BACKGROUND:

In the pursuit of furthering my customization business venture, I interviewed both the manager of the Baruch bookstore, in addition to, an associate of an indirect competitor, Custom Ink. Prior to speaking with Custom Ink, I contacted Angie, the manager of the bookstore, to discuss the policies and limitations to ensure that my business idea was a feasible one.

I was able to confirm that there are no existing licensing deals that would be prevent Baruch from allowing me to partake in customization. For example, if they license their logo out to a third party who controls everything it would’ve affected my ability to move forward with this idea. Angie forwarded me the information regarding become a vendor at the bookstore – every potential business goes through an application / screening process where they evaluate your idea, financials, quality of your product, etc.  Once I gathered this information, I reached out to Angie again to see if customization was something that the bookstore had considered in the past. To Angie’s knowledge, customization is not a service they have entertained in the past. Once I was able to confirm that my idea was feasible and they had not previously considered it, I started to become slightly more optimistic about my business idea.

Once I understood the policies and limitations, I identified that my primary competitor might be a local tailoring company or alteration specialist. However, after reaching out to nearly thirty companies, I was unable to source one that offered customization in the Baruch area. This prompted me to reach out to third-party customization vendors such as Etsy, Custom Ink, and Merchology. I was able to connect with an associate at Custom Ink, named Wariyo, who was kind enough to speak to me for twenty minutes. I told Wariyo about my idea and although he had very little understanding of Baruch he thought my idea was very interesting. Nonetheless, he gave me good insight into the companies general operations and demand for customization in college campuses.

QUESTIONS: 

A few of the questions I asked Wariyo were:

• Does your company receive many orders from students?
  • Wariyo confirmed that they do business with many students who request customization. He said it’s very popular for them to print school logos as well.
• Are individual or group orders more prevalent?
  • This gave me insight that many of their customers are students – both High School and College – and they often do request customization both in group orders and individually. Wariyo also said that group customization orders were more popular since schools sometimes place bulk orders with them and then allow the students to choose their size, color, etc.
• What kind of customization do you see students gravitate more towards?
  • Hoodies are the most popular requested items. They print school logos so you can also fully develop a piece of merch from scratch with them.

I asked about ten more questions but these were three that I thought were very important to my business.

REFLECTION:

Overall, the information that I was able to collect helped me to realize that my idea is definitely feasible and something I would like to continue to develop and potentially pursue. I appreciated Angie being so responsive and willing to forward information to me that allowed me to decide if I could move forward with my idea. I think merch is an important part of school pride, but I also it’s important to give students an opportunity to express their individuality through customization. In addition, I think sites like Custom Ink have differences in both their business model and target audience which would allow my business to thrive in its own way.

NEXT STEPS:

After this interview process, I feel better about my idea and moving forward with developing my customization service at Baruch. I would like to do more research; in particular, continue to explore the process of being accepted as a vendor in the Baruch bookstore. There is a vetting process so I would begin to gather all of the information necessary to ensure my idea would be well-received.