Up north apparel company report new new new

2015-2016 Company Report
Teacher: Caroline Crary
School: West Fargo High School
801 9th
St E, West Fargo, ND 58078
JA Fargo District Manager: Lisa Metzger
PO Box 2061 Fargo, North Dakota 58107
*Special thanks to Dr. Shontarius Aikens at NDSU and Casey Glandt at Go Promo Fargo

1
Up North Apparel- A Junior Achievement Company www.up-northapparel.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Executive Summary…………………………………………………………………1-2
II. Business Plan and Future……………………………………………………………3
III. Management and Leadership………………………………………………………..3
IV. Marketing……………………………………………………………………………4-6
V. Supply Chain………………………………………………………………………...7
VI. Up North Apparel and the Community……………………………………………...8
VII. Financials…………………………………………………………………………....9
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
OUR MISSION: Providing quality and comfortable clothing that embraces Northern trends and
styles while giving back to local non-profits.
OUR PRODUCT: Up North Apparel carries long sleeved pocket tees in four colors: Merlot,
Safari, Walnut, and Glacier. They are unisex and run in sizes S-XL. Our product was developed
with a strong influence from current clothing trends in the Northern region where we reside.
Long sleeve shirts with pockets on the front are very popular among both males and females and
are a classic and staple article of clothing. Although the market for shirts such as these is very
competitive, we believe that the story behind our product is unique and our lower price as well as
our company story sets us apart from competition.

2
COMPANY PERFORMANCE: We applied for the legalization of our business in the state of
North Dakota. With that granted, we
designed a logo for the front and back of our
shirts. We ordered 96 shirts from a local
retailer and the first order of those were
delivered on March 9th
. Prior to delivery, we
had many pre orders already paid to reserve
their desired shirt. This list was set up
through our school store. Up North Apparel
is currently a licensed LLC in the state of
North Dakota with a pending logo trademark
that has generated over $2000 in sales
between March 9th
and April 14th
, 2016. To
the left is a copy of our company’s official
licensing. We have a website up and
customers are able to order shirts from us
that way as well. We have had online orders
across the country to the states Texas and
Washington. The West Fargo Pioneer
interviewed us on March 31st
, 2016 and we
were published in the Fargo Forum on April
2nd
. A story on KVRR news aired on April
8th
. Our first meeting with a local retailer
was held on April 4th
, 2016.
ABOUT US: As stated on our website, we
are a group of young entrepreneurs who
wanted to turn our dreams into reality by
starting our own business. Now was the perfect time to start our own unique clothing line that
truly represents us and the region which we reside in. The Junior Achievement project was the
perfect opportunity for us to start on our own journey and learn the real process of becoming
entrepreneurs. We are very passionate about the beautiful Northern region we grew up in, and
this was the inspiration behind Up North Apparel. After some designing and research, our long
sleeve pocket tees were born. This program gave us hands on experience with product
development, financial record keeping, marketing,
supply chains, and management that we would not
have received any other way. Being high school
students has not held us back one bit. We are learning
new skills every day and implementing these skills
toward our business. This journey is not over and we
believe that our company is on the road to success.
Example of checkout on our website.

