by Jamie West
How did this all begin? Sure, there’s the story on this website. And it’s all true. But there’s so much more. I thought I would delve further into my journey with this business. Did you know you, or really anyone, can produce a product? Years ago, I naively assumed that there were two types of products on the market : those meticulously created by hand by artists and makers, and then products made by big, huge large corporations.
I had been selling on eBay since 1998, when I was 18. I have my mom to thank for teaching me how to do that. I estimate that I’ve sold over 40,000 items during that time. Mind blowing. Those things have varied, some things were fascinating, unique or surprising, I found my niche selling plush, stuffed animals, toys, and baby blankets. Those were things that I really enjoyed selling, I’ve loved animals and stuffed animals since I was a child, I love all the happy vibes I got seeing, photographing and shipping retro toys, and I love thinking about how happy and excited a baby, child or adult would feel opening a package containing something meaningful and special to them. There was even satisfaction in cleaning and repairing items, taking them from dirty or maybe having a hole in the seam, and cleaning and repairing that item so that it looked beautiful again.
Buying choice baby blankets at the thrift store.
I have and had a BOLO ("Be On The Lookout) list, if you will, of items that I would find from time to time that were great sellers on eBay. One of those things were thermal waffle weave blankets with nylon trim from the 80s and 90s. It was like they had some sort of cult following, because they would always sell for a lot of money (hundreds) on eBay.
In 2017, I attended a conference that was about e-commerce. I thought I would pick up tips on selling on eBay. But instead the conference focused on selling on Amazon. Something else you may be surprised to know is that when you buy something on Amazon, it’s oftentimes not actually Amazon that is selling that product. Amazon is a marketplace where just about any person or business can put their product up for sale. Some people are simply buying stuff online or in stores for cheap and reselling it at the price it’s selling for on Amazon, and some people make a good living doing that. Some people do what’s called “white labeling” a product, which is getting a product and putting their own logo on it. You see a lot of this on Amazon, a bunch of products that are identical except for the label/brand name.And then there’s “Private Labeling.” This is where a person or company has their own custom product created and manufactured for them, to their exact specifications. That product is unique, unlike anything else any other person or company is selling. Can you see where I’m going with this? I started connecting the dots that people wanted this thermal waffle weave baby blanket with nylon trim around the edges. I knew from previous research that the company that had originally manufactured the blankets had gone out of business and no other company was producing the blankets anymore. It occurred to me that I could start a company that would sell those blankets.
(Continued in The Genesis Of The New Baby Morgan Blankets, Part 2)