1. Focus on Steady Sustainable Growth: In 13 years, blankstyle.com went from making $180k to $13 million. Mark believes that by focusing on steady growth, an E-Commerce business has a better chance of being sustainable.
2. Prioritize Customer Retention: For blankstyle.com, customer retention is essential. Mark stresses that acquiring new customers takes significant effort – creating a strong first experience is key to building long-term loyalty and repeat business.
3. Be Prepared for Hard Work: There’s a misconception that working for your own business is easier than working for someone else’s. Mark’s experience is that starting your own business is often harder than people expect and requires significant effort and dedication.
4. Organic Traffic vs. Paid Advertising: Most small E-Commerce brands don’t have unlimited financial means for marketing. Mark advocates building a strong foundation through organic and direct traffic for sustainable growth, rather than relying heavily on paid advertising.
5. Identify Gaps in the Market: When Mark launched blankstyle.com in 2008, E-Commerce apparel companies were not selling blank t-shirts wholesale. Making the move from retail to wholesale allowed Mark to provide a desired but unavailable product and grow his business into a ‘go to’ marketplace for blank apparel.
Working in real estate during the financial crash of 2008, Mark Azzarito was forced to reevaluate his career. A decision to buy a failing retail blank clothing company led to Mark launching blankstyle.com later that year. Be inspired by how Mark’s focus on steady growth, customer retention, and brand relationships has enabled blankstyle.com to achieve sustainable success in a challenging E-Commerce landscape.
Meet Mark Azzarito, Founder of blankstyle.com !
blankstyle.com is an online marketplace for blank apparel and apparel decoration service. Since 2004 we have been servicing the merchandising needs of bands, brands, companies, and decorators alike. With one of the largest blank apparel selections available online, and fast turn times on many popular decoration techniques, blankstyle.com has made the once complicated process of creating branded merchandise a breeze. Our team of highly trained Account Service Specialists, along with our Instant quote technology and design a shirt functionality make creating your ideal screen print or embroidery designs a seamless pain free process.
Mark was working in real estate during the financial crash of 2008. With transaction and investment deals going bad, he made a career pivot, focusing his attention on a local clothing company. While the retail business was struggling, Mark remembers, “I noticed that they had a small website that was doing okay. They were selling it, so I ended up acquiring it and making the switch from retail to wholesale.”
At the time, basic apparel often bared a brand’s logo – think Nike, Hurley, and Quicksilver. Conversely, Mark’s company sold blank t-shirts. “From a retail perspective, it was a cool idea,” he says. “But unfortunately, there’s not a ton of money in retail blank t-shirts.” The decision to move to E-Commerce and sell wholesale was strategic. Mark found that money could be made selling blank apparel in bulk online and in that same year, he founded blankstyle.com.
blankstyle.com has evolved into a marketplace selling various ‘blank’ brands that have included American Apparel, Gildan, ANVIL, and TRIPLE-A among others. Mark elaborates, “We act as a virtual distributor by aggregating inventories and different manufacturers and suppliers all over the country who have warehouses with inventory in them to provide a marketplace where they can come in and sell product.” The benefit to customers is that rather than shopping around, they can go to a single E-Commerce site for all their wholesale apparel needs.
The company’s internal team follows a hybrid model with 6 members in-office and 4-5 working remotely. Recognizing warehouses and 3LPs as integral to operations, Mark is quick to note that the company is “leveraging the efforts of hundreds and hundreds of people every day.”
blankstyle.com has evolved its customer service approach over the years, aiming to strike a balance between market expectations and a flexible, customer-friendly experience. “The goal is to create a policy that is in alignment with the market,” Mark explains, “but also isn’t too rigid—something that makes customers want to come back.” As a basic apparel marketplace, the company relies on data and clear boundaries to manage situations where customers might take advantage of return policies—for example, receiving free products knowing they won’t be asked to return items. “Our focus is on retention,” Mark adds. “We’re always thinking about how to continue serving the customers we have without losing them.”
Moving from Retail to E-Commerce
Mark’s first major move in developing blankstyle.com’s business model was changing the website from retail facing to completely wholesale. There was a wholesale division, however, customers needed a special account to shop at lower margins. “I removed that restriction, so anybody could come in and buy any quantity at a lower wholesale price point.”
When Mark bought the company in 2008, it was doing around $180k in sales and by 2010, total revenue was $1 million eventually reaching $4 million by 2013. A plateau lasted until 2016 after which the company had steady growth hitting $13 million in 2021. Mark says that prior to COVID, there was a clear distinction whether a business was brick-n-mortar or E-Commerce. All companies are now E-Commerce, increasing competition for customer acquisition. “What used to cost you $2 to get a customer now costs $40, along with unsustainable policies, offering incentives that aren’t profitable to get them through the door.” Mark continues, “There are private equity groups who are willing to run in the red for 15 years just to bleed you out.”
