Youth Umpiring Organization Chooses Ump-Attire.com as Official Supplier

We are happy to announce that www.YouthUmpiring.org has chosen Ump-Attire.com as Official Supplier for their new organization.

Umpire-in-Chief,  Michael Wraa

Designed by  youth umpire Michael Wraa, YouthUmpiring.org is a free website where young umpires can submit questions, watch instructional videos and get needed advice directly from veteran umpires.  They can also discuss interpretations of rules with fellow umpires and most of all, share a common love of  baseball.

Congratulations, Michael, on launching your new site. We appreciate you selecting us as your official supplier.  Best of luck!       

5 Things About Walk-In Customers You Didn't Know

Despite our overwhelming majority of business originating online, we do have our fair share of walk-ins of local customers in all sports. Here are 5 things about them you didn't know:

1. 1 out of 20 customers are walk-ins. The rest are online or phone orders.
   
2. 90% of walk-ins are from Kentucky. No surprise there.
   
3. Our second largest customer base is from Indiana given their close proximity just across the Ohio River.
   
   
4. We do receive visitors from all over. Tennessee and Ohio are also common. Farther away, I recall visitors from Alabama, Florida and Minnesota when I waited on walk-ins more several years ago. Oh, and one from Missouri (Hello Dave). Krista and Emily recall recent visitors from Georgia. Anessa recalls a recent one from New York. Jeanne tells me we had a visitor from Germany once. I missed that. He certainly win the farthest traveled prize.
   
   Such visitors come through while on business, en route to a vacation or to see someone who lives here. Everyone is welcome. If you are from out-of-town, please consider stopping by.
   
5. Despite having a location in Kentucky, many of our Kentucky customers, even those in the Louisville area, find it convenient they can receive an order within 1 business day to most places.

Krista Wolf Promoted to Customer Service Manager

Krista Wolfe, CSM

Krista Wolf, who has been here less than a year has already proven herself worthy of leading what is known as the best customer service department in officials' sporting goods retail.

The lineage continues. Our two previous managers, Jeanne and Anessa, show that all good things come from customer service.

Jeanne Nelson was a one-woman show in customer service when we started almost 6 years ago. She has been Operations Manager for some time now.

Anessa Arehart was in charge of our first multi-person department. After 3 years, she has been promoted recently to Sales Manager and Marketing Lead.

Krista says, "It's a pleasure to work with such a fast growing company, and I have learned a lot over the course of a year. I'm excited to take the lead in my new role as Customer Service Manager and maintain our reputation for excellent customer service!"   

The Umpire School Caps and Jackets

The embroidery for The Umpire School caps and jackets turned out very well.

For more information on our embroidery services visit www.ump-attire.com/embroidery/

For more information on The Umpire School and its inaugural session starting January 8th, 2012, visit www.therightcall.net.

Changes to Privacy Policy to Reflect Social Media Use

Please note the following addition to our privacy policy regarding your posted comments on social media and blogs.

Any comments publicly posted to the Ump-Attire.com Facebook page, Twitter feed, blogs or online content including product reviews are considered permissible for use in regards to related Ump-Attire.com media applications including printed media, catalogs,  blogs of Ump-Attire.com (including the Officially-Unofficial and Good Calls blogs) and online product reviews.

Read complete privacy policy.

New Sport Specific Blogs - Good Calls for Officiating

The "Officially-Unofficial" blog has been a good success. It currently receives over 16,000 page views per month.

Just as successful television shows have spin-off shows, I'm spinning off this blog to create a few new ones. Remember Happy Days? It spinned-off to Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy and Joanie Loves Chachi. Yeah, the last one didn't work so well.

The spin-off blogs are sport-specific and have a positive "Good Calls" theme. The goal of the blogs are to promote professionalism within each sport's officiating community (yes, including talk about gear and clothing) while enhancing the professionals reputation with fans, players and coaches. That last part sounds like a tall order, but I'm willing to give it a try.

New Blogs
Good Calls - Baseball and Umpiring
Good Calls - Basketball and Officiating
Good Calls - Football and Officiating

So why the separate blogs? There are several reasons. One is I want to give officiating in other sports their fair share of focus. I've been a little baseball heavy in the past. This will force me to do that.

The other is I'd like for you, a sport-specific official, to read posts without the clutter of other sports or topics in which you're not interested.

Other sports? I'll consider them later, but this is as much as I can chew right now.

The Officially-Unofficial blog will remain as the company blog. Here, we'll continue to candidly share company news, information and insights.

Note: you can get to any blog from any other blog or if you forget you can always go to www.ump-attire.com/blog.