Manufactured RIGHT HERE!

Would you think that a sewing machine would be a sexy addition to a trade show booth?

When the show is called "Manufactured Right Here", then it's downright appropriate! AbbyShot attracted LOTS of attention at the 16th annual Manufactured Right Here exhibition in our local city centre of St. John's. It's a trade show where local companies from our relatively small Canadian province called Newfoundland & Labrador can show off the diverse mix of products and services that are locally provided.

AbbyShot decided to take the exhibition's name VERY seriously by bringing a (heavy!) sewing machine to our booth to make a few Enigma coats right there on the spot. We say "Manufactured Right Here" and we really mean it! It completely stole the show, giving the AbbyShot Team lots of press coverage including a lovely piece from our finest local newspaper, the Telegram. It's worth checking out just for the picture of our AbbyShot VP under attack from a coat.

The most fun part though, as with all shows we attend, is seeing the reactions of people when they come to our booth! Especially here in our local market, movie and anime fans are blown away when they see our brand of cool clothing being made in their own province. We definitely gained a few local fans like these two new friends of AbbyShot: Motoko and TALL Elric (!?!) in the picture below.

Travelling the world is great, but sometimes it's nice to get a bit of recognition from the folks here at home! Huge thanks to everyone at the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters for putting off a great show.

Customer Photos and Emails

We've received some great customer feedback recently that we would like to share with everyone. Some are just pictures, while others have written us about their new AbbyShot purchases. Without further ado, here it is:

Linda, California

Greetings,
I wanted to let you know that the Kill Bill Jacket is totally awesome! I receive many comments on how cool the jacket is every where I go and from all ages. It's a real head turner and is as authentic in every detail to the jacket in the movie. I also want to thank the staff at AbbyShot Clothiers, their customer service is marvelous, they are friendly, knowledgeable and dedicated to complete customer satisfaction.
Kudos all around.
Sincerely,
Linda

---

Matthew, Australia
Hi to all at AbbyShot.

It's been over a year now since I received my Matrix Lobby coat, and damn, does it still impress me, let alone the people on the street. I just wanted to let you know how many comments I still get on this amazing coat, which puts me in a very difficult position.....

Do I tell them where I got the coat? Or do I not, and ensure I am only one of a few in Australia who own such a magnificent item? Well, since I am so impressed with the coat, I told them where to get it....gotta share the joy, right?

Anyway, I have attached a pic of me still enjoying the coat, feel free to use it if you wish

yours truthfully

Matthew

Mad Max jacket tours Australia filming locations

How does one improve on superb accuracy and detail? I mean the jacket is fantastic enough, the gloves add even more and then AbbyShot also supplies the badges!! Something was still missing though. The jacket needed some wear and tear - so off I went to Australia to visit some filming locations. One of the most memorable scenes is when Max gets his knee shot and is rolling around on the road reaching for his sawed off shotgun. He also manages to get his right arm run over by one of the bad guys motorcycles.... I had to replicate this 'road rash' with my jacket in the exact same spot... enjoy the pic.

I got to meet some great people there, both fans as well as people who were involved with the Mad Max films. Remember the little kid in The Road Warrior with the boomerang? This is him at age 33!

I also visited most of the other locations including the MFP headquarters and naturally the jacket made it so much more enjoyable. The Interceptor is owned by Nelson Tromp of Sydney who was trusting enough to let me drive his fantastic Falcon around some of the locations.

Big thanks once again to the gang at AbbyShot for bringing dreams into reality!!

Doug McQuillin
Niagara Falls, Ontario

AbbyShot attends the 1st AIM Conference!

The very first Atlantic Internet Marketing (or AIM) Conference was held this past week in beautiful Halifax, Nova Scotia, and AbbyShot was the talk of the conference! There are still a relatively small number of online businesses on the east coast of Canada, let alone an online business that sells clothing inspired by movies and anime! People were intrigued to say the least!


The AIM Conference was put off by a company called AlphaSearch, and they did an amazing job at pulling everything together in this first year! The whole conference was devoted to teaching attendees how to market effectively on the Web, and a number of speakers hit on some common themes that we here at AbbyShot really believe in. The main theme being:

YOU are in control, more than ever.

Yes, you, reading this blog! You, along with all users of the Internet, have more of a say than ever about what you want to experience online. You vote with your clicks, so content that doesn't attract you won't succeed online. Websites need to pull YOU in by giving you what you want.

It's not a bad time to live in, is it? AbbyShot will certainly continue to listen to our users, now more than ever, through tools like this blog where we can get direct feedback from our customers and our fans.

So many great ideas from the AIM Conference are still rattling around in our heads - we met so many great people (even a few fellow Canadian bloggers) and we had such a great time! We're hoping to be back next year to make even MORE of a splash. Now a question for all you readers: what do you think the main trends on the Internet are these days? Do you agree that the user has the control? We'd love to hear what you think in the comments!

CANDY ONE News, AbbyShot Video!

As loyal readers of our blog and newsletters already know, AbbyShot has a great partner in Tokyo, Japan! The costume retailer CANDY ONE, located in anime-haven Nakano Broadway, is hard at work on a Japanese AbbyShot catalogue. We could not be happier - check out their excellent AbbyShot Coming Soon Page!

They've even got a cool Flash Animation on their main page that you don't want to miss! AbbyShot x CANDY ONE = Greatness. We love it!

