OneBillionShirts

We ask people this question quite frequently and most don't know the name of the business, only the location.

"The shop down by the grocery store" or maybe "there is a place right next to my office."

This is a commoditized industry.  The prices, raw materials, processes and services are usually the exact same.

Would you pay $100 if there was a shop next door offering the same brand of oil and exact service for $30?  Of course not.

Next time you purchase t-shirts, make sure you're not at the "other" shop!

2013 is almost over and it is time to reflect and give thanks for another year.

To those that believed in our concept and gave us a chance to win your business, thank you!  You mean the world to us, literally.

To the many people we met along the way, it was our pleasure!

To the organizations that we learned about and their missions that made us smile, keep doing great work!

To those that did not work with us but still took the time to chat, 2014 is a new year!

To those that flat out rejected us, it is you that helps us get better as individuals and an organization.

To everyone else, we hope to meet you next year!

Thank you,

Some ask why we decided to print t-shirts as our "way to save the world."  

There are many reasons, here's four:

- Product is commoditzed.  We all use the same blanks, same inks, and same print techniques.

- Product is popular.  There are over 1 billion units sold per year, more than cars, iPhones, laptops, sneakers, etc.

- Buying process is unchanged.  We can offer an alternative that does not cost customer any downtime nor is there a learning curve.

- Industry is fragmented.  The price disparity between vendors is gargantuan.  Don't believe me, get a quote from 3 vendors.

There's a few reasons we used t-shirts for our business model.  We have many more and will be sharing someday soon, maybe.

To summarize: we are disrupting a colossal industry which sells a commoditized product with substantial price disparity between vendors.  Seems like the perfect storm to us. 

The question is simple: why not leverage your purchase, one that you will make regardless, to cut costs and help others?

Charity is not only about donating money.  Sometimes simply sharing a smile with a stranger who needs one can have a tremendous effect on their lives and yours.

On 11/22/13 we are pledging to #DonateASmile to a stranger and collectively we will initiate one huge domino effect that may somehow someway change our world for the better!

The stranger you smile at may go onto do something great or they may smile at somebody else … the dominos won’t fall unless the first one is pushed!

On Monday, November 4, the One Billion Shirts team and a handful of volunteers ventured out into the Boston Public Garden for a promotional photo shoot.  Two of our interns, Valerie and Rebecca, took photos of the group in the “Help Others” shirts, then more photos of just Greg and Albion.  While they took photos, Katherine and the volunteers walked around asking people in the Garden what their favorite charities were and then took a picture of them for our social media.  As you may have seen from our Facebook and Twitter pages, we took a lot of photos!  We met some very kind people who were more than happy to share their favorite charity with us. 

All of us at One Billion Shirts would like to thank all of the volunteers that helped us out during the photo shoot.  We would also like to thank all of the people we met in the Garden who told us their favorite charity and allowed us to share it on social media.  The photo shoot was so energetic and even though it was a little cold, it was a great success thanks to the help of our volunteers.  It was also very interesting to see what others like to get involved in and what charities they liked.  We had a wide variety of favorite charities from the Red Cross to Heifer International. 

So how will the photo shoot help One Billion Shirts?  We wanted our followers to get a glimpse of the personality of Greg and Albion, our company’s founders, through the photos.  We also wanted to share our mission with more people who have never heard of us and tell them to spread the word.  If you follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, you will see some of the great people we met. 

Customer: Hello, I would like to order 200 t-shirts.

Screen Printer: Ok. (does calculation), that will be $5.00 per shirt.

Customer: Great, can't wait!

Screen Printer: Thanks. Hangs up. Calculates profit.

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How it is done at OBS:

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Customer: Hello, I would like to order 200 t-shirts.

OBS: Thanks for choosing us. (does calculation). That will come out to $4.00 per shirt and also we have a mandatory donation of 25¢ per shirt. Which charity would you like to donate to?

Customer: Wow, really? Thank you. I would love to donate to ______ charity.

OBS: Ok, sure thing! Thank you leveraging your order to help others, it is appreciated by us all!

Customer: No problem. Thank you! I actually saved money and donated to my favorite charity. Wow!!

