Ethical Economics...

First, let me wish each of you a Happy Festivus, Belated Joyous Yule (Ves Heil!) and Belated Happy Solstice (the light is waxing!) to each of you.

As many of you are blissfully unaware, I have some uniquely ethical business philosophies I'm very proud to say that my friend and business partner in USBuyBid shares. I don't meet many entrepreneurs who share my mindset -- so far, outside of my own bloodline, I've met a grand total of one... the aforementioned friend and biz partner, Samuel.

Aside from working almost round the clock on developing USBuyBid with Samuel, I also have my own little semi-backburnered project, designing for products such as t-shirts, greeting cards, bumper stickers, etc. which I sell through shops on various Print on Demand fullfillment services.

I have at least one design available, in at least one shop, on each of 7 such services -- CafePress (my primary shop,) Printfection (my secondary shop and Evil shop) Zazzle (ties & keychains,) ArtsNow (supplemental shop for TONS of products per design,) E-shirt (just a handful of test designs,) Greeting Card Universe (just a couple of test designs) and Skreened (the inspiration for this post.)

As I went about the traditional preparations for my annual December gift-giving Holiday - sorting the gift bags and boxes I re-use, each year, by whose tag is on them -- a win-win-win tradition that saves trees, money AND landfill space -- my mind wandered to what I'd most like to have in a POD fulfillment service.

My wish list was as follows:

Tie-dye base apparel
Magnetic Bumper Stickers
More "Made in America" products
Sweat-free apparel
Hemp products
"made from recycled..." products
More "Organic" cotton apparel


Not expecting to find any of them, I went searching for the first two things I listed -- magnetic bumper stickers and Tie-dye base apparel. I did't find them, of course. But, I found a number of POD services I was previously unaware existed, including one, Skreened.com, which I was most surprised and thrilled to find because they're an American owned, American operated business, located in Ohio, that offers two of the things on my list, exclusively: a small assortment of sweat-free shirts all made in the USA, in a variety of colors.

I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming! I wasn't -- they're real and some more digging turned up their blog, which includes some indications that they share some of my own business philosophies. I couldn't sign up fast enough! This is a service I can feel REALLY good about each and every thing I sell through them... or buy through them.

It's a little late in the Fred (sometimes referred to as "Christmas") Shopping season to suggest that you check them out for December Holiday gifts you can feel particularly good about giving, but there are lots of good designs to choose from and I highly recommend checking them out and bookmarking them for the next time you're shopping for yourself or a loved one -- help keep American workers employed and earning a living wage, by buying sweat-free American made:

www.skreened.com
or, if you just want to check in on my slow progress in building a presence there, Click Here

(Those who are interested can find most of my other shops by punching "Melhi" and the name of the service into a search engine.)

Oh and it's a couple of days early, but... Merry Christmas.