3
BUSINESS PLAN AND FUTURE
Unanimously we decided that Up North Apparel will not liquidate after the April 14th
Junior Achievement competition. We plan to have specific team members work to separate the
company from Junior Achievement by opening a separate bank account and transferring all sales.
We are unsure if these shirts will continue to be sold in our school store next year at this point,
due to some of our team members graduating and some staying for another year. However we do
have plans for the future of our company and believe that Up North Apparel has tremendous
potential outside of West Fargo High School. As our sales increase, we will be able to purchase
our shirts for less and drive our cost down. It currently costs $17 per shirt when ordering 96 at a
time, but once we are able to order 300 they would only cost $13 per shirt. This will have a
tremendous effect on our profit margins. Ordering this many shirts at a time will allow us to fill
our online stock as well as fill orders to potential retailers. We are currently working to make our
products available retailers in order to expand to a different audience. We have contacted the top
five most popular boutiques in the area and our first meeting is with Blue Daisy, located off of
45th
street in Fargo, on Monday, April 4th
. Blue Daisy is native to Fargo and caries both men and
women’s clothing. We believe that being available in retailers will help us expand beyond high
school students and promote sales from our website.
We were able to learn many valuable lessons in business through this experience. Aside
from the hands on experience, we had a few bumps in the road and learned to adapt and recover
quickly. We learned how to deal with delays in products as our first order of 96 shirts shipped in
two separate orders. We also learned effective ways of communicating to customers who were
not satisfied with sizes of their shirts, etc. This experience transformed us into better leaders and
prepared us for the real world of business ahead.
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Our management team has created an open work structure to promote employee
involvement. All members of Up North Apparel are equal shareholders in the company. Because
of this we strive to include employees in every step of the decision making process. These
decisions including price, color, and design of our product were beneficial to the development of
our company and required the participation of the entire class. Our CEO is Gwen Toay. She
works to overcome disagreements among the company, but when necessary, has authority to
make final decisions. The other managers work to oversee each group’s progress and assist in
any questions that arise. By dividing the work into separate groups, we are much more efficient
in working towards are short term and long term goals. Our current long term goals are to
decrease our manufacturing cost, increase online sales, become available in local retailers, and
eventually expand our product line to include different articles of apparel. To reach our long term
goals we also established obtainable goals. These short term goals included launching a website,
regulating social media, and setting up meetings with local retailers. As a whole, Up North
Apparel’s members have worked very cohesively thus far. We have gone farther in one month
than we ever thought was possible. This is entirely due to each member’s passion for what our
company stands for. Each and every one of us takes pride in this company and aims to see it
reach its potential.

4
Display in Packer Connection.
MARKETING
The typical customer for Up North Apparel is a
high school/college student who feels passionate about
where they came, wears comfortable clothing that fits
their active lifestyle, and embraces trends of our time.
Our secondary target market is adults over the age of 30.
We hit this demographic by posting on Facebook and
advertising to teachers, family friends, and parents at
our school. Up North Apparel’s advertising began with a
poster of our logo saying “Coming Soon…” that hung
outside of our school store where are shirts are sold.
This raised a large amount of curiosity and buzz
throughout the school as peers and faculty wanted to
know what this new line of clothing was. Once our
shirts were delivered, we created a visual display on one
side of our store with shirts hanging in the windows and
a mannequin
serving as a
model. Aside from
our work in the
store, we decided as a marketing team that the most
beneficial communication channel for our target market
would be social media. We first created Facebook,
Instagram, and Twitter accounts and began following
students at
West Fargo
High School
in order to
raise
awareness of
our new
company.
Each account
is linked to
each other and
to our website.
Our Facebook page currently has 83 likes, our Twitter
has 56 followers, and our Instagram has 181 followers.
The most efficient use of social media for us as a
company has been Instagram, as that is one of the most
popular apps for high school students today. All of our
social media contain photographs of our products and
have been updating our customers on the status of
these products since we were first developed. We also have
had a few company members post pictures of themselves
Up North Apparel on Instagram.
Photograph from our second ad campaign on
Twitter.

