Swoveralls
Only rarely before has your Stats Shark seen an idea so stupid, he feels the need to say so in the deal description rather than saving it for an analysis. But... congratulations, Swoveralls has actually crossed that threshold.
Ugh...
What do you get when you cross sweats with overalls? Probably the worst looking thing anyone has ever worn. For those who are old enough, imagine the costumes Mario and Luigi wore in the horrible Mario Brothers movies Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo starred in back before video game movies could be good. They essentially look like felt overall costumes for a children's show. And, yet, Swoveralls claims that their look combines two fashion items into one.
Each of these monstrosities costs $33 per unit to make and retails for $95. They have five SKUs for women. Proving that America lacks taste and discernment, the company has done $230,000 in the last year in sales.
The entrepreneur behind Swoveralls, claims that 20% of the SKUs the company has account for 80% of the sales. The company explains the number of SKUs it has by stating that customers wanted more colors and the company wanted to ensure it had them. Daymond, the shark with the most apparel experience on the panel, expresses serious concern about the the inventory. But, says the entrepreneur, in an attempt to counter him, he says that he believes the company lost $100,000 in sales by not having the necessary inventory and has had a successful kickstarter for $75,000 in order to poll customers as to their favorite colors going forward. But, also, the reason Swoveralls is in the tank is to raise the money necessary to fund inventory.
Barbara, also questions the number of SKUs the company has, citing her investment in The Original Comfy.[1] She says that with one SKU, the company has sold 9,000,000 in product valued at $25,000,000 and that she believes the single SKU helped make that business a success. Because of this, she says she believes that Swoveralls is a "fad" and that she'll take a pass.
The entrepreneur states that he intends to move Swoveralls into kids, plus sizes, and college markets. But this doesn't please Mark, who says that if he had enough demand in any area already, he wouldn't be searching for new markets and, thusly, is out.
Kevin, as always, worries about how he will recoup his investment and sees the number of SKUs as "splintering" the market. And, because he can't see how he'll get his money back, is also out.
Daymond tells an interesting story about how UnderArmor began at about the same time that Fubu did but that UnderArmor focused on producing a moisture-wicking shirt while Daymond branched out into a lot of different products. He then says that UnderArmor now does $4,000,000,000 in business while Fubu does just a fraction of that because UnderArmor chose to focus. Because this business refuses to focus, he goes out as well.
Last in the tank is Lori, who states that she thinks they're both too early and have too much marketing left to do to get the word out.
And because Lori was last, Swoveralls left the tank without a deal and will hopefully die as any product like this should.
Notes
- ↑ The Original Comfy deal was made by Barbara back in Episode 9.13.