Tag: Sales

  • New Products. New DePop Listings.

    There is never a shortage of product ideas, only the capacity to inventory and the market to buy them.

    Marketing is the toughest part of the business. This website has been improved substantially, and new marketing materials have been developed.

    To make room for new ideas, I am liquidating overstock on DePop. The DePop store will now be the place for discontinued designs, irregular products, experiments and prototypes.

    A new batch of products have been added as well. They all take advantage of materials on hand, making them affordable to build and easy to inventory.

    The Classic line of products now includes a belt bracelet, a slim belt choker, and a simplified slim waist belt.

    All three of these are made from one-inch strap carefully cut by our fabricator in Michigan, then paired with a nickel-plated brass roller buckle set.

    The roller buckle set is one of the defining aspects of the Classic product line, and they are very dependably restocked.

    The center bar buckle used for the Barbary set is now available as an add-on, and it fits especially with the Classic Slim belt and choker.

    Two universal designs have been added: Portals and Smilodon.

    Dual Prong Belt by Held Gear. THRU LLC 2025.

    Portals are punches all the way across the broad side of any belt (wider than one inch). It is considered a utility belt because it works great with carabiners, and may be ideal for rock climbers, iron workers, perhaps hikers and hunters, but there’s an undeniable style about it that can be enjoyed by anyone.

    Smilodon is commonly known as the Saber Tooth Tiger, iconic for its two great teeth, and the belt features is dual-prong roller buckle with dual snaps. Believe it or not, I couldn’t find any affordable dual roller buckles until very recently. This design can be ordered with any 1.5 inch strap in stock. As of this blog post, that includes the black Classic, the grey Mammoth, the brown Auroch, and the orange Cantaloupe.

    With these few new products available, numerous design bugs fixed on the site, updates and revisions made, and new graphic design layout concepts for advertising, I’m in a much better position to begin a genuine marketing campaign.

    Let’s go.

  • From Clearance to Caveat

    From Clearance to Caveat

    Real Life and Small Business

    Last July, I launched a clearance sale, and the follow through from that sale was going to be an updated line of products replacing the old designs and stock.

    The plan continues to hold that way, only it now has a different timeline because real life and small business can lead to big caveats. Held Gear is truly small. Tiny. To support myself, I need other income.

    At the end of July, there was a family emergency, and in that moment all the plates I was spinning came falling. Sometimes you can break the plates and incur no blame.

    My Father passed away and this led to a deep meditation before I had to spring to action, fly to Arizona and help my Mother through it. This is life. Suddenly one big plate comes and it’s the one you have to focus on. Let alone grieving, I am back to spinning plates in Philadelphia, and Held Gear continues to receive sales and traffic from search engines. It’s a tiny business, and it’s okay if it is.

    That said, I want to make stronger impressions when new visitors find the website. I want to spend more time building it out and improving the whole presentation. I’ve got it so close!

    Real life is the income part. Until this provides my income, it’s always just a small plate in the routine. This routine is coming to a climax, however. One by one, I am setting them down, and by the end of the year, this business will be a stronger focus.

    How I’m doing that is for me to know and you to find out : P

    A customer from five years ago came around a couple of weeks ago and bought two belts on Etsy, one for herself and her husband. She even paid the excessive Canadian shipping. The fans of this brand are few, but they are real. And I need to highlight their testimonials on this very website. My to-do list never ends, and that’s great!

    There is not presently any advertising, all sales come from past customers, or random searches. The fact that customers come back after five and ten years tells me that Held Gear is worth keeping up with. Whenever I want to accelerate sales, I will do that.

    The clearance items will remain on clearance until they are gone. Those prices are at least 50% off.

    All of those products are good, they just didn’t work out as desired. For example, the Snow Ermine is nice and durable, and people gravitate toward its timeless style. However, the strap is very firm and kinks when wrapped in a circle. I will replace that with a 2-ply strap, instead of 3-ply. It’s amazing how much more pliant the 2-ply is. There are also alternative white straps in the catalog that I want to consider.

    The Groove will probably come back with modest design changes. The Sky belts are gone, however, I will select a new blue strap to replace it. Also, a green will be coming. I really want all the colors of the rainbow, but it’s expensive to build and inventory these things.

    A successful clearance sale means there is more room in the product closet, and cash available to invest in new materials. Then I have to work harder to create the demand.

    Real life, once again, comes back into it. At this time, I leave it to be continued. The caveat of making Held Gear a stronger focus later is to right now do the bare minimum for a while longer.

    I’ll be back with more news soon. Thanks for checking in.

    -Sean

  • New Products, Old Ideas Revised

    Clearance sales on Mammoth and Snow Ermine are in effect. This is to accelerate plans to improve those designs. In fact, Ermine is a new design based on a strap used in the past. The cut on this strap came out 1/16″ too wide, but it still fits through the buckle, just a little tight.

    Mammoth is our most expensive, chic, standard belt. Yet, it has the same design as the classic, with the roller buckle and single snap. We found a chic modern western style buckle for it. It requires a double snap and a slightly tighter loop to house the buckle, so all previously built Mammoths must go.

    The gradual rollout of Held’s mainstay catalogue has been going steadily.

    Any products listed at HeldGear.com are considered ongoing inventory with no discontinuation in sight. These are not recycled products and they are built from new components.

    Etsy will continue for now as the exclusive listing site for prototypes, limited issues, and units built from recycled materials.

    Held products reduce waste even when they are newly sourced, because they are the most durable belt strap outside of pure raw hide leather. “Genuine Leather” is nonsense. That stuff is either a composite of junk leather ground into particles, mixed with other junk, then bound together by toxic adhesives.

    Most people that buy a cheap standard black belt for their job don’t even realize that they are wearing a vegan belt. However, it is made from a weak strap, junk buckles, made in poor working conditions, and is not meant to last a year.

    Held offers an affordable alternative. Our retail prices are in the same range as inferior products at major department stores. We offer something that can be put to the test day in and out, for years to come.

    The goal of standardizing mainstay products with completely American-made components is within reach, and getting closer with every sale. As our supply chain works right now, we already support small American companies every step of the way.

    So many possibilities are at our fingertips springing from the belt design. The reversible snap strap allows for customization options like different buckles, and more conceptual designs and color combinations. Building that into the shop is a little complex, but it’s almost here.

    Cuffs, collars, and new belt designs are coming out right now.

    HELD is a supplement to the whole American manufacturing apparatus that uses conveyor belting in their process. We support the continued sales of these manufacturers even during a recession.

    We are also a punk rock company, man, this is all indie as it gets. That’s why, eventually people will say, we’re the only brand that matters.