Oct
29

New Ties Now In

By Hereward · Comments View Comments

Another week and more news for you – our first range of pure silk ties is available on the web site.

This is the first range of ties with some more additions scheduled in the run up to Christmas.

We will also be using these ties to show off the new monthly shirt realises so you can get an idea of what we think goes with what – but all our tie designs have been carefully woven to be uber versatile, so if you like one or two, don’t hold back.

Click here to see them – and ensure you log in to receive a big discount!

Anything different about the ties?

Well, yes since you come to mention it. In keeping with the current trend, our new ties are a bit slimmer than before featuring a width of 8.5cm. I think this is about the perfect width for a proper tie – it’s slim enough that you wont look like you’re wearing a kipper next to your work colleagues but not so skinny that people will think you’ve put on your son’s school uniform by mistake!

We’ve also made the lining a bit softer, as is the way at the all new touchy feely Thin Red Line. Don’t worry, you still get an excellent knot but the tie will drape just a bit more naturally compared to the previous lining – and there will be less material under your collar which is no bad thing. Personally, I think these are our best ties yet.

Members Make Big Savings

We’ve had a really fantastic number of people signing up to our membership pages. If you haven’t done so already, you really should because you receive an extra 20% off our formal shirts – right out of the box – and on some other items the saving is even more. For example, our new ties are £36.24 for non-members but the member’s price is only £22.99. That’s a saving of over £13.00, just for taking a minute to sign up!

Click here to become a member in less than 1 minute!

Introduce A Friend And Earn Credit!

If you’re able to forward these emails to friends or colleagues we’d be really grateful and if you’re able to introduce a new customer to us – just ask them to state that they were referred by you when they place their order by stating your name and email address (there’s a text box for notes or instructions on the order payment page) – and we’ll add £5.00 credit to your account for every new customer order we receive.

And Finally… New Shirts Coming Soon

It’s almost the start of the new month that means that we’ll soon be introducing some more shirts to the range. As always, the new shirts will all be in regular and slim fit, double and button cuff and available in both regular and extra long sleeves and will be available on the site early November. As always, I’ll keep you informed when they’re available.

Please let me know your feedback on anything to do with our products or communication because I really appreciate it.

PS. Remember, for every new customer order we receive as a result of your referral we’ll add £5.00 credit to your account. Don’t forget to ensure they state your name and email address on the payment page.

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Please accept my apologies for the delay. As a final step in preparation for making this month’s shirt designs available for purchase we conducted a system upgrade and this brilliantly messed up the part of the system that deals with stock control. We’re working to resolve this asap and hope to go live with the new site and new formal shirt range in about 48 hours.

I love technology but sometimes it can cause real headaches!

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We design our fabrics, have them woven and then stitch our men’s shirts with unprecedented attention to detail. As you can imagine, to keep our prices down for you our customer, we have to do this batch by batch rather than one fabric one week and another the next. Because we don’t buy our shirts from factories that simply churn out thousands of shirts a day, we do tend to have peaks and troughs in our stock levels. It’s not ideal by any means – but it does mean that we can be 100% confident that we’re providing some of the best quality men’s shirts in the market, quite irrespective of price – and that is something I don’t want to sacrifice.

Our regular customers have come to know this happens at Thin Red Line but, thankfully, our shirts are worth it – so they pay particular attention when we send out emails announcing new shirt stock or a new shirt range – and they buy in the knowledge that our stocks may then become thin for a good few weeks – or longer as has happened recently. I like to think of our shirts as similar to a vintage wine: you know it’s coming – then it gets released – then supply becomes limited and there’s a period of time before the next arrival – but it’s worth the wait!

So with that in mind, I hope to put up another post within days which will finally provide a release date for our new stock which we have decided to introduce on a rolling basis – this means that the initial release won’t be the full range but new designs will be released every month thereafter. What can I say? Thank you so much for your patience and I’m sure you’ll love the new TRL shirts.

