There are a number of challenging aspects of making great gloves. At the top of the list is correct fit. In fact, fit is the biggest consumer complaint when it comes to gloves. To demonstrate, here’s a recent consumer letter that is absolutely typical: “ … my biggest gripe with most gloves on the market today is that they seem to be fitted for slender Asian or European hands. I have broad palms and relatively stubby fingers, and 90% of the gloves that I try on don’t even come close to fitting properly. Your 4350’s are a wonderful exception to that...

Do you ever feel that you just can’t get to the bottom of your inbox? Each day, there’s a new tidal wave of emails to deal with!  Here’s what I’ve come to realize.  In a global business, we need to travel more … and email less. This month’s editorial in The Sourcing Journal makes a related point.  Editor Ed Hertzman’s view is that only by seeing manufacturers with your own eyes, can you truly make good sourcing decisions.  According to Ed, travel has benefits that can’t be overstated.  He writes: ” … visit the factory your office suggests for your next order. How...

We recently attended a power sports trade show, and saw a wide range of gloves.  Our visit reminded us how difficult it is for a glove buyer to sort out manufacturing options.  We saw everything from the best quality leather gloves, to inferior gloves made of mismatched scraps. Never was the saying “buyer beware” more apt! Today we want to outline a process to find and research the right leather glove manufacturer for your needs. How To Find and Choose a Leather Glove Manufacturer?                      When vetting glove companies as potential manufacturing partners, an old ad slogan comes to mind:  “An Educated...

For our last post of the year, we return to a subject that is near and dear … leather! Last week, we explained some of the considerations that go into choosing the appropriate leather for a glove project. We examined: What is glove leather, and how is it different than leather used for other garments? What are the best types of leather for different types of gloves? As we explained, the choice of leather greatly affects the fit and feel of your finished glove. Today, we want to explain some basic terminology related to tanning and testing leather, to help...

Buyers ask us this question all the time:  How do you choose the best glove leather? Glove leathers vary widely, in terms of cost, finish, color fastness, abrasion resistance, suppleness, and many other performance factors. Let’s look the most common types of glove leather, their qualities, and best uses. What’s the Best Leather for Gloves? Sheepskin from hair sheep: Sheepskin is regarded among the best glove leathers, especially skins from Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa. The main attributes are a very smooth and soft/supple grain combined with light weight and extreme tensile strength.   Note:  Wool sheep leathers are commonly used...

Leather is a classic material for gloves. What other material is strong and durable, feels great on your skin, and looks better the longer you wear it? Many factors go into making leather gloves that fit and feel comfortable, and function well … … but it all starts with choosing the right glove leather.  From there, many other factors come into play. We’ve written this multi-part series on leather glove manufacturing, to answer the most frequent questions that glove buyers ask us.  This is the first article in a 5-part series, covering these basic topics: What is Glove Leather? (see below)  ...

Last month, I spent a week working at our glove factory in China, and meeting with vendors, suppliers and customers. I thought I’d share a “boots on the ground” report, on what I’m seeing and hearing, pertaining to the 2014 outlook for Asia manufacturing and supply chain impacts. 2014 Asia Sourcing Outlook from a Glove Maker:  more When you run a global sourcing business, there are lots of sources of information. But my favorite information source is what I like to call the “Tsingtao Report”. That refers to what I hear over dinner and a beer in Shanghai, as I meet with my raw materials...

Suppose your son or daughter is deciding on which college to attend. They’ve seen the brochures, talked to friends, read the online rating. Should they choose the school where they will be spending the next 4 years, without a visit? Similarly, it can very instructive for buyers and product managers to spend time visiting prospective and current manufacturing facilities. My hope is that once you read this, you will know what to look for when you do. How To Visit a Glove Factory I love to give prospective buyers a tour of our manufacturing facility in China, and introduce the...

We visited several motorcycle glove dealerships recently. I have to be candid: the workmanship on some of the gloves I observed at retail was not good — mainly at the lower price points, but not exclusively. If you are responsible for a glove line, you might want to think about what steps you can take to engineer quality into the finished glove. After all, quality has a huge impact on customer satisfaction with your brand. The best time to insure that you get the quality you need? Before production starts! Build Quality Into the Glove Manufacturing Process Ensuring quality is an overlooked,...

I wanted to take a moment to share some thoughts of the season with friends and customers. At Olympia Gloves, here are a few things we are grateful for.  There is so much to appreciate this season:  more Health, home, family, nature’s gifts and the bounty we will share around the Thanksgiving table. It’s easy to lose focus in the holiday hustle and bustle, and forget these most basic blessings.  This great country that gave my dad the opportunity to start his business, after fleeing pre-WWII Europe.  Our co-workers – we’re a small group, working together for a long time. We make a...

If you’re a private label glove buyer, and you’re good at what you do, it’s because of your unique management style. In our experience, each private label buyer has a slightly different way of approaching the sourcing process. Of the 6 glove buying/management types we have identified, which management style best describes you?more 1. Type B: “Bottom Line” This type of buyer is most likely to say: “Here’s the retail, this is the product I want”. When we work with “Type B” , we appreciate the trust he places in our expertise and ability to deliver the right product. He...

Recently, we were working on a new line of sport gloves for a client. As it happened, the first samples were more than satisfactory, but cost was not. At this point, the challenge becomes, how to get the same look and function, and hit the target cost? Where can we save some money?!more A Framework for Analyzing Glove Cost There are 3 basic places we look: Step 1. Explore glove material options  For instance, a material made in one country may cost 1.5x the same material made in another … or, a “B” grade leather may work as well as an...