On the topic of Japan, here's a final bit of nostalgia from our fantastic trip to the Tokyo Anime Fair: AbbyShot on YouTube! Get ready to be transported right to the AbbyShot booth at TAF2007!



We're definitely going to be using our newfound YouTube skills much more as time goes on. It's a lot of fun! For right now, if you've got any videos to share with us (especially videos featuring an AbbyShot product!) please let us know, you could be on our brand new "Favorites" list! What greater achievement could you hope for? If you REALLY want to be our best friend forever, please comment on our very first YouTube video right here!

AbbyShot in Tokyo Part 4!

This is the part of the Tokyo Anime Fair where the sequence of events started to break down and time started to run together.

TAF Public Days (Three & Four): March 24-25, 2007

These two action-packed days went by like a complete blur. 45,764 visitors on the first public day. 37,595 on the second. It was absolute madness, but very VERY fun.

We walked in on Friday a half-hour early for the show, and the line-up of fans looked something like this:

We quickly set up the booth and waited for the waves of people to come in. We were not disappointed! 10 am on Saturday looked like this:

We called it "The Running of the Otaku" - it was surreal! As you can see from the pic, cute girls in white coats were hired to politely slow them down as these hardcore fans ran in to see the latest from their favorite anime studios.

It didn't take long for the crowds to pour in, and soon enough every aisle in the place looked like this:


It was so wild that our buddy Gerard had to practice his deadly moves:


Luckily, lethal force wasn't necessary - fans from all over Japan (and the world) were instantly happy and excited as soon as they saw the incredible clothing that AbbyShot has to offer!

The big hit at the Tokyo Anime Fair: The AbbyShot Elric Coat!

The fans loved trying this one on and everyone immediately turned into Edward Elric, doing all the cool moves from Fullmetal Alchemist.

Not only did the fans love him, Elric was also a hit with the ladies. Who knew?

The booth was constantly busy for two days straight, so of many of the AbbyShot classics were very popular as well.

And how could we forget our earliest anime inspired garment, the timeless trenchcoat worn by Vash the Stampede in the series Trigun. It's an older anime, but still very recognizable among the hardcore anime fans. It really made an impression, especially in leather!

Myself, Julia, and Gerard were always busy talking to fans in the booth, but that didn't mean that we couldn't take a few breaks for a bit of fun at the show. Especially on the last day (Sunday), there were definitely a few things we just HAD to do.

So Julia met a Ninja Turtle, we both hung out with a pink blob (?!?), I followed in the footsteps of Pac-Man, and Julia tried on some sweet 3D eyeglasses.

The ultimate, however, was a meeting that has been twenty years in the making. Ever since I was a little tot watching crazy Japanese anime on Saturday morning TV, I've always wanted to meet my childhood hero: ASTRO BOY! I can now happily cross this off the list of things to do before I'm 80.

The final Public Day ended with a meeting between AbbyShot and the owners of the costume retailer CANDY ONE, who we mentioned in our previous "Japan Report" blog post. This company makes beautiful, detailed costumes from such diverse anime as The Galaxy Railways and Ikkitousen: Dragon Destiny. The owner of CANDY ONE was very impressed with all of our AbbyShot gear, especially our beautiful leather garments, and wanted very much to sell AbbyShot clothing in his Tokyo shop! He wanted us to meet him at his shop the following day to discuss the details.

We couldn't be happier - our first business deal in Japan was underway! What a way to end an awesome show!

The Final Day in Japan: March 26, 2007

Our last full day in Tokyo was a pleasant one, despite the fact that we had to leave such a beautiful city! Our main priority for the day was our meeting with CANDY ONE in the growing anime district of Nakano. The CANDY ONE retail shop was located in a complex called "Broadway" which, to our surprise, was absolutely packed with people on a Monday in the early afternoon.

This shopping centre was full of excellent shops both big and small, with many catering to anime fans - including two floors of Mandarake, an excellent Japanese chain that sells all types of manga and collectibles.

CANDY ONE was located on the 3rd floor of this busy complex in a small but well-stocked retail shop. There were lots of amazing costumes on display and we were very impressed by the attention to detail that went into each one. Each of these costumes is spot-on, 100% EXACTLY from the anime!

Suffice it to say that our meeting was great, and we are so happy to say that CANDY ONE is now an official AbbyShot agent in Tokyo, Japan!

We left a Kill Bill Jacket and a Leather Stampede Duster (see it in the picture above?) for them to display in their shop because they really loved our leather clothing, and many plans were made for this new partnership between AbbyShot and CANDY ONE. It's an exciting new alliance that is being developed every day, and there's already another blog post in the making with more news, so stay tuned!

With business being done, we stopped to have the best sushi EVER on the main floor of the Nakano Broadway:

Mmm... raw fish. Then it was off to Shibuya to check out the stores and drift between the crowds.

That's as good an image as any to leave you with as we end our report on AbbyShot's fantastic, surreal, and above all FUN trip to the Tokyo Anime Fair (and beyond!). It's been a blast getting our observations down on this blog and hopefully it was as fun to read as it was to write. Hopefully the pictures were cool at the very least! AbbyShot is already following up on lots of great leads in Japan, and who knows, maybe we'll be back someday. You'll get the news here first! This is Mark, signing off.