Hey everyone! David, RW Founder here and I wanted to say Happy First Birthday to the Rainier Watch Shop! (As of a few months ago - Better late than never right?) This last year has been a roller coaster of trial-and-error, experiments and of course tons of Rainier watching!
Let us scroll back the clock a bit - July of 2018 I launched our fully custom brand-spanking-new Rainier Watch Shop website; a place to find a ton of sweet Rainier inspired apparel and products. Its been a great year and I've sent Rainier Watch Gear to more than 30 states, and 2 countries! It’s really neat to hear from folks who have moved out of state and miss Rainier.
I'm going to pull back the curtain for a second and be fully transparent; Up until a few months ago I've primarily been using a US-based partner to handle the printing and shipping of the apparel. This was a good approach for the Rainier Watch brand in the early days so I could get a feel for the market and learn the gazillion different things necessary to run a small business. But thanks to our loyal fans we are ready to shift and support local businesses in the PNW. Just as all our products are designed in the PNW and all our stickers are printed in the PNW, I want to bring the apparel printing process home to the PNW as well. To do this we have to change our approach and be more strategic with Rainier Watch products. Because inventory is an expensive upfront cost and requires storage space, our product lines won’t be as numerous. I will refine and focus on just a few awesome products for you to show off your love for Mount Rainier.
As such by October 27th, I will sunset many of our products that we don't have in bulk. So this is your last chance to many of our RW products!
- Id Rather Be Rainier Watching Tee
- Mount Rainier Outline Cuffed Beanie
- I’d Rather Be Vintage Cotton Twill Cap
- Mount Rainier Coordinates Cuffed Beanie
- MRNP Visitor Center Tee
- Benchmark Hoodie
- Cuffed RW Beanie
- Sunrise Hoodie Sweatshirt
- Sunrise Tee
- Ranger Full Zip Lightweight Hoodie
- RW Tank
- The RW Classic Tee
- MOUNTAIN Tee
- The Mountain Is Out Tee
- Classic Dad Hat
- All Black Trucker Hat
- The Mountain Is Out Snapback Hat
Okay, enough with the boring corporate mumbo-jumbo, here's the fun: The most exciting part of this pivot in apparel printing is that our margins will be a lot better. This means more epic stuff like:
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awesome apparel (ugly Rainier Christmas sweaters anyone?)
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fun community endeavors (like a smartphone app with rewards for reporting The Mountain Is Out!)
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more awesome giveaways through partnerships with local businesses and brands
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explorations into ideas like meetups
And most importantly, this means we can have another positive impact on the PNW:
As of June 30th (2019), Rainier Watch will be donating 5% of all purchases to organizations protecting our national parks like Washington’s National Parks Fund.
Yup! I am super excited to be giving back to help support and preserve National Parks like Mount Rainier. Up until June 30th, 2019 Rainier Watch was donating a percentage of profits to organizations preserving Mount Rainier, but that wasn't good enough so I raised the donation amount!
The next year will be even more fun. Like, pop-up shops! Last summer we did two pop-up shops at the Fremont Sunday Market and I hope to do more pop-up shops around the PNW. Hope to see you all at one soon!
Finally, I love growing this awesome community of Rainier watchers and lovers and have big plans for the future. I love Mount Rainier and I love that there’s an online place for people to share when The Mountain is out!
-David, Founder
