Have a request? We'll do our best to accommodate you

A customer wanted to surprise a World War II veteran with our Bear’s Department Store Tee, so we speeded the reprint timeline.

In early July, a woman emailed me about our Bear’s Department Store Tee.

She explained that a friend of hers soon would turn 100. At basic training during World War II, he met a member of the store-owning Bear family, she said, “and I am compiling some gifts of his time during the war and would love to include one of those shirts.”

We were out of the size she wanted, but I was touched to be included in her efforts.

“I wasn’t sure when we would reprint,” I wrote back, “but how can I let a 100-year-old veteran down?”

This was a particularly compelling reason, but we always try to accommodate our customers.

When the Bear’s tee debuted in spring 2022, a customer in York, after buying the short-sleeve shirt for one of her friends, asked whether we would be adding a long-sleeve version.

We weren’t and still aren’t (our throwback tees are modest sellers), but we reached out to her and offered to do a one-off for her by adding it to the reprint of the short-sleeve version.

As of late August, we’ll have enough Bear’s tees to satisfy those two requests and to fill in the missing sizes in our inventory.

‘Have it your way’

If our customer-service philosophy had a theme song, it would be the jingle from a 1970s Burger King commercial.

It’s easy to laugh at the commercial a half-century later, but its earnestness and complete lack of irony are a welcome alternative to today’s general cynicism and feeling of powerlessness among consumers.

In the spot, a family of four parks curbside and rushes unimpeded into a bustling Burger King, immediately placing an order.

“Two Whoppers, two Whopper Juniors and four Coca-Cola,” the man says before hesitantly adding: “Would I have to wait long if you made one Whopper with no pickle and no lettuce?”

“No, sir,” says the glamorous order taker with a floppy multi-colored hat. Gripping a microphone with her right hand, she breaks into song:

“Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us. All we ask is that you let us serve it your way.”

And then all hell breaks loose as the wife makes her special request: She wants extra ketchup on her Whopper. The nerve!

Of course, these were reasonable requests then as they are now. But as consumers, it’s often not about the specific ask so much as feeling listened to and respected when you are spending your hard-earned dollars.

Consumers have more choices than ever, but we’ve handed way too much power over to the purveyors of products and services, as if they are doing us a favor.

Retail employees often aren’t trained to know much about the products they sell. Customer service has shifted off shore or to chat bots. It’s easy to feel taken for granted as a consumer.

At Stay, we fight for every customer, and every transaction matters. The person who buys a sticker, we hope, will buy more stickers or a T-shirt or tote bag on another day.

The opportunity to engage with customers is precious: to tell them about our products and the stories behind them, but also to let them know that they are important and valued.

If they have a problem, we will fix it. If they have a question, a need, a request, we will do our best to address it to their satisfaction.

Extra ketchup is fine, but extra attention to customer service in general is what really matters.

Sizes, shirt colors and fits

As a small company, we tend to offer our designs in only one color combination on a unisex tee in adult unisex sizes small through 2XL.

We’ve made exceptions for several top-sellers: Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful is available in forest green short sleeve and gray long sleeve; Pennsylvania Craft Beer in short- and long-sleeve, both navy with the same ink color; Pennsylvania Bigfoot Believers is offered in short-sleeve coyote brown and orange, both printed with green ink.

We were bold this spring when we introduced our new Hershey script tee in desert rose with mint green ink and brown with tangerine ink.

But as with the Bear’s examples, we want customers to know that we will work with them if they are willing to work with us.

If a size is out of stock, we will notify them when it is back in stock.

We can print smaller (even youth) or bigger sizes than we normally carry as long as the design doesn’t have to be resized to fit; or on a women’s cut or on a different shirt color as long as we don’t have to introduce a new ink color.

We will only print on Made in USA garments, of course, staying true to our brand promise. To date, we have used Royal Apparel blanks exclusively and will turn to that catalog for special requests.

We can help customers in ways that aren’t limited to specific products, too.

One customer recently asked whether she could pay with Venmo ahead of time and then pick up her items at one of our Market on Chocolate appearances in Hershey.

Of course! I don’t know why she wanted to do it that way, but no matter. I was grateful for the sale, just as I am for every transaction, big or small.

In early June and again in early August, I met one customer in Hershey to deliver her tees in person; she paid on the spot each time, the first time with a credit card and the second via Venmo. It was an easy walk for me to meet her; she didn’t have to pay for shipping.

We’ll consider everything within reason. Like Burger King, special orders don’t upset us. We’ll do our best to be flexible because we want to get more Stay stuff out there.

All we ask is that you don’t expect us to wear one of those floppy hats.