Welcome to our blog, where we share our glove manufacturing, design and sourcing experience, as well as more general views, tips and news for glove buyers and others within our industry.

Let’s talk about glove sourcing by starting with a story.

A new food store opened in my town last week. On my first visit, I tried a few items from their private label food line.

Specifically, store brand almonds, vanilla ice cream, mango salsa, and some salads.

 Packaging? Nice.
Assortment? Interesting.

Price? Fair.  Quality? Meh.

Actually, the vanilla ice cream was gummy, and the salads were just so-so.

What does this have to do with gloves sourcing?

Above All, Protect Your Brand

Exceeding expectations with your private label brand can differentiate you from your competition and pay unexpected customer loyalty dividends.

Your customer, if delighted with their purchase, will make your store a destination, and buy other store branded items in the future.

And in our digitally connected world, they may tell others how delighted they are with your brand, via online reviews and word of mouth.

On the other hand, if any aspect of your product disappoints, your customer will move onto other options. And others will hear about that, too.

What’s the lifetime value of that?

Your brand is an asset.

Some think the decision to outsource manufacturing is simply a manufacturing strategy. We think it’s much more fundamental.

As my local store experience shows, doesn’t product satisfaction in one category, spill over to brand perception in other categories as well?

Similarly, if your brand’s gloves look OK, but don’t fit and feel right, or don’t hold up in the field, what does that say to your customer about the rest of your brand?

If you’re going to use an intermediary, make sure they can deliver the right quality and value not just for your product line, but for your brand.

A Private Label Glove Sourcing Conversation

On this blog, we plan to write about sourcing strategies and solutions.

We’ll share knowledge and the occasional opinion with our partners and colleagues, both on the supply side, and on the retail and brand side of things:

• glove category trends
• manufacturing and materials topics
• sourcing and supply chain issues
• “boots on the ground” challenges in our day-to-day glove manufacturing business.

Our goal is to share knowledge we can all learn from, and to get to know what’s on your mind.

We hope you’ll join the conversation!