I have to admit, I am a sucker for good package design so I spent this weekend pimping out our customer experience. First we have the retail hanger cards which are printed on used cereal box and shipping package cardboard. Then I created a unique experience for those who order direct from our website – a hand printed wrap on recycled brown paper which states “soon you will always have money.” It’s true you know, you just have to order today.

Before this weekend, I spent some time researching how to get a unique upc bar code. To jump through the official hoops you have to apply through GS1 which is the standard that every retailer uses. The problem is they want around $700 to register plus a yearly fee based on your sales for one bar code! Insane right? Doing a search on google or ebay quickly yielded other companies that own thousands of unique barcodes that they are selling for around ten bucks each. It seemed sort of shady, but it was a price I could afford so I purchased one. Well technically I’m leasing it forever. The original company still owns it, but promises to never lease it to someone else. Their user agreement states that if the bar code company is ever sold, then all bets are off – shady right? To make it seem less so, you get a certificate of authenticity for your barcode.

It feels really weird doing all of this work because I haven’t sold a single wallet yet. I’m just bellied up to the craps table hoping that the dice read seven or eleven when they stop rolling.