Whoever said "it's the little things that make life so good" is spot on. A big part of running a retail business is making sure we always have what our customers need, when they need it. Roughly translated, we're always ordering and reordering products from our vendors. When the UPS/FedEx man drops off our orders, they come in a wide variety of different boxes. As with everything else, all boxes are NOT created equally. Some companies have really crummy boxes that look like they've been passed around for decades, while still others have really nice and solid ones. Some are big, some are small, and others are just plain ridiculous.
Since I've been doing this for a while now, I feel pretty confident that I know a good box when I see one. Since boxes don't have an annual awards ceremony, I thought these boxes needed a little recognition (after all, if I don't, who will?) As for the rating criteria, these are my own opinions and not a while lot of thought has gone into them...this is just my gut reaction after being knee deep in box. It's like "man, that's a good smelling box" or "man, that box looks beat". Without further ado, this is what I've concluded:
When I think of Canada, I conjure up images of frothy rivers of beer, games of hockey played on ponds, and funny accents. While my passport might be from the United States, I grew up in Buffalo, NY. If you know anything about geography (and more specifically, geography of the northeastern United States) you would understand why I consider myself an honorary Canadian, allowing for me to verify the accuracy of the aforementioned stereotypes. One generalization that I had never made about Canada, however, was their competence in designing and manufacturing shoe insoles. That was until I tried some of SOLE's heat moldable custom insoles. I now have no problem adding SOLE Insoles to my list of "favorite Canadian things", right next to maple syrup and the lower drinking age (it's 19, by the way).
Now you're going to say, "James, what are you doing? Hyping up another insole? You made the Superfeet sound like God's gift to man in previous blog entries! What's all this bologna about Sole insoles?!" First off, I like that you said "bologna" out of a grocery store context. Second, I still love and believe in Superfeet's lineup. Don't get me wrong, the Superfeet are an incredible product and we will surely continue to carry them. However, since we've been open, there have been instances when, *gasp* not one model in the entire off-the-shelf Superfeet line fit a customer. This is where our newest addition to our off the shelf orthotics come in. In our quest of "improving the quality of life for our customers by providing access to the best sports medicine, orthopedic, products available" we have noticed that it is necessary to offer another type of shoe orthotic for our customers.
As you probably know by now, SOLE is a "heat moldable" custom insole. What this means is that you can either wear the insoles out of the box (which is recyclable) and over time, the orthotics will conform to your feet. Or you can expedite that process by popping them in the oven, pulling them out and standing in them. Personally, I prefer the latter. To see how simple the process is, watch this:
Much like the Superfeet line, SOLE has a variety of offerings based on foot type and application, which essentially affects the width of the insole and the thickness of the foam. B&A Sports Medicine Store will be initially carrying the "Softec Regular" and "Slim Sport". Personally, I like the "Regulars" for my running shoes, while the "Slim Sports" are awesome for my Doc Martens.
I have no idea as for the reason why Canada makes such a good insole. Could it be because they were developed in proximity to the University of Calgary, home to one of the most renowned researchers of the biomechanics of the foot and ankle, Dr. Benno Nigg? Could it be because they have so much free time while waiting for a doctor's appointment, not uncommon with a universal health care system? It's difficult to say. It is, however, easy to say that if the Superfeet haven't worked for you, then SOLE certainly deserves a chance.
(Softec Regulars)
Two additional things, a) In a previous post, I spoke about our "Green Initiative" and how, whenever possible, we would take necessary steps to limit our impact on this fragile planet. I'm proud to say that our partnership with SOLE is congruent with this program. The kind folks over at SOLE use vegetable-based ink on their 100% recycled stock for their print materials and Ecopac packaging, which is a corn-based petroleum product. b) Our SOLE shipment came! In store feedback with this product has already been pretty incredible.
So in lieu of this past week's day of belligerence (and me not wanting to write any more product descriptions for the day), I thought now would be a good time to talk about being "Green".
First, let me ask you this: What does being "Green" mean to you? Is it trading in your Hummer H2 for a Chevy Aveo? Or selling your car so you can take the bus? What about bringing in your own bags to the grocery store? Or counting your carbon-calories?
Whichever way you choose to define "Green", I can almost guarantee it can be boiled down to "not using as much stuff", whether its oil, paper, carbon, or water.
It's this idea of making more from what we have by using less that is the basis for our store's adaptation of Green Health Care. We're not going to be pretentious about saving the environment as we feel there's enough people doing that, already. But if you understand that when we see an opportunity to save, then maybe our actions will make a bit more sense.
For instance, we understand that trees are finite in number, which is why we like to re-use boxes whenever possible. Our stock room is full of old shipping boxes from our vendors. We use them to organize the back room instead of implementing plastic bins or just throwing them out. We also use these boxes to ship our products to you, our customer. This is why if you order more than once from us, there's a good chance the packaging will change. One day it could be a box from Superfeet, while your next order could have a box that says "Cramer" on it.
Our packing materials share a similar fate with the boxes as most of what we use is re-recycled paper or other materials. The only thing we don't use is that blasted foam popcorn. That annoys the heck out of us, so we don't put you guys through that torture (right, Wendy?). The packing materials' life doesn't have to stop there, though. We highly encourage you to re-re-recycle our products (packaging and otherwise) instead of just throwing it away.
Another opportunity we've identified has been in the form of those plastic bags. We're always looking for plastic bags to re-use for our customers and encourage our customers to bring in their bags for us to use (instead of throwing them out).
The same story is with our water supply. The toilet in our store now has one of those thing-a-ma-bobs to cut down on the amount of water it uses. If I'm not mistaken, it saves over a gallon per flush, which is a lot considering the amount of coffee (fair trade!) I drink. The only wasteful part of the toilet-thing-a-ma-bob has been my time, as it took me a good 2 days to figure out.
Here at BASportsMedicine.com, we appreciate your understanding and support of our "Green-Initiative". Unlike other instances where people draw attention to themselves for doing "good" *cough*BonofromU2*cough* this will be the first and last time you hear about us being "Green"...at least from us, anyway.
Last, but certainly not least, if you have a suggestion for us on how to be more "Green" just short of making Lee give up his Jeep/Ford trucks, let us know in the "comments" section, and we'll see what we can whip up...rest assured, that the next round of light bulbs that we put up in the store will be energy-efficient as well.
