2011: Year in Review
As we prepare for 2012, we wanted to take a minute to review some UGP highlights from 2011, in case you missed them.
A New UGP Store
UGP opened our 17th location and our first in the state of Nebraska in August. The Lincoln store is located on the campus of the University of Nebraska at 1601 Q. Street. When UNL joined the Big Ten, we knew we had to open up there, and it we are glad we did. The store is off to a great start, and we're looking forward to continuing to serve the campus community there for years to come.
We also did some revonations at our Ann Arbor - Main Street location to accomodate even more terrific retail products!
Apparel Trends
2011 continued to the trend of retro-80s throwbacks, with neons and crop tops making a resurgence in popularity. Quarter-Zip fleeces and Deep V-Necks continued their popularity from 2010 with another strong showing this year. Our number one seller however remained the basic t-shirt. In the Gildan 5000 style alone, we printed more than 430,000 t-shirts! Watch out for relative newcomer Tultex in 2012, as they have been gaining popularity quickly for their low-cost, comfortable, and fashion-fit t-shirts this year!
A Million Plus!
We printed a few things in 2011. As of December 29th, we had printed just over 1,040,000 garments this year. That's a lot of apparel!
POGO Popularity Soars
We knew UGPogo, our online group ordering system, would be a hit, and in 2011 we processed 400 new carts. That means 400 customers were freed from the burden of collecting money and sizes from their group by taking those payments and orders on their UGPogo cart. 400 customers also were able to make money (if they wanted to) on their orders by adding a little on top of the prices we charge to raise money or profits! If your group or organization hasn't tried out UGPogo in 2011, make it a resolution to simplfy your shirt ordering in 2012 with a UGPogo cart!
Shop Expansion
Producing all of those t-shirts, hoodies, and more requires a lot of space and equipment. Our old shop was just getting too crowded for all that jazz, so we took over the space next door, knocked down a few walls, brought in some new equipment, and spread out a bit. When the dust settled (and was vacuumed up so as to not end up on your shirts) we unveiled our now 55,000 square foot production facility with new presses and even more capacity to meet our growing demand in 2012 and beyond!
Thank You & Happy New Year!
We'd like to thank all of our customers who made all of these accomplishments possible. UGP would not continue to grow the way it has without all of your support, year in and year out. We feel very fortunate to have such loyal customers, and we look forward to bringing you even more great apparel in 2012!
Happy New Year, Everyone! Here's to a great 2012 (and making it to 2013 so we can all feel good about how we made it past Y2K and 2012! Take that computer glitches and ancient Mayan calendars).
