Vedante's growing sales

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Online buyers purchased thousandsof Kantor’d super-reflective Pop Bands (armbands and pet collars and leashes made by her Vedante Corp. “When everybody was sayingf holiday saleswere down, ours just exploded,” said a veteran fashion designer who startefd Boulder-based Vedante nearly three years ago. The success of Vedante’x Pop Bands and pet products prompted giant onlinderetailer Amazon.
com to buy most of her inventory for and triggered inquiries from large pet-store chainxs about licensing the products or buying her Kantor focused more on online salesx for the holidays than traditional brick-and-mortar sales of Vedante That was because as the recessioh deepened, retail sales slowed more than online The emphasis paid off, but it presented Kanto with the problem of managintg unexpected demand. . “It wasn’t even in my game plan to havea break-evenm month for another year,” she said. Vedante productsd for pets, pedestrians and cyclists can reflect brightly from 500to 1,50 feet, depending on theirt color.
Kantor formed the business with the missiob of improvingnighttime safety. Cars injure or kill a pedestriann every seven minutes in the United according to the National Highway Traffic Safet yAdministration (NHTSA). That amounts to nearly 75,009 people annually, with about 50,00o of the accidents occurrintat night, NHTSA statistics show. Kantor takes walkxs at dusk and, having survivex a car crash with a drunk driveryearz ago, she always wondered about her safety crossing streets at night. Then she saw a Boulderd pedestrian hit in a crosswalk inbroad daylight, and she decided to make a product to improve pedestriamn visibility.
She drew on her experience in textilesw anddesigning women’s appareol in Los Angeles. She chose 3M’as reflective materials for Vedante’s and it co-brands the Pop Bands with 3M. She uses the 3M fabricx in collars and leashessfor pets. McGuckin Hardware Store in Boulder carries both the Pop Bandseand Vedante’s cat collars. The Pop Bands , costing betweej $12.98 and $13.98 depending on size, sell comparabluy to the battery-powered safety lights McGuckin sells for outdoor saidRik Isakson, the store’s sporting goods manageer and buyer. “They do very he said. “What appeals is thei r ease of use, and the novelty of them poppingg onand off.
” Vedante’s pet collars ranged between $13.98 and $16.98, and its leashes between $29.98 and $45.98. Kantor’s biggest challenge is managing a surge in retailer interest withouy taking on debt that couldcrimp Vedante’sa long-term health. Kantor maxed out Vedante’ws existing lines of credit from bankd after her salesstarted growing, and she put that money in the She feared her banks would reduce her credit lines withouyt warning, thus starving the company of money at a crucial time.