Our Summer Warehouse Clearout breaks all the rules - why we're doing i

We’re doing something we’ve never done before: running two big sales back-to-back.

Our early-July Learning Curve Sale featured the “almost perfect” belts resulting from training new sewing team members for our studio in Edmonton, where we’ve been making all new Unbelts since May (read our first blog post about it right here).

And yesterday, we launched our Summer Warehouse Clearout of all Classic belts made in Ms. Ou’s studio in south China, where half our belts have been made until this year.

Here’s why we’re not supposed to do this, according to very smart business advisors, books, blogs, and podcasts:

Too many sales can devalue our brand. The idea: if you, our customer, can buy a Classic now for $15 - why would you ever buy one for $45 again?
“Sales fatigue” is a thing, and too many salesy emails/promotions can be annoying and gross.
Our wholesale partners could be justifiably upset if we undercut their pricing.
When we sell products for the same amount as it costs to make and ship them (or even less), we lose the profit margin we need to grow our business.

Points taken. But. Here’s why we’re doing it anyway:

We want to bring you new products. We’ve been working on really exciting prototypes that we can’t move forward with until we’ve simplified our existing inventory - and until we can afford to invest in new materials. We order our elastic several kilometres at a time, per colour - so offering a new belt width (hint hint) stays on hold until we can buy all those raw goods.
We want to move away from having lots of stock on-hand to manufacturing “just-in-time.” One of the key benefits of having made-in-Canada stretch belts is being able to sew exactly what we’re selling, as we’re selling it. This gets us closer to being a totally zero-waste business, and also creates more consistent sewing work for our team.
Our retailers need consistent packaging across every Classic Unbelt, and we’d rather offer you a deal on the products that are wrapped in our previous packaging than consume new repackaging materials.
Honestly, we need the space, and we need it fast. Now that we’re manufacturing here, we need more workspace for quality control, packaging, and additional sewing machines.
We trust you to trust us that our sale belts truly ARE a slammin’ and very, very rare deal. We can’t afford to sell $15, $25, or even $35 adult belts on a regular basis - and you’ve told us our living-wage supply chain and really high-quality components are more important to you, anyway.
We’re offering the same deals to our wholesale partners so nobody’s left out of the bargain.

Everyone needs a fresh start sometimes, and sometimes that’s worth more than a full profit margin. We hope you make the most of the next four days, and we’ll be standing by to ship you a lot of appreciation along with your elastic belts. Thanks, friends -

Claire + Team Unbelts

Our Summer Warehouse Clearout runs until 23:59 p.m. Monday, July 24, 2023. Classic Belts are available at $15, $25, and $35, with Team Ten-Packs from $135. Shipping is $9.95, or free on orders $75+. All proceeds help fund our next releases and the growth of our Edmonton sewing studio, and we promise not to be gross with too many salesy emails.

STAY IN THE LOOP