Customer Retention and Driving Revenue
“It’s a point I make to our vendors all the time—unless you’re Amazon or have massive brand recognition, acquiring a new customer means you have to go out and teach them who you are,” says Mark, highlighting the crucial role customer retention plays in blankstyle.com’s business model. Gaining that first purchase takes time, money, and effort, making it a valuable opportunity for smaller companies to create a standout experience that encourages repeat business. “If you can get people to come back, enjoy your service, and buy from you more than once,” he adds, “they’re likely to keep coming back.”
Key Strategies for Success in a Competitive E-Commerce Space
“I’m a firm believer of organic and direct traffic as being your foundation,” Mark says when asked what he’s done to maintain blankstyle.com’s position in a competitive E-Commerce landscape. Unlike many companies that spend a lot of money on paid advertising and expect immediate results (or have the means to finance thousands a day), he focuses on fostering the steady growth channels, maintaining the approach is more sustainable and will ultimately, move business forward. “The biggest thing we’ve done is knowing when to scale and when to scale back,” he concludes.
Looking Ahead: Mark’s Priorities & Goals for blankstyle.com
“We want to continue building relationships and partnerships with unique brands to expand our offerings and create exclusive opportunities for our customers,” Mark explains. A key focus is offering products that aren’t available elsewhere, along with in-house decoration services—like embroidery and screen-printing—that let customers customize their items directly through blankstyle.com, without needing to go to a separate printer. At the same time, the team is working to boost organic and direct traffic to increase visibility and drive long-term growth.
blankstyle.com’s Tech Stack: Meeting the Customer
blankstyle.com’s has integrated a support channel tech stack that focuses on meeting the customer where they’re at. Using a knowledge-based bot, live chat is available on the website. However, Mark prefers inquiries be handled by an agent when possible, noting, “humans, with the right set of knowledge, can be more understanding of what’s being asked.” Customers also have the option of calling about any issues they are experiencing. “We’re happy to be a voice on the phone, if and when necessary,” Marks says and goes on to stress, “we don’t want to be one of those companies hiding behind a phone number… we're letting people know that if they need something, they can get a hold of us.”
“Be prepared – it’s going to be a lot of work,” Mark says, addressing the misconception that starting your own business is easier than working for someone else. For an E-Commerce company or brand, the website or web platform is never done. “It’s an ongoing, moving, dynamic process, which you’re always going to have to work on,” Mark explains, suggesting out-of-the-box solutions like Shopify to limit custom development. Any emerging companies using drop shipping must be aware of the complex management required by the model. If a customer doesn’t get their order, you are responsible – for this reason, Mark recommends using an affiliate or service-based model. Lastly, small E-Commerce companies should consider leveraging 3PLS until order volume makes sense to open a distribution/shipping warehouse.
What excites you most about E-Commerce? The unlimited possibilities regarding scaling customer acquisition and the amount of volume you can do. With a brick-n-mortar store, you are stuck with whatever traffic walks by that day. With E-Commerce, the whole world is your oyster – you can market into anywhere you want. And E-Commerce isn’t just E-Commerce. Sure, you’re an online business, but so is everyone else. Having an online presence where people can come to buy leaves you the entire world available for marketing. You can do curated e-mail campaigns targeted at car dealerships, or Facebook ads targeted at consumers. The possibilities are exciting, as long as you have a model set up that works and people can buy from you, you can market it however you want to.
Can’t-live-without-tool? At this point, I would say that we wouldn’t be able to live without our custom web platform. We need to have our web platform in a way that we’re able to manage the order flow – it’s most important to our model.
Recent Book or Podcast? I recently read a book called Driven. It’s about human genealogy and how different humans are wired differently. Some of us are wired to a throwback to the hunter-gatherer days as opposed to the farming days. Many entrepreneurs and business owners have that wiring, which gives you a different skill set, and the book gives some cool tips and insight on how you can harness those skill sets.
Favorite thought leader in the E-Commerce space? I’ll give the names of a few who have probably been on the minds of any entrepreneur. Steve Jobs for the innovative things he did and the way that he approached the iPhone and Apple in general. Jeff Bezos with Amazon, he’s done an amazing job with curating that brand and growing it from a tiny bookstore. The funny thing about E-Commerce is that it can be anything you want it to be. On blankstyle.com, we just added a line that departs from basic clothing called boutique blanks. Fast fashion – women’s blazers, pants, etc. It’s not in line with what we sell, but the reality is that we can really sell anything. Bezos’s open-mindedness to E-Commerce and how it works moving into everything from web services to home automations is inspiring. Lastly, Elon Musk for the same reasons. No cap on the think space – I’m going to send rockets to Mars, build cars that have never been built before. I like following thinkers who make you feel like there are unlimited possibilities.
#1 Challenge as an Entrepreneur? For me heading up the company is knowing when and how to offload things so I’m not taking on too much myself. Thinking about organizing that and not being so controlling about every decision that is made, and just continuing to successfully outsource processes that, otherwise, run underneath me.
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