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A few people have asked me “why would people want to read about men’s formal shirts on Facebook?”. That’s a fair question but that’s not really the reason for our page. I’m hoping that people will use the Facebook page as an alternative way of communicating with us – one which hopefully is easier for them. If they’re on their own Facebook page already, it will be easy for them to nip along to see us also if they have any queries or comments for us about our shirts, or anything really, rather than submitting a support ticket in the traditional way. The same goes for Thin Red Line on Twitter. If people are on Twitter already, then they can communicate with Thin Red Line from within Twitter rather than having to open a new page and visit our web site.

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And you can now talk to us via Twitter @formalshirts as well. Please join us via one of these methods so we can keep you up to date with what’s going on – but more importantly, so we can help you to save money on some of the best quality men’s formal shirts in the market. If you have to wear formal shirts daily – then keep an eye on us!

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As part of our dedication to talking ‘with’ our customers rather than ‘to’ them, I am delighted to announce that our Facebook page has just gone live. Facebook is a fantastic medium for communicating with customers about our products and what we’re up to generally, so please join us there. New blog posts will be announced on our Facebook page also, so whether you prefer to keep in contact via Facebook or directly on our blog, you’ll be kept informed of new product releases and special shirt offers.

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Our men’s shirts are on their way back – I promise! The last few months have been quite a roller-coaster for a small men’s shirt business such as ours. Given the state of the economy we actually had a great 2009 with a big increase in new customers and sales volume to match. However, we hit the buffers at the end of last year when our new fabric range was almost completely destroyed in a warehouse fire at the weaving mill. No one was physically hurt but, needless to say, it has hurt our business considerably.

The problem is that we’re fastidious about the quality of our shirts and so we we don’t buy fabric on the wholesale market. Instead, we have all our fabrics woven specially for us, to our own fabric specification and quality requirements. This has the benefit of us being able to produce a men’s shirt of unparalleled quality (especially for the price), but the down-side is that an event such as that of last Autumn can send us completely sideways in terms of supply.

Our problem – which is one we have now learnt from – is that we tended to stitch our shirts in quarterly, or even bi-annual runs, meaning that we would work on a just-in-time system where, as old stock was almost exhausted, our new stock would arrive. This system has served us well over the years but it does not account for a relative disaster as befell us at the end of last year – since weaving fabric takes approximately 90 days from the date of booking the order and then you have shirt stitching time on top of that. Thus, historically we would work six months ahead of ourselves thinking all is fine – but when you lose six month’s worth of fabric in one go – it knocks you back by more than that. So, the situation is that our new replacement shirt fabrics are being woven as I write and then we need to lovingly craft these into the men’s shirts you know and love. We’re working as hard and as fast as is humanly possible but, in reality, our new men’s formal shirt range has now been put back until late summer.

On the plus-side, our new shirt range will be greatly expanded in terms of choice since we will now be offering both our traditional classic fit shirt, as well as a slim fit shirt option and all shirts will be available in both double cuff and button cuff varieties.

So, whilst we’re waiting, please do the following:

1. Ensure you are registered at www.thinredline.com because when we do re-launch, we will be making a very special offer to registered account holders.

2. Keep an eye on this blog. This is where I will be posting regular updates as to where we’re at – as well as some posts that you might find interesting!

I’d just like to end this post by thanking everyone who has been in touch with me expressing how much they like our shirts and that they can’t wait for us to release the new men’s shirt range.

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Thank you for taking the time to visit the Thin Red Line blog. Whilst we’re in the process of updating our web site ready for the new men’s shirt stock to arrive, we’ll be posting regularly with shirt updates, useful information – plus a bit of IT geekery (I can’t help myself – sorry!).

If you haven’t done so already, please sign up to receive our emails because this will ensure you will be the first to know when our news men’s formal shirt range is ready – plus we’re going to make a very special offer specially for people on the Thin Red Line list – so make sure you’re on it.

Click here to sign up for the Thin Red Line men’s shirt email offer.

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