Prep-Spirit partnership to enhance school sportswear market

14 Oct '08

3 min read

Prep Sportswear's strategic alliance with Spirit Shop leverages resources and expands distribution.

Prep Sportswear an on-demand retail platform, offering personalized products and the Web's largest school and team sports marketplace, announced a strategic alliance with Spirit Shop Inc., one of the largest and most successful companies in the school sportswear space. The alliance will allow both companies to leverage their existing resources and better serve the expanding school sportswear market.

The strategic alliance will combine Prep Sportswear's e-commerce, production, and fulfillment operation with the sales and marketing strength of Spirit Shop, providing an enhanced user experience to the school and team sportswear market. The online stores will offer over 1,200 unique products, including customized t-shirts, sweatshirts, jerseys, caps, team uniforms, sport shirts, bags and accessories for more than 800,000 school and teams around the globe.

Prep Sportswear, based in Seattle, is an experienced on-line retailer of custom apparel and merchandise products, already working with thousands of teams, schools, booster clubs and other organizations. Prep Sportswear offers high-quality products from a variety of premium brands, including Nike, adidas, Champion, OGIO and American Apparel.

Prep Sportswear noted that a significant driver of this alliance is to expand its market potential and distribution relationships. The company believes the strategic alliance will better serve students, fans, boosters and alumni seeking to customize products to display their school and team spirit.

Additionally, the agreement demonstrates the monetization potential of Prep Sportswear's technology platform to other potential strategic partners.

Spirit Shop Inc. is a leading online retailer of consumer designed, licensed apparel and merchandise in the kindergarten through college markets. The company is a growing network of over 700,000 online stores, providing thousands of products with personalized printing and embroidery, direct to consumers, through a variety of manufacturing and fulfillment partnerships.

Chad Hartvigson, Chief Executive Officer of Prep Sportswear, said, “We are very excited to join forces with an industry leader. This alliance will expand Prep Sportswear's distribution and leverage the strength of each organization, improving the overall user experience, while allowing both companies to expand their market share.”

“Spirit Shop is very enthusiastic about the partnership opportunity with Prep Sportswear,” said Chris Heike, Vice President of Operations of Spirit Shop.

“By utilizing both Prep Sportswear's outstanding e-commerce engine, as well as its extensive product offering, we will be able to greatly enhance the customer experience of every Spirit Shop visitor. We are confident that this relationship will enable both companies to grow at faster rates as it aligns Spirit Shop's unprecedented success and reputation in sales, marketing and customer satisfaction with Prep Sportswear's proven production and fulfillment operation.”

Spirit Shop Inc. is a privately held company founded in May 2005 and based in Ann Arbor, MI. The company's management team has extensive experience in apparel manufacturing, custom printing, e-commerce, marketing and product distribution.

Prep Sportswear

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