Celebrating five years and other achievements in 2022

The Englewood Makers Market in December 2022. (Photo, Brandon Krotser)

I picked up “Saving Main Street: Small Business in the Time of Covid-19” at the Hershey Public Library without expecting that certain passages would amplify one of Stay Apparel Co.’s proudest achievements this year.

The book, by Gary Rivlin, ostensibly focuses on three small businesses in Northeastern Pennsylvania, but they are metaphors for the rest of the United States.

“The story of small business has always been one of survival,” Rivlin writes in the introduction. Technology and the economy, big-box stores and pressure for ever-lower consumer prices, rising rents and insurance premiums, Amazon and off-shoring, all serve to challenge the little guy and gal.

“One in three small businesses in the United States fails before celebrating a second anniversary,” Rivlin writes. “Half close within five years of opening. Seventy percent are dead within a decade.”

Stay marked its fifth anniversary in October. Of course, there’s a caveat in that we aren’t a full-time venture at this point, despite the 24/7 workday at stayapparel.com.

However, we are far more than the proverbial “side hustle,” a term I don’t embrace as Stay is a full-time obsession of mine. And while we don’t have the day-to-day overhead pressures of a brick-and-mortar store, we have been tested by heat and wind and rain and cold in our peripatetic pop-up pursuits, into which a pandemic plopped in year three.

Indeed, we might be most like a traveling circus, in which case I hope you’ll indulge us as we take a bow to mark five years under the Stay big top.

Other highlights

We had much else to celebrate and be thankful for in 2022, including our single-biggest selling day, Choctoberfest in Hershey, which propelled us to a robust holiday season and overall our best year. Among the other highlights:

New products

We introduced an orange version of our Pennsylvania Bigfoot Believers design, which has been our runaway top seller for the past year. We finally produced a Bear’s Department Store Tee, which had been delayed by Covid and blank shirt availability.

We introduced several new original designs, too, including Hershey Sweet Spots, Flying Puck, Pennsylvania Dutch and 717.

717 Tee

It’s one of our favorite palindromic numbers and our home area code. Our 717 Tee represents the area code for some 2 million people in south-central Pennsylvania and the Susquehanna Valley, covering the Harrisburg, Lancaster and York metropolitan areas and most of what is known as Pennsylvania Dutch Country.

Hats were a big thing, especially our Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful knit hats, which combine fully embroidered patches made in Chicago with hats made in New Jersey by one of America’s last great knitting mills.

Inventory control

We try to keep everyday prices reasonable. We’re not a premium brand, but we also aren’t a discount brand. We don’t believe that price should prevent most people from buying American-made products.

So we don’t offer a lot of sales, except we did winnow some of our older, over-purchased stock with a couple of extended $10-tee sales. At some point, you just need to get cash out of inventory that’s not moving fast enough.

As a result, we’re in a much better shape with our inventory than we were five years ago.

Englewood Makers Market

A highlight of our holiday season — no, of our entire year — was partnering with The Englewood in Hershey to create the first Englewood Makers Market.

We’ve participated in many markets, and created a couple of others, but the Englewood show was just magical. It’s rare in life that something you envision turns out even better in reality, but the Englewood Makers Market did just that.

The venue, the 1861 barn, is gorgeous, especially decorated for the holidays. We had 19 terrific vendors, classic holiday music, a holiday photo backdrop, food and beverage for purchase. The Englewood staff could not have been more accommodating to us.

If you came out, I think you know what I’m talking about. If you missed it, we’re hoping to work with The Englewood again in 2023. Stay tuned.

New friendships

Long-time friends of ours introduced us to someone who worked at outdoors retailer REI’s store in Mechanicsburg. Thanks to his encouragement, the store reached out to us about carrying our Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful and Pennsylvania Bigfoot Believers stickers, which we have restocked a couple of times since summer.

REI

The outdoors retailer’s Mechanicsburg store carries our Pennsylvania Bigfoot Believers and Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful stickers.

Meanwhile, the Shoppe on Chocolate in our hometown, Hershey, began carrying a small selection of Stay tees and knit hats.

Geographic expansion

You’ll typically find us popping up in our hometown, Hershey; Harrisburg; York; and Lancaster. This year, we made our first visits to Hanover (for The Find: York) and Carlisle (Market of Curiosities).

Looking ahead

We’re hoping to participate in some Philadelphia-area pop-ups this year. But there’s a limit to how much we can get out of a six-foot table or a 10-by-10-foot tent.

We’re confident that there’s a much bigger audience out there for us, especially among consumers who aren’t plugged into the whole makers movement or pop-up experience. That’s why growing our online sales and exploring options for a permanent in-store experience are top priorities for us in 2023.

We’re excited for the promise of the next five years but way beyond that, too.