selling wiggy's NO!!!

WHY I DO NOT SELL WIGGY’S!!!

Jerry,

Apparently my recounting of info in your newsletters left enough of an impression on my friends and associates that one of them noticed this small reference to Wiggy Sleeping Bags and brought it to my attention. The ad ran 25 years ago in a highly respected but unfortunately no longer published outdoor magazine. Seeing It, brought to mind how many small excellent outdoor product companies that I had known whose products I had admired and purchased, that are now gone. The scenario of their disappearance wasn't one of failure but rather of success. The typical sequence that I observed was that once their success became widely recognized, a large corporation would buy them out, make it a subsidiary, then quickly and dramatically expand their product line. Invariably the additional products followed a current-fashion over function pathway. After some years of increasing customer disappointment the brand was eliminated or altered so extensively as to be unrelated to their original products. You would know better than me how rare or common this might be. For you to have stayed the course after so many years is truly admirable. I highly value and extensively use all my Wiggy purchases and I hope to continue to buy functional Wiggy products well into the future. With kind regards,

Bud from Bellingham

Bud’s observation of what goes on in industry is very valid. I am sure it is happening in other industries as well as the outdoor industry.

Over the years I have been in business I have received several calls and emails from brokers who work for some company wanting to buy Wiggy’s. The conversation for all intents and purposes goes nowhere because I have no interest in selling.

When contacted I always ask one question; what does your potential buyer know about making sleeping bags? Of course I know the answer is nothing but that is my criteria. If they knew anything about making sleeping bags they would be my competition. They would be making sleeping bags as I do. Then I ask what I will do with all the money they give me, and they say whatever you want to do. I then tell them I am doing what I want to do. So give the money anyway. Basically I toy with them.

I have people who have worked with me from the beginning, 30 years ago and most everyone else for 5 years and more, many 15 to 20 years. I could not possibly sell out and endanger their jobs. After all while I dream up the products, they make them into reality and we are a family working together.

Last week I had about 20 students from Mesa State University, local visiting Wiggy’s. They were all getting degrees in engineering. This is I think the 5^th year I have done this.

I show them 3 jackets each with a different weight or thickness of Lamilite. I explain that the same pattern used for the L-3 cannot be used for the L-6 or L-12 because doing so would mean that each garment using the heavier weights of Lamilite would result in garments that are smaller than the L-3 garment. So it is important to understand that even making clothing the patterns must be engineered so all components fit together properly and sizing the patterns when the thicknesses of the insulation (Lamilite) are thicker.

I then took them through the factory and the first item I show them is the Climashield as it is shipped to me. As an example the L-12 which is 30 yards per roll is about 18 inches in diameter and when I cut the poly bags it is shipped in it grows in seconds to 40 to 50 inches in diameter. Its resilience is remarkable. I then put it on my laminating machine where it is converted to Lamilite. I also explained that I built the laminating machine since there were none that could laminate the continuous filament fiber economically, and the machine is now in operation since 1977. I had to engineer the machine to do what I wanted it to do. I was never an engineering student nor did I ever go to college or university, but the school of hard knocks. Knowing how the continuous filament batting was produced and how laminating machines work I combined that knowledge to make the machine which if it did not exist neither would Wiggy’s.

After some further discussion one fellow asked me a question I have not ever been asked, “Is the laminating machine your competitive advantage”? I thought for a moment and said, to a small degree. The real competitive advantage that I have is my knowledge. What I know is unfortunately not shared by any other person on the planet. I have never withheld the knowledge from the industry. When I first conceived of laminating fiberfill in 1965 it was not well received by my employer. In 1968 I was with another firm that was making the continuous filament fiberfill product then trade named Polar Guard and it laminated extremely well. Again my employers were not interested in my ideas.

However, I did show it to literally every sleeping bag and skiwear manufacture in the country and they too were not impressed to say the least. No explanation of the benefits of using laminated continuous filament on my part was accepted. Years later when Wiggy’s became a significant seller of sleeping bags I approached many of the companies that were and still are getting product made in Asia I offered to sell them the Lamilite and or private label bags for them. I had two advantages over them; better product and made in America. I was turned down.

As I told the class, if they were to read all of the information I have published since 1996 in my newsletters they would have as much knowledge of what and why I do what I do as I have. And if they wanted to open their own factory for the purpose of making sleeping bags I would sell them the Lamilite, because I am a capitalist.

As far as the industry is concerned they cannot make the same profits producing in the continental USA so they stay away. However it is to their detriment. I was visited yesterday by a fellow who has a company in Colorado that rents camping equipment to mostly European tourists and for several years he has been using Asian made sleeping bags and has been having a significant problem with them. The bags do not keep people warm in the Rockies even during the warmer months. After each person uses the bag it must be laundered and the chopped staple fiberfill in the bags deteriorates. And the coil zippers fail to work. And on top of these failures the company that has supplied the bags does not have a sewing facility to repair them.

I asked if he heard of Davidson University in Davidson N.C., he said yes. I told him they were the first university to buy my bags in 1987. They bought 50 and in 2012 or 13 they called and said they had to replace them and ordered 50 more. There is no record of the number of launderings but they had to launder each bag after it was used. If that was not going to convince this new prospective account I do not know what will.

The reality is as I see it is a number of people who chose to buy Asian made sleeping bags because of a company’s name or the weight of the bag even though it does not actually perform at the temperature noted on the literature or possible the price being lower than mine. Then there is another reality, what can you do when you are cold, the fiberfill deteriorates and the zipper breaks? Probably nothing!!!

You cannot fake reality!!!

So I wake up each and every morning knowing I am going to my factory with Cookie and run my business making the best sleeping bags in the world and they will always be made in Grand Junction, Colorado.

UPDATE

I will be receiving the Lamilite boots early next week and all orders will be shipped next week.

The materials have been prepared and the first sample garment has been cut to make the Insulated jacket for use in diver’s dry suits.

I have made the first sample of an ARCTIC GRIP soled over boot. The picture will be on the web site before the week is done.