GlengarryHats.com is a sole proprietorship owned and operated by Ian Parenteau.
Except for some occasional
part time help, I have been operating as a one man shop, working from home.
The primary
benefit is I can
keep
my costs down and offer
customers reasonable prices. The downside is I have limited inventory space, and I can
fall behind when I get very busy.
GlengarryHats.com is exclusively an online business,
I do not operate a physical
store front or a mobile store at highland games.
I have a lot of different job descriptions, including:
- Photography
- Photo Editing
- Web Page Development
- Supplier Management
- Customer Management
- Inventory Management
- eBay Auctions
- New Product Development
- Order Specifications
- Quality Assurance
- Bookeeping
- Shipping
- Receiving
I will try to offer periodic updates on the state of GlengarryHats.com below:
| 2012 |
- GlengarryHats.com is now distributing Canadian manufactured L&M Highland Products in addition to our current line of overseas manufactured products.
|
| 2011 |
- Canada Post rotating strike action and lockout restricted product delivery throughout June and July, thank you for your patience.
- Introducing highland dance tartans provided by McAleer Highland Gear on Zazzle products.
- After maintaining my wife's family home in addition to our own home for about the last 10 years, we will finally be reducing our workload down to a normal single home. This requires a lot of work apartment hunting, packing, painting, moving relatives and selling the old homestead, but we expect to be free from the burden of maintaining a second home sometime this fall. I thank all of my customers for their patience and look forward to being able to devote more time to managing and growing GlengarryHats.com.
|
| 2010 |
- Sales increase in Highland Dance Vest and Jacket sales
- Sales increase in tartan print shoes and iPhone cases on Zazzle
- Introduced new Scarlet Red Balmorals and military style Khaki Tam o' Shanters on eBay
- New inventory of Gold and Silver on Navy Blue shoulder rank slides on eBay
- Summer slowdown allowed me to re-work inventory storage, including custom Glengarry hat storage and shipping cartons.
- Photographed and auctioned many items on eBay. I still have a lot of miscellaneous products to sell on eBay.
- Improved inventory and re-ordering to ensure more timely deliveries of stocked products
|
| 2009 |
- I designed about 500 variations of tartan shoes on Zazzle
- I experienced a slowdown in sales in the early part of 2009, but business again picked up in the fall.
- I have learned that not all products that I offer actually sell, and that the list of products I carry must
continually evolve to meet customer demand.
- Click here for general GlengarryHats.com Questions and Answers
|
| 2008 |
- Migrated to new computer system
- 2008 was another sad year for me, as I spent much of my time assisting my good friend and neighbor
who was dying of esophogal cancer.
- Despite my preoccupation, customers continue to support GlengarryHats.com
- I experienced unexpected quality and delivery problems from a primary supplier who had been supplying
excellent products for the
past 3 years, and I was forced to seek out alternate suppliers for many items.
- Many vendors started using my personally photographed images in their web and print catalogues,
so I developed my copyright notice web page demonstrating my ownership of all images shown
at GlengarryHats.com.
|
| 2007 |
- Another strong growth year for GlengarryHats.com, but was also the last year of my mother's life.
- On many occasions I had to put my family before business.
- My mother's death prompted me to quit smoking after 30 years. This proved very difficult for me.
- Many repeat customers continued to support my efforts at GlengarryHats.com
- My older computer started failing in December, so I worked on getting a replacement
|
| 2006 |
- 2006 was a strong growth year for GlengarryHats.com.
- I was learning how to manage suppliers and customers while developing my website catalogue content.
- Continued learning about product photography and photo editing for web presentation.
- Some ups and downs ensuring continued quality product from suppliers.
|
| 2005 |
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