You’re right—it’s a crowded, crazy market. Thomas, my business partner, worked for Crescent Hosiery and I worked for SmartWool. We didn’t enter this market to beat anyone at their game. Instead we set out to sell high quality products you can’t live without—once you’ve lived with them! We also wanted to do business differently by offering truly superior customer service. If our retailers are pleased with our service and our customers satisfied with our products, then we’ve succeeded in our mission. Service, quality, and respect are too often overlooked in our modern world.

 

We have four main tenets that drive our business:

-Niche category products

-Unique yarns built around natural fibers

-In-stock program to reduce retailer risk

-Made in the USA to support the local economy and its workers

 

We didn’t want to pigeon-hole ourselves as a sport-specific brand. Instead we set out to create a high-performance, superior quality product—THE socks for the everyday world.  Sure, we have different styles and unique yarns for specific purposes, but all of our socks are designed and crafted to provide technical performance and style savvy. From the board room to the back nine, running your favorite trail to leading the PTA meeting, a group bicycle ride to a dinner date, Goodhew socks are constructed to keep your feet comfortable, dry and stylin’, all at an affordable price.  We design our socks to unify and balance all elements of sock making.

 

Not at all! But we do take customer satisfaction seriously. We want our customers and our retailers to be happy with what they are buying and selling. That’s why our Thread Architects take time to build quality yarns and products. They examine style, softness, performance, durability, purpose and colors to create the highest quality, functional products.

Our four yarn combinations are Cashmerino™, Cashmerino/Bamboo, Lambswool/Alpaca and Merino/Eco-Coolmax®.

This is our name for Superfine Merino Wool that feels like Cashmere but with the durability of wool. Merino wool is great for moisture management, helping your feet to stay dry and comfortable. This combined with the durability, loft, softness and finer micron count of high grade merino wool (18.5 microns), make it a luxurious material for socks. In addition, all wool used by Goodhew is shrink-treated for a consistent fit.

This construction combines the softness of our Cashmerino yarn with the anti-microbial, ventilation and moisture absorption properties of sustainably produced rayon bamboo for highly breathable, stylish socks. Our great natural fiber combos give the consumer the flexibility of different weave textures and feel within the brand.

The Lambswool/Alpaca combination provides our most technical sock, due to the unique qualities of each fiber.

 

Lambswool is harvested only from lambs and is softer than regular Merino Wool due to the lower micron fibers found on lambs.

 

Alpaca has many of the same characteristics of merino wool but possesses certain advantages over wool fiber. Alpaca fibers, like wool, have microscopic air pockets that give them great thermal capacity, but the thermal factor of Alpaca is greater than wool, a gift of nature that developed from the environment Alpacas live in (high mountains). Additionally, Alpaca fiber is stronger than wool fiber, has a softer hand than wool in the same micron count, and comes in 22 distinct, naturally occurring colors.

We use a specially designed Merino Wool/Coolmax yarn for our Performance Lifestyle socks to keep your feet cool, dry, and comfortable all day. The Merino Wool provides cushioning, thermal regulation and moisture management, while the Coolmax provides softness, moisture movement, an optical whitener and resilience.

We also incorporate Lycra into all of our socks to provide a superior fit to the stretch nylon used in most socks. With Lycra, socks are able to fit more snugly across a larger range of shoe sizes and fit as well at the end of the day as they did when they were put on in the morning.

 

It’s really helpful to our retailers, once they wrap their arms around the idea of doing business differently.

Goodhew bears the fiscal responsibility of holding the inventory and retailers order up what they want when they need it. We also help retailers create their orders based upon market studies, take back slow movers and gladly exchange styles and colors. With Goodhew, it costs a retailer between $1600 and $2400 to get a product line in their stores. This is a small investment compared to other brands in our category. Retailers then manage their inventories and buy more product as needed.
 

This is a tough economy for retailers and we want to help, plus it’s just a smart way to do business and allows us to make quick changes and market demand adjustments.

 

For other companies it can be, but not for Goodhew.

With our In-stock program, we need to have quick order turn around and low production minimums. We keep our most popular yarns and colors in stock at our partner mills, for quick order fulfillment. We monitor warehouse stocks and place orders as needed, not just seasonally. We couldn’t operate our business that tightly if we were dealing with the lead times of overseas factories, it just isn’t possible. 

But we don’t just have our product manufactured in the US, by 2011 almost all components of Goodhew garment production (fiber production, fiber creation, dying, treatments and manufacturing) will take place in the good ol’ USA.

 

Retailers appreciate our great customer service and willingness to work with them. We don’t show up at new accounts and try to “sell” a sock line. Because the last thing most retailers need, or want, is another sock line. Instead we get socks on people’s feet, explain our 4 guiding principles and our unprecedented profit margin for retailers. We present our story and retailers make the decision to carry Goodhew based upon our impressive quality, comfort and value. Socks and boxers are a discretionary item, but still a very important part of our lives.  

 

Starting a company in this day and age, you can’t afford not to. Goodhew maintains the smallest carbon footprint possible.

Our products are constructed almost exclusively of natural/renewable materials, our packaging is printed on recycled paper stock and is fully recyclable, we use lightweight and recyclable poly bags, we’ve created a packing configuration to minimize product space requirements and our office is committed to being electronic.

It’s good business and it’s good for the earth. We want to do everything we can to protect our planet and ensure its health for our children and grandchildren.

 

We are working on releasing a Premium 2-Pack program across four main product categories.  I see expanding this to become a measurable percentage of our business. I want Goodhew to be the “high performance, high quality, 2-pack Company.”

One of our big goals in 2011 is to be almost completely made in the US, not just manufacturing, as it is now. Otherwise, Goodhew will continue to grow our sock line and focus on high quality lifestyle pieces.