OBS: Thanks again. Hangs up. Smiles. Gets back to work raising more money and awareness for great charities!

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Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox on their World Series Win!  

With the World Series behind us and the Red Sox being in Boston which is where our company is located, we feel it’s a great time to talk about One Billion Shirts and the Red Sox. 

The Red Sox Foundation, the official charity team of the Red Sox, supports a wide variety of charities and even has several of its own programs.  The four main programs it focuses on include The Jimmy Fund, Dimock Community Health Center, Red Sox Scholars and Youth baseball programs, such as RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities) and Red Sox Rookie Leagues.  We proudly support all that the Red Sox Foundation has done for the nonprofit charities and are truly thankful for all of their hard work.   

As a company that turns custom t-shirts into charitable donations, we couldn’t help but see the endless amounts of opportunities the Red Sox Foundation and the Red Sox could utilize if they used our company to print shirts.  Printing with us would allow them to impact more lives and donate even more to their charities.

Picture this: the Red Sox Foundation is supporting its annual Pan Mass Challenge, the cross-the-state bicycle ride that supports the Jimmy Fund, and needs 5,500 shirts printed.  (According to PMC’s website, the event consistently brings 5,500 cyclists from 36 states and eight countries.)  If the Red Sox Foundation used OBS to print those 5,500 shirts, it would raise $1375 in donations that otherwise go into the pockets of their chosen screen print company.

On an even larger scale (because we think big), if the Red Sox needed tens of thousands of shirts to print after winning the World Series, we could print those shirts and help them donate thousands of dollars to the charity of their choice.   Every shirt bought would donate 25 cents to the charity the Red Sox chooses.  The organization and their fans alike would be helping charities while celebrating a well deserved victory!  If the shirts were going to be printed, why not have some of the profits be donated to charity?  

One of our recently added charities is PeacePlayers International. This charities mission statement is simple "PeacePlayers International is a non-profit organization that brings children from communities in conflict together to play basketball. Our coaches and mentors work year round to unite, educate and inspire young people to create a more peaceful world." We know what it is like growing up playing sports. I'm sure there are some of you out there that can still taste those freshly sliced oranges that one of the parents brought you to restore your energy. We didn't realize it, but while we were eating those refreshing oranges we were actually getting taught life lesson about respect, loyalty, and being a team. There are many children who have not had this chance. They grow up in areas where there are no programs easily available to them. They do not have a chance to really get these experiences and learn from them. PeacePlayers International bring that chance to these children. And through that they learn crucial skills to get through living in the conflicted areas they are in, and to do it successfully. Definitely a charity worth taking an extra look at.

http://www.peaceplayersintl.org/

“Why Not?” A simple turn of phrase that can lead to so many possibilities, because when making a decision it is very easy to list reasons as to why. It is when you ask yourself “why not?” do you really figure out the reasons to do something. A simple phrase that has sure of lead to many brilliant decisions. “Why not try to fly a giant contraption in the air?”, “Why not create an interface where people around the world can connect instantly?”, or rather “Why not do something good for someone else today?”. We at One Billion Shirts are not looking to turn the world on its head, but rather we are looking to leave the world a better place than which we arrived.

It is very easy to get lost in your own world. We understand, life throws things at you and you are expected to juggle them all at once. So much so that it is easy to forget that there are people out there who need the help of others, whether it’s giving someone a compliment, holding the door open for someone who has their hands full or donating to a charity for people in need. We understand how easy it is, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Especially with hundreds of charities out there how are you suppose to pick one? That takes research. This is where we at One Billion Shirts come in. We are simply here so while you check something off your long To-Do list you can at the same time give back to your community. We are a custom t-shirt company that has one idea; give twenty-five cents for every shirt purchased to charity. A charity of your choosing, and if you don’t know which charity to pick, we can help you out with that too. We have an extensive list of charities to choose from, along with in-depth posts each week about a certain charity we would like to highlight for the week.

It’s easy to get jaded with all the cruelty there is in the world, but we are here to show you a different side of the world. The world One Billion Shirts sees, the world where people take care of one another and make a difference with the small gestures. So take a little break from your everyday life and look at how good the world can treat each other if given the chance. Why Not?

Sincerely,