5
or of the product on their personal social media pages and this has been the most effective
method of gaining followers. Currently we are working on developing an account for our
company on shopping apps such as Wanelo and Pinterest.
Our website will be linked to these accounts so that customers may
order directly from us. Another effective strategy for us has been
taking photographs of classmates modeling our shirts and posting
them to our social media. This acted as our inaugural ad campaign.
These photographs also appear as the image description for each
product on our website. Our goal for a second ad campaign has been to
acquire photographs of models engaging in outdoor activities such as
hiking, kayaking, or yoga with the slogan “Lifestyle. Apparel.
Direction.” Our first post of this campaign was a photograph of our
marketing team member Julia Dwyer hiking in Colorado. The goal of
this campaign is to broaden our market into other states by raising
brand recognition. It also defines the values we hold as a company,
such as nature appreciation and active lifestyles. We are currently
working to add more photographs such as this to our collection. In
addition to the campaigns we aim to keep our social media as up to
date as possible in order inform customers on new additions to the
company. This has been the key to our growth. Another marketing
channel we pursued was the distribution of a press release. This
release was sent to local news media such as WDAY, KLVY, KVRR,
The Fargo Forum, the West Fargo Pioneer, and Fargo Monthly
Magazine on March 29, 2016. By 2:00 pm on March 30 we had a
response from the West Fargo Pioneer and an interview was set with
reporter Josh Francis on March 31st
. We appeared in the business
section of the April 13th
edition in an article by reporter Josh Francis, which in included on the
following page. Our press release was published in the April 2nd
edition of the Fargo Forum. We
were aired on KVRR in a two minute story on April 8th
. We were very pleased with the results of
our press release.
We encountered a bit of plateau in sales approximately three weeks after our initial
shipment. To keep our company in the growth stage, we decided to hold an in store sale where
the price of shirts went from $28 to $23 for a week. Advertising for this sale was done on each of
our social media sites as well as through signs in our school store. This sale was necessary
because while selling primarily out of our school store, our target audience is limited to high
school students who do not have much money to spend.
Copy of our Press Release in
the Fargo Forum.

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West Fargo High students start Up North Apparel line
“A group of West Fargo High School marketing students are taking the lessons they’ve learned
in the classroom and applying them to running their new clothing line business. The new
company, Up North Apparel, was
founded in February and is part of a
project through the Colorado Springs,
Colo.-based nonprofit organization
Junior Achievement. The Colorado
students are competing against
students at Sheyenne High School and
Fargo Davies High School to see who
can run the most profitable business.
The project has an April 14 expiration
date. At that time, companies can
choose to liquidate, but Up North
Apparel plans on continuing to sell its products. “We chose not to (liquidate), we chose to take it
on into the future,” Up North Apparel marketing director and WFHS senior Libby Bahr said. The
group of 16 co-owners plans to expand sales of its products, which now are limited to four
different colors of long-sleeved, breast pocket shirts with a compass design on the front and the
company logo on the back. “We wanted the logo and the brand not to be just linked to West
Fargo High School, something that can expand to a regional demographic as well,” Bahr said.
The “Up North” name was inspired by the northern Midwest region. The company is targeting
the younger demographic. The business has generated more than $1,500 in sales, and more than
75 shirts have sold. The company met its goal of selling at least 71 shirts to break even. The
students said they put the shirts on sale in the student store to attract more buyers to meet their
goal. Up North Apparel CEO and WFHS senior Gwen Toay said the group working on the
project has also been a reason for early success. “All of us get really excited about it anytime we
work on it, and I think that’s why the engagement is so high with our group,” Toay said. “I think
a lot of people are still going to be really dedicated to it after this because they’re not going to get
a grade for it, it’s … just us putting in our own work and effort and time.” West Fargo marketing
teacher Caroline Crary said this is the first time she’s had students who created a legitimate,
trademarked limited liability corporation out of a class project. Last year, the class created a
hypothetical business. “I’ve had a lot of kids, who I never would’ve thought would be interested,
step up, which is so exciting to see,” Crary said. “We have different departments within the
company and I’ve seen some leaders step out within those different departments. That’s the part
that makes it rewarding.” The shirts are sold in the student store at West Fargo High School, but
Bahr and Toay said they will meet with local boutiques in the coming weeks in order to expand
the Up North Apparel brand. The company is also selling their products online. The company
plans to expand its line from long-sleeved shirts to other varieties of clothing, but they are
waiting until the brand is more popular to do that. The company plans to donate a portion of its
future profits to charitable organizations in the area.”
SUPPLY CHAIN

