused marketing efforts in many cases.
Rounding out the golf bag category we have added two others on either side of the price spectrum. Adidas is now into the golf bag market with the Adidas Ascend Stand Bag which offers our customers a name brand with high perceived value, snazzy colors and a reasonable price. For those looking for the Nike brand we have added the Nike Slingshot OSS Cart Bag which is designed solely for cart use. Like all Nike products this item must be embroidered with your logo prior to sale.
Beyond adding new products like all businesses we are dealing with the fallout from current economic conditions. The slowdown has become particularly evident in the later part of February and March with many vendors reporting sharp slowdowns in sales. Regions hit hardest by the housing woes are subsequently the slowest for our business and most businesses at this point in time. The benefits from tax rebates obviously have not hit yet and the trickle down effects to the small business sector will not be felt for months. In the meantime like all other small businesses we continue to actively promote our business. Right now that means longer hours and days to maintain growth. As has always been the case we continue to actively promote our business through sales in the field via telemarketing and other person to person selling methods. To date these remain by far the most effective.
Moving on to politics - and again we do not endorse or make donations to individual candidates or parties, the events of the past week are remarkable. Senator Clinton has gone from front-runner to odds on favorite to quit the race on Wednesday to once again be considered the leading candidate. Neither candidate can win the number of delegates required to win the nomination and will have to rely on super delegates to secure the nomination. Looking at the national polls from various site aggregators the gap has been closed and is now within the margin of error. Stunning really that this is evidently going to come down to the home stretch when a year ago it looked like Senator Clinton was the easy winner and two weeks ago it appeared Senator Obama was the easy winner. My take is that it will come down to who hits the hot streak over the next few weeks.
