» Ugly sweaters:
A young entrepreneur from Wauwatosa sells his online ugly sweater business to Ragstock, citing growing competition that took the fun and much of the profit out of the business.
If you want to rock an ugly Christmas sweater — and lots of people still do as the fad returns for another year — Jack McCarthy won’t be sending you one out of his basement.
He just sold his company, UltimateUglyChristmas.com, to Ragstock and its website, TheSweaterStore.com.
Growing competition took the fun, and much of the profit, out of what used to be a funky little business.
“Everyone and their mother is selling a sweater now,” he said.
When I first met Jack in December 2011, the 17-year-old Marquette High School student had sold 200 unintentionally gaudy sweaters online and shipped them around the country from the basement of his parents’ home in Wauwatosa. He was hoping to sell 200 more that year.
College students and hipsters embraced the irony and hilarity of sporting sweaters that someone’s grandma used to love, with all their Santas and sequins, teddy bears and reindeer and other adorable Christmas images.
Jack’s sales peaked in the following two years at more than 1,200 sweaters annually, and then dropped in 2014. He significantly cut his prices last year, from about $30 to $50 per sweater to $10 to $30, to get rid of his inventory. The craze is now mainstream, and much of the demand is met by brand new ugly sweaters that are made to look like the vintage ones. Some of them incorporate people’s favorite bands, movies, TV shows and superheroes. “Some of them aren’t even sweaters, yet they still use that term for either T-shirts with printed designs, or just sweatshirts that are non-knit,” Jack said. He dabbled in new merchandise, but most of what he sold were sweaters that he scavenged for a few bucks each at thrift stores across the Midwest. Now even those shops have responded to the market by selling the sweaters as bona fide ugly and by charging more. If you Google ugly Christmas sweater, you get Kohl’s, Macy’s,Target and Amazon among the top hits. And you see Tipsy Elves, a company founded in 2011 and boosted in 2013 by a $100,000 investment on the TV show, “Shark Tank.” Jack was a finalist to appear on the program.
He got started in 2008 when he and his older sister, Martha, sold one ugly sweater on eBay and were amazed to see the bidding quickly rise to $50. “I remember at the time there were about 30 listings for ugly Christmas sweaters on eBay. And last year there were over 100,000 listings,” he said.
Just 14 at the time, he and Martha went into business together, with Jack eventually taking over most of the operation as his sister started her career in marketing in the Twin Cities.
Jack is 22 now. After graduation in May from Babson College in the Boston area, he hopes to launch a software company. He has run the sweater business from out there in recent years, with his mom, Cathy, helping out with shipping from home in Wauwatosa.
Jack said his sweater sales over the years exceeded $100,000, much of it profit. He won’t say how much he received for his company from Ragstock, but said it wouldn’t be enough to cover a year in private college.
“My website had value in the eyes of Google and search engines because it’s been linked to in various press, it’s been around for a while, and it has a lot of visitors that go to it,” he said. Those visitors are now automatically redirected to The Sweater Store.
It’s been fun, Jack said. He even supplied sweaters to Comedy Central and Verizon for company promotions.
If the ugly Christmas sweater sensation continues, and Jack thinks it will, he and his friends are covered for holiday parties, pub crawls, fun runs and other events they attend.
“There’s maybe a dozen sweaters that I wouldn’t let go of over the years. One was in Bloomberg Businessweek, one I wore in the segment on WTMJ that made it on like a CNN news wire, as well as the ones I just find ridiculously ugly.”
handled by Dallas, Tennessee and Washington and lost close games to Atlanta and Indianapolis, the message across the locker room remained the same: Everything that happens outside the stadium is white noise — a term used by quarterback Aaron Rodgers — and none of it penetrates the psyche of a team conditioned to stare only at the game in front of it like a racehorse wearing blinders.
From player to player and coach to coach, the Packers assured reporters that any criticism of the organization — with Rodgers, McCarthy and Thompson the primary targets — fell on deaf ears.
Until McCarthy aired everything out.
“Today compared to 10 years ago, there’s a day in this league where you’d say, ‘Hey don’t read that stuff. Pay no attention to it,’ ” McCarthy said. “But I mean they all read it, and their families read it. It’s there. It’s real whether you want to admit to it or not.
“We expect to win every week regardless of what people think about us, what they say about us. Personally I like it when they don’t like us. It’s hard not to have people like you. Hell, we’re the Green Bay Packers. We’re the Green Bay Packers. So we take that with a lot of pride.
“We know our fans were upset with what’s going on, but hell, there’s no one more upset than those men in the locker room. That’s the reality of it. We all want to win. We’re doing everything we can to win. I can promise you that.”
Their pursuit has been marred by an unrelenting string of injuries, and Monday’s win over the Eagles was no exception. With Jake Ryan and Blake Martinez both hurt, the Packers moved Matthews to inside linebacker. He promptly injured his left shoulder on the first series.
Two quarters later, on the first drive of the second half, Rodgers tweaked his hamstring trying to extend a play. He finished the game with a noticeable limp but assured reporters he would be available Sunday.
McCarthy said he had not spoken with team doctors as of late Monday afternoon. The early indications are that Matthews’ situation is more problematic than Rodgers’.
“I can’t say enough about (Matthews) coming back out there and fighting through what he did,” McCarthy said. “So I’m sure he doesn’t feel very good today and once again, I haven’t really, I don’t have the details of the significance of his injury.”
Injuries to Matthews and Rodgers are the latest examples of the kind of adversity that McCarthy believes made his team stronger in November. He praises the character and work ethic of his players on what feels like a daily basis.
The win in Philadelphia released a wealth of heavy pressure. Starting Sunday they’ll try to turn catharsis into consistency.
“I think the character and the confidence and really the energy in the locker room this past month has been exemplary,” McCarthy said.
“It needs to equate to wins because, at the end of the days, that’s what it’s about. I think we have a lot to build off of.”