Why I Sold Knockoffs: Part One

Adam Lando
Jul 28, 2017 · 4 min read

Last night, I was hanging out with a few old friends Spitting freestyles back and forth at each other and catching up on life. At one point, The host (who shall remain un-named) Pulled out of a box of old snapback hats. He told everyone they belonged to a friend of his and that he was giving them away. The Friend in question (who shall also remain unnamed) used to buy hats off me and I mentioned this. I thought it was funnier than anything, But the host made sure that everyone heard him ask “That means they’re fake right?”, and I said yes and laughed it off. The way he said it was kind of disrespectful (he repeated it twice to make sure everybody heard him ask me that), and to be Honest it made me wonder if more people thought of me as the guy who sold fakes. For some reason, It didn’t sit well with me and honestly, it drew a tiny part of a much bigger picture.

This 3 part blog post is me addressing the beginning, middle and end of my ventures into replicas. This subject is also something I haven’t been too public about with my history in business.

The year was 2011, I was 18 years old and I was a Failing student at Langara College who worked part time in a Tile shop cutting tile over the weekends. At that point in my life, I had a terrible relationship with my parents as well as my sister and I was smoking and drinking too much. I was trying to be a rapper, but it didn’t feel like it was going anywhere.

I remember going to my friend’s house, and he was telling me about all these hats he bought off a kid at a Skytrain station. The vendor was another Adam who ran a page called Vancity Snapbacks and the hats in question were called snapbacks and were all the rage of time. I told my friend “I can do that!”, and so I did.

Now before I go on, Let me mention that before that moment I had no experience in headwear, streetwear or any other kind of fashion. I didn’t know what brands were popular And there was no Sort of strategy or plan to go into this with and probably the hardest obstacle, I had $150 to my name.

I know this is A somewhat obvious list to those who know the apparel business, but here is why you can’t start a clothing company or retail operation with $150 and use Authentic product that people want.

  1. Nobody will wholesale to a client with $150
  2. If you make T-shirts, don't have a lot of friends willing to support, or any background to design the odds are that no one will buy your T-Shirt line.
  3. I had no sort of business license, Website, or physical location. (Here’s a screenshot of an email thread with ultra popular backpack brand Herschel Supply Co) — This was back in 2012 by the way, when I was starting out.

With all those obstacles considered,I didn't really have a choice on how I Could get started. I placed an order on DHGate which you can see here was for 18 Snapbacks at $150 also known as paying $8.33 per cap. I also created a Facebook page called Hometown Apparel, and started meeting people up at skytrains in my area for $30 a hat or 2 for $50. Apparently I hit the perfect trend at the prefect time and I sold all 15 in 5 days. Lets do the math there: 18 hats sold for $30= $540 on a $150 investment, a profit of $390 and a profit margin of 260%. I was amazed at me being right about something so I decided to run with it. About 2 weeks after that first order I placed my second order for a whopping 57 Hats. 10 days later i’m out of hats and I had $1710 to play with.

Now With all exact financial figures aside, I had never had Over $1000 dollars in my bank account at one time And I had made 11x My investment In a little under a month and my job had become my second source of income. This was crazy to me so I quit my job. Now I’m the hat guy.

To be more efficient with my time, I started doing meet ups inside the Blenz Coffee at Commercial and Broadway And would post to let everyone know about it a day before on the Facebook page. I would be in the back of the Café, With a suitcase full of hats. Instead of me selling 2–5 hats in an hour travelling around skytrain stops for 4–5 hours, I’d sell 20–30 in an hour and have my whole selection available on hand. I was definitely starting something, and my phone was always blowing up So I knew I had to keep running with it.

I had no idea what was going to happen next, where it was going to take me And I had no idea how long this was going to last. All I knew is that I was finally succeeding at something, and it felt amazing.

Stay tuned for part 2.

Adam Lando

Written by

Entrepreneur, Apparel Expert, Aspergers Survivor and occasionally funny. Great in small doses.

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