Modern Art Apparel
www.modernartapparel.com

This was a startup company that had the idea to create high quality leather cases for Ipods and Iphones. They would allow customers to purchase the cases online, upload pictures, and then the customer’s customized picture would be imprinted onto the leather case.

The company originally tried to approach several factories in China to have the cases produced. However, their initial problem was that the cases they received from the Chinese factories either used synthetic leather, or they used very low grade leather. Furthermore, they could not find a company in China that could imprint images onto leather without damaging the leather. The third problem was that even if they could find high quality leather cases and a solution to imprinting on the leather, they still needed to find a company that could facilitate the interaction between the leather case factory, the printing factory, and ultimately help them ship the cases to the US.

The first problem regarding using low quality leather was solved quickly. One of our factories produces ipod and iphone cases, so we just needed to confirm with the customer what type of leather they needed. We went to a leather market and purchased samples of various types of high quality leather, and overnighted the samples to the customer.

The second task of finding a method to imprint on leather proved to be much more difficult. We scoured the city for print shops that could provide a solution to affordably print on leather, while at the same time not damaging the leather. We were able to locate a few factories that could print on leather without damaging the leather, however, the setup costs were over $100 per design. This proved to be too expensive too sell to customers that would be ordering only one unique case.

After searching more than 10 different print shops and factories, our American sourcing agent along with his assistant stumbled upon a small factory that claimed they produced printing machines which were made specifically to print onto leather.

Butler Sourcing helped negotiate the purchase of 10 of these machines. We helped Modern Art Apparel find a location to start a small factory, we found employees to work in their factory, we helped them register a company in China, and we prepared all of the visa documents for one of their employees to come work in China. Furthermore, we helped Modern Art Apparel save over $7,000 by finding an Indian company to create their e-commerce site, and to create their own internal database to control production.

This was a very involved project, and required a lot more of our resources than normal projects. Therefore, we billed out to our customer over $15,000. However, this company now does over 3 million dollars in sales per year. The owner of Modern Art Apparel acknowledges that working with Butler Sourcing was the best investment he ever made, because without our assistance his company would have never become a reality.

She made a contact at the tradeshow who assured her that their factory could produce the alarm clock to her specifications. After returning from the United States, she began a series of email inquiries with her contact. They maintained email correspondence for almost 2 months, and it took 2 months for the factory representative to finally admit to her that his factory was not capable of producing an alarm clock that had all the features she had requested.

Not only did this customer waste over $6,000 coming to China, but she also wasted valuable time that she desperately needed so that she could launch her product before Christmas.

The owner of the 30 Minute Timer, approached Butler Sourcing in July. We were able to find a factory that was able to produce a sample within 2 weeks, and 3 weeks later, the customer had received her first order of 1,000 pieces. This gave the customer plenty of opportunity to market the product before Christmas.

Butler Sourcing helped Solar Style put together a team of 3 engineers in China, that were able to reverse-engineer the product. Not only did this team of engineers re-create the product, but they were also able to make several important modifications to the product, which made it much more marketable and appealing.

2 of the 3 engineers still work for Solar Style, and Solar Style now directly works with the factory to produce new products and to reorder existing products.