<div class="bbWrapper">Update.<br />
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Our shades did not pass Z87 testing. So for now, we are just focusing on normal sunglasses with Z80 rating (what we currently have). Maybe a blessing in disguise, this way we don't have to deal with safety issues and lawsuits if something happened. Maybe in the future I'll revisit this when I'm more experienced.<br />
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Were also looking into an Aviator frame and a Wayfarer style, to be launched while I work on our new 'Custom' Design. <br />
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Reason being, we need some variety. I could spend a shit load and make our own molds for these, but they wouldn't be much different then whats already out there. For these 2 styles, I think it's best to go this route and save a crap load of time and money. And to test.<br />
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So the Aviator and Wayfarer will be branded with our logo, from already existing frames. More details on this later.<br />
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I spent many hours searching for the perfect Avy and Wayfarer that suits our brand. So hopefully we can have these up around April/May. Fortunately I can do a lot with colors and logo placement, size, etc, to give them a little EIGHT flare. <br />
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Going to try and work with Amazon again. Seems like sales from there would be difficult, given the competition. But I'll try. <br />
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Launching a sister brand for women. Will be a separate entity/website, linked to EIGHT and vice versa. This won't be up for awhile. The wifey is looking into women's designs. Consisting of already made frames, branded with our logo/name, whatever that may be. I'll be designing some graphic work/color layouts and such for them, so there is some distinction from everything else.<br />
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We'll send traffic from IWEAR8.com to IWEAR?.com <br />
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Sister website link in the top menu.<br />
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So each site will mirror each other, with opposite color schemes, etc. Same website themes.<br />
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Might be beneficial to tap some of that market as well, at least test anyway, won't cost much. <br />
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I want EIGHT to be a Male driven brand. Sort of similar to what Quiksilver does with Roxy.<br />
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Sales are still up. Surprisingly. Seems like word of mouth is spreading. Because sales are coming in and very few are conversions from advertising. Good sign. Also, getting repeat customers. Very few returns from Black Friday, think we've had like 4, again, because of fitting. <br />
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Been driving traffic with Facebook again. Took a break from IG advertising so that I can test that. Seems to be working ok, getting conversions now. But still expensive. Still tweaking. I want to have an automated advertising system set in place so that I can focus on other stuff and not be contacting IG pages all day long. It can be quite time intensive to do IG shit. So ya, giving Facebook another try.<br />
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Inventory is running really low. I guess that's a good thing, but also a bad thing. Hopefully we get our next shipment on time in April.<br />
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Setup a Reviews page and system using an auto generated App from Shopify. Its called Yopto \<br />
<a href="http://iwear8.com/pages/reviews" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="noopener">http://iwear8.com/pages/reviews</a><br />
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Works great.<br />
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Sponsored Team Swoop > <a href="http://www.teamswoop.com/Team_Swoop/Welcome.html" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="noopener">http://www.teamswoop.com/Team_Swoop/Welcome.html</a><br />
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We get our new V.1 samples in a few weeks. Pretty excited to see the new variations. Hopefully they turn out good.<br />
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Talked with my manufacturer about defects. She said they allow small minor defects and not major defects. <br />
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But, she said I can do 3rd party inspection, which is for 100% defect free, that don't allow minor and major defects. Somewhat expensive though. <br />
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For our 3rd shipment, when we do about 5000 units is where we'll take advantage of this service. In the mean time, 2400 units is doable for us to keep checking them, before shipping.<br />
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But it's nice to know that when were doing large runs, the defect rate will be very low. Hopefully. Time will tell I guess.<br />
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Working on some apparel as well. Need some up sell products.<br />
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Designing some cool graphics for some tees and maybe hats. Maybe a black and white Baseball tee.<br />
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simple black and white tees.<br />
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bold simple graphics, using only black or white. emphasis on forms and shape, using flat planar geometric shapes. <br />
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Working on a cool octopus design, kinda cool as it relates the the number 8.<br />
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anyway, that's about it for now.</div>
