Hey, who in the heck are you?

I read an interesting thread on a message board about my site that prompted me to post this information. Many people say that I give no information about who I am.

And I'm not really about to. I actually enjoy my privacy so I'm going to tell my story, but at the end, you may feel like you don't know much more about me now than you did before.

I started selling apparel years ago. I have always had a love for fashion and was extremely excited to be able to participate in the industry to some degree. As I became more and more familiar with suppliers, I saw the inefficiencies in the market because there was this huge growth in internet and eBay sellers and most jobbers (at that time) didn't really know how to deal with them.

Around the same time I hooked up with a woman, I'll call her "C" because I don't know if she wants her name all over the place or not. Anyhow, C was selling off price clothing, mostly unbranded (or unknown brands) and she had a sizable little business selling to mom and pop stores in the Midwest. C is a very brilliant businesswoman (and I like to think I am too) and she is full of ideas. So I told her, let's do what you do, but with branded and designer apparel instead of unbranded.

So we started working with other stores, eBay sellers, brokers, people doing all kinds of stuff. And it was through those experiences that we came to know people like you and understand your concerns.

It was a lot of hard work and we didn't really make as much commission as we thought we would. And it was a little difficult to keep up our commission arrangements with the companies we were working with because the customer always wants the lowest price. So C said, well I kind of got into this but this isn't really what I want to do and so I'm going to take a step back, liquidate all I have and go pursue my dream (in a nutshell). And I wrote this guide.

Yep, that's how it came about.

And about the time I wrote the guide I made a conscious decision to stop selling off price apparel. There were other reasons it was no longer attractive to me, but I felt it would be a conflict of interest to sell on both ends. Because, well, I would have to withhold information from you in order to profit from it and that wouldn't really be fair.

I know some people look at this site and say, well if he (most people assume I am a man, I don't know why, most men don't have an attitude like I do) knows so much, he would make tons of money from it and not sell it.

I guess so. That's one way of looking at it.

C and I are still great friends and we talk from time to time, she's a brilliant person to discuss various business ventures with.

I look at what a lot of you go through (in the off price industry). I am happy when you find success, I feel it when you have serious problems, I love knowing about what is going on, helping some of you, planting seeds, giving ideas. I have really helped some people completely turn their businesses around. But, all in all, I have no interest in selling off price anymore.