Thursday, April 9, 2015

Golf apparel with edge: Enter Tattoo Golf

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
I stumbled upon some really smooth, edgy golf apparel lately and wanted to find out a little more about the company behind it. I’m referring to Tattoo Golf, out in California.
Poly-dri golf shirt keeps you dry in hot conditions.

Greg Shaw, the vice president of sales for the company, took a little timeout to give me the lowdown on the company. He joined Tattoo Golf in ’06 as co-owner and since that time they’ve retooled their website, expanded their line, broadened their advertising/marketing efforts and signed up several international distributors.
Shaw says the company is now doing golf expos and other consumer shows and in 2015 they’ll be attending the Orlando Golf Expo for the sixth time. Here’s a quick Q & A
Q: How long has Tattoo Golf been around? Whose brainchild was it?
A: The company was started 16 years ago in Burbank, Calif. by Bill Anderson. He’s a tattooed golf fanatic (8 handicap) who was just plain tired of the uptight, stale state of the golf apparel business so he decided to do something about it and created the look and image of Tattoo Golf.

Q: How’s business been through the recession?
A: Actually quite good. The company’s been around for 16 years but we really only started busting out over the past couple of years and fortunately sales continue to rise despite the economic mess in the U.S. We were rolling along really well last summer then got slammed mid-Sept. when all the financial institutions started tanking but things got back on track around the holidays, and ’2015 is shaping up just fine so far!

One of Tattoo Golf's Flexfit hats.
Q: How do you advertise mostly?
A: We primarily advertise on Google and Yahoo search engines as well as targeted banner ads on a few other golf-related sites. We do limited print advertising in a few regional magazines such as Southern California Golf, Fairways & Greens (Northwest) and Cascades Golfer (Washington).

Q: Most of your customers come from where?
A: The U.S. is our biggest market, however we get orders from all over the world with Canada, Australia and Germany being our top three international markets. Strangely, we seem to have a very strong customer base in Finland and Sweden. In the U.S., California is #1 followed by Washington, Texas, Illinois and Arizona.

Q: Are your goods in any stores?
A: Definitely. We’re in about 80 shops right now but expanding fast and the good news is, most shops we’ve shipped to have re-ordered so that tells us that the line is selling well. We’re primarily in golf shops but have also sold to some tattoo shops.

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