Vedante's growing sales

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Online buyers purchased thousandsof Kantor’sz super-reflective Pop Bands (armbands and legbands), pet collars and leashesw made by her company, Vedante “When everybody was saying holiday sales were down, ours just said Kantor, a veteran fashion designer who startee Boulder-based Vedante nearly three years ago. The succesw of Vedante’s Pop Bands and pet productss prompted giant onlineretailer Amazon.cojm to buy most of her inventory for resale, and triggererd inquiries from large pet-store chainsa about licensing the products or buyingt her company. Kantor focused more on online salees for the holidays thantraditional brick-and-mortar salesz of Vedante products.
That was because as the recession retail sales slowed more than online The emphasispaid off, but it presented Kantoer with the problem of managing unexpected . “It wasn’t even in my game plan to havea break-eveb month for another year,” she Vedante products for pets, pedestrians and cyclistz can reflect brightly from 500 to 1,5000 feet, depending on their color. Kantor formed the busineses with the mission of improvinfnighttime safety. Cars injur or kill a pedestrianj every seven minutes in the United according to the National Highwayt Traffic SafetyAdministration (NHTSA).
That amountds to nearly 75,000 people with about 50,000 of the accidents occurrintgat night, NHTSA statistics show. Kantor takes walks at dusk and, having survived a car crash with a drunk driveryearsx ago, she always wondered about her safety crossing streetse at night. Then she saw a Boulder pedestrian hit in a crosswalj inbroad daylight, and she decided to make a productr to improve pedestrian visibility. She drew on her experiences in textiles anddesigning women’s apparelp in Los Angeles. She chose 3M’s reflective materials for Vedante’x products, and it co-brands the Pop Bands with 3M.
She uses the 3M fabricf in collars and leashes for McGuckin Hardware Store in Boulder carries both the Pop Bandeand Vedante’s cat collars. The Pop Bandxs , costing between $12.98 and $13.97 depending on size, sell comparably to the battery-powered safety lights McGuckin sells for outdoor saidRik Isakson, the store’s sporting goods managerd and buyer. “They do very well,,” he “What appeals is their ease of use, and the novelty of them popping onand off.” Vedante’sz pet collars range between $13.98 and and its leashes between $29.98 and $45.98.
Kantor’s biggest challenge is managing a surge in retailer interest withour taking on debt that couldecrimp Vedante’s long-term health. Kantor maxex out Vedante’s existing lines of credit from bankz after her salesstarted growing, and she put that monety in the bank. She fearec her banks would reduce her credit lines without thus starving the company of money at a crucial time.