New Customer Choice Products for Basketball

We've had a chance to review sales of products this season along with customer comments and feel 4 products, including 3 new ones, warrant a customer choice seal:

• Ultimate Referee Shirt with Side Panels
  We're not surprised people like this one as much as our standard black/white version
  
• Sansabelt/Smitty Flat Front Referee Pants
  Another no-brainer considering the quality and popularity of its pleated counterpart
  
• Official Footwear Ultimate Patent Referee Shoes
  We continue to get great feedback
  
• Standard Black Jacket

We considered a few other products, but we're just picky about what gets the seal. If we gave to too many products, it would be meaningless.

View all customer choice basketball products.

New 2008 Baseball/Softball Products

We are working hard to gear up for baseball/softball 2008 with the addition of about 50 new products. Most of them are needed to round out our product selection and things you would expect to find such as colder weather items, rule books, long sleeve shirts, sports medicine and more.

I kinda of feel like we're a little behind the 8-ball though considering our customers are buying umpire gear right now and starting to ask many questions.

Most of these are already here, some for longer than others:

• Mueller Sports Medicine (just arrived)
• Thorlo socks. gloves and ear warmers that we've had for the last few months but can at least say they are new for first time for baseball/softball
  
• Shock FX titanium helmet
• High School rule books
• Ultimate belt
• Balls on top indicator
• Tights
• Diamond 30" Ultimate Equipment Bag with Telescopic Handle
• Water repelling Richardson umpire cap
• Wilson Tan Dyna-lite mask (super-sharp)
• Wilson frame replacement and MLB logo harness replacement
• Diamond Slim Briefcase
• Shock Doctor Insoles
• Sholaces in 2 sizes
  

Other things are on order and on their way:

• 4 New Jackets from Smitty in various trims and waist styles (in first week of Jan)
  
• Dark grey plate and base pants (first week of Jan)
  
• Long sleeve shirts in navy, black and powder blue (first week of Jan)
  
• New Balance plate and base shoes (sometime Jan)
  
• Under Apparel in multiple colors (mid-Jan)
• College Manuals including new softball manual (first week of Jan)

I'm eager to get these items in and look forward to what should be a great season.

Have a Great Christmas

I have trouble with the words "Merry Christmas". Not because of the "Christmas" part like some companies or people do these days, but with the "Merry" part.

No, I'm not a Scrooge and wish that everyone finds coal in their stockings Christmas morning.

It's just that I can't count on 1 finger the number of times I've said the word "Merry" in all this year's months preceding December. Normally, we say "Have a Great Day" instead of "Have a Merry Day". Imagine saying "Merry night" instead of "Good night" to a loved one.

So instead I wish you and yours a great Christmas. Just feels more sincere to me when I say it that way.

Inside Scoop on Shipping and Handling Costs

Wanted to share a few recent posts I shared at umpire.org on why we (and others) charge what they charge to ship orders as well as some common sense advice and reasoning on saving money on shipping over a season: Click here to view.

First Commenter to Get More on Dance Floor

Remember your first school dance in Jr. High, the one where the music played and everyone stood around the dance floor for the first hour waiting for someone else to wander onto the dance floor? Where you'd ask a girl "Do you want to dance?" only for her to reply, "I will as soon as someone else does."

Well, we have our first dancer. Jeff stepped out among the disco lights and paper streamers of this modest blog and commented on one of my posts, the one regarding the new Shock FX helmet. So

ATTENTION ALL OF YOU STANDING IN THE WINGS WAITING ON SOMEONE ELSE TO COMMENT BEFORE YOU DO: You are now free join in.

I honestly have pushed the blog very little. Why? Part of that had to do at first to fears I had that I'm sure were in common with other, new bloggers:

• Will I have enough to write about?
• Will I have the time to keep it up or will I let it slide after a few posts?
• Will anyone care with only the few posts I have so far?
• Will people think I'm crazy (A blog for a sporting goods store for officials!?)?

Now that some of those fears have been alleviated, I plan to push it a little more.

So, please, get out on the dance floor and comment at will. As a result the blog should become more of a conversation than a one-sided commentary.

Ump-Attire.com Actually #2 in Traffic Behind Honig's

There is a website called Alexa.com (An Amazon.com company) that ranks websites by traffic. It works in the same way Nielsen ratings work for television. For instance, here are some rankings for some popular websites:

• Yahoo at #1
• Google at #2
• YouTube at #4
• MySpace at #8

Where do referee and umpire sporting goods stores rank? As of today's date, the rankings are as follows (with lowest rank indicating highest amount of traffic over the last 3 months).

• Honigs.com - 655,222
• Ump-Attire.com - 854,929
• Gerrydavis.com - 2,076,973
• Next closest - 2,735,732

For most of this year, I had listed us as the #1 ranked website for officials' sporting goods stores. This was true for several months late in 2006 and early in 2007. Honig's has had the better ranking for at least the last 6 months. I had hoped we'd come back around to justify the #1 comment as it can fluctuate month to month but it hasn't quite happened. I had no choice but to take this comment down as the last thing I want to do is be less than honest.

So I can proudly say "We're #No. 2!", which I think being positioned behind Honig's, a company we have a great deal of respect for, is fine with us.

Surveys: New Survey and Peak at Past Results

We just closed our 2nd survey of the year and launched a new one. Thanks to all who provided their feedback previously.

NEW SURVEY
We're very excited about our new 10 question survey because we're really looking for more answers on how you think we and our website stacks up against the competition. So we're asking some questions about product selection, product info, image quality and ease of checkout. You can complete the new survey here:

PAST SURVEY RESULTS
Since you took the time to complete previous surveys, I think it's only fair to share some of the results with you without giving away too much double-top secret industry intelligence.

When asked the question of where referees and umpires have bought in the past year (could check more than 1), you answered:

• #1 - Honig's - 57%
  
• #2 - Ump-Attire.com - 49%
• #3 - Pluspos (now out of business) - 28%
• #4 - Gerry Davis - 27%
• #5 - Next closest -11%

We asked how the quality of our protective gear stacks up to competitor offerings. You answered:

• 51% better than competition
  
• 47% same as
• 2% worse

We asked how the quality of our apparel stacks up. You answered:

• 47% better than competition
  
• 50% same as
• 3% less

To hear those responses in quality, see ourselves so close to a well-respected Honig's and a decent amount ahead of the others shows that our hard work is paying off.