7
Order
Placed
Order
Received
Take
Inventory
Stock
Inventory
Customer
pays for
shirt
Update
Online
Store
Custome
r Makes
purchase
Package
and Ship
Customer
Receives
Shirt
Our Supply Chain team’s responsibilities include managing inventory and ensuring its
safe arrival to each customer. We order our shirts from Go Promo, a screen printing and apparel
company located in Fargo. Go Promo orders the blank shirts from a retailer; they are delivered
and printed with our logo, then delivered directly to us. After an order is delivered we start by
taking stock of what has arrived. We currently track inventory through our square app. The
online inventory is also tracked through the square by linking our website with the square. We
accept cash, credit and checks. Inventory that is not in stock can be pre-ordered or placed on
back order.
Our initial order was of 96 shirts, 24 in each of our four colors. We completely sold out Glacier,
have one Safari left, have 4 Merlot left, and have 7 Walnut left. We now know that Glacier and
Safari were are two most popular colors and we will look at selling more of them as well as
similar colors for our next order.
21%
24%
18%
25%
12%
Percentage of Colors Sold/Remaining
Merlot
Safari
Walnut
Glacier
Remaining Shirts

8
UP NORTH APPAREL AND THE COMMUNITY
From the very beginning of our
company, we collectively decided to give a
portion of our proceeds to charity. Our
clothing represents a very specific region of
the world and we wanted our company to
represent this region as well by giving back.
The best way to do this would be to choose
charities that have regional chapters near
West Fargo, ND where our company began.
After deliberation on which charity to
choose from, we thought: why choose only
one? This sparked the notion that we could
have multiple different charities and allow
customers to choose the one they have
closer ties with. The five we decided on
were The Humane Society, ND 4-H, The
Salvation Army, MDA, The Great Plains
Food Bank, and the Make-A-Wish
Foundation. 5% of our profits is donated to
these specific charities. When customers
purchase a shirt in store they are able to
choose to which charity they want to donate. This makes our products very personable to each
customer. It also helps to create ties between our company and various nonprofit organizations.
We plan to reach out to each of these locations in order to spread word of our company and get
our name out there. This has already begun
with a mention from Great Plains Food bank
on Twitter, shows to the right. Because we
cannot have customers choose a specific
charity online or in a separate retailer, all
online and future retail sales will be donated
directly to MDA because Up North Apparel
has strong ties with this foundation. MDA is
the official charity of DECA, which all of
our members are a part of. DECA has also
had a large influence on our company and
we would love to be able to give back in any
way we can.
Mention on Twitter from the Great Plains Food Bank.

9
FINANCIALS
The Financial group worked on all of the expenses that pertained to the startup costs. The
expenses include material cost, website fee, business license, and trade mark. We used the
current inventory of our product to analyze the costs and income of our business. We also
utilized the financial planning workbook to calculate the breakeven point, financial goals, current
and future sales, and overall budget. The group also filed for a business licenses and trade mark.
The business license will allow our company the sole right to produce and sell the Up North
Apparel. We also managed the expenses that were associated with the non-profit costs donated
from each product sold. The excel spread sheet was utilized to discover the point that we needed
to pay all our debt. We calculated that in order to break even we needed to have $1798.17 in
sales by selling 70 shirts. Our average shirt price was $25.13 (because of sale). Expenses to be
paid include $1632 to order 96 shirts, $30 per month fee for the Square Space register, $135
license fee, and $1.17 website domain fee per year. As of April 6th
, 2016, Up North Apparel has
reached this goal by selling 82 of our 96 shirts. This equates to a total of $2060.66 in sales since
March 9th
, 2016. We have a $262.56 profit and $103.03 will go to charity.
This graph displays the amount of
money Up North Apparel profited
during its short time of rapid sales
from March 9th
, 2016, to our
competition on April 14th
, 2016
and beyond. The breakeven point
of $1798.17 is shown in red and
the bars represent the amount of
money this company had in sales
and in gross profit before and after
the competition. We believe that
the number of sales did not grow
much because we are nearly sold
out of our shirts and plan to re-
order. Once this second order takes
place we predict to sell out in as
much or less time as it took to sell
out of our initial 96 shirt order.

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