Importance of good products

Since you guys really enjoyed the first blog article about how and why MisFitted was established, I decided to tell you more about the first two years of running the brand. As already said before, running an online business can be challenging but a lot of fun too! The idea behind these blog posts is that maybe someone reading this finds the motivation and courage to also start working on their own online brand.
Have fun reading and do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions whatsoever !

Instead of doing a chronological review of the first two years, I thought it would be more interesting in dividing this article into two parts: Products and Branding

How to product

Safe to say, you can’t have an e-commerce website without products. But not just any products. Consumers nowadays have seen pretty much everything, so it can be hard to still innovate and offer something 'no one' has seen yet. For MisFitted, it basically all started with 3 slap sticker designs, a total of 150 pieces. Something that was very important since day one for me was not scamming your customers and selling them cheap quality products. With good photography you can basically make everything look pretty, but once the customer receives his order and finds out that you sold him a cheap quality product, it will have a negative impact on your brand. Especially for stickers, you can print stickers that look good but fade in the sun after just a few weeks. Do you want your brand to be seen on a faded sticker? I guess not.
Since day one I have been working with the exact same person for stickers, banners and everything that you guys can put on your windscreens. As you can tell, finding a quality partner that you trust is key.

After three months of selling stickers, I decided to start working on the first Hoodie design. Since I was often asked what the meaning behind the word “MisFitted” was, I thought it would be a cool idea to print its definition on the back of the Hoodie. Still to this day, the OG Hoodie is one of the most demanded product and still one of my favorite designs.

Not having printed any clothing whatsoever before, I started looking on the net and found a company located in Germany. If I could go back in time, I’d tell myself to first order a test Hoodie before ordering a bigger quantity. The fabric quality itself was decent, however the print lost its whiteness the more often you threw into the washer. Lesson learnt, always test your products thoroughly before selling them.

Everyone knows that products made in China are a lot cheaper. I thought, since even good quality clothing was much cheaper, it would be a good idea to produce a few of the 2019 collections in China. After realizing that profit is NOT the most important thing in running an online business and being scammed once, I finally decided to cut the made in China era of MisFitted. Over the last two years I also personally did a lot of research on the environmental impact of pretty much everything related to an online business (Packaging, Product sourcing,...) and it simply doesn’t make any sense to produce something in China when you can do the same thing in your own country and support local businesses. Of course you can’t compare chinese with european prices, but as already said, money is not everything in life.

Happy to say that since 2020 every clothing item has been made by Drockmeeschter, a local company run by two young guys here in Luxembourg.

In 2019 I came across the beauty (or mess) of tie dyeing. I remember that another automotive clothing brand from the UK asked me why I would go the difficult and time consuming road and tie dye each Hoodie myself when I could just buy them straight from China. But that’s exactly what differentiates you from the others. People love seeing how something is made, this is why it is so important that you document your journey of pretty much everything related to your products. (more on this in the next blog). 

Having cool products is a must, but personalisation also plays a big factor nowadays. Everyone loves to have something no one else does too. That’s why over the years I decided to offer from time to time very limited items or give people the possibility to have their very own windshield banner. This is also the beauty of tie dying, every piece of clothing is unique since every design is hand made and different.

Over the next few months and years I’d love to be able to offer more MisFitted branded car parts. The brand itself started in the Automotive world and it is just something I always wanted to work on, so stay tuned!

If you made it until here, just know I love you. Really enjoy getting this kind of information out there and as already said, do not hesitate to contact me if you have any other questions!

The next blog post will be about the importance of branding, everything from social media to storytelling and content creation! See you soon.

Much love,
Criss