Why we blog

Aloha,
If your reading this, then you are probably one of the many customers and subscribers to the Da Kine Hawaiian Aloha blog. You may also be a fan of our business on Facebook or Twitter. But recently it came to my attention that many readers, customers, and close friends do not fully understand why we actually blog.

I think about a lot of topics and why I do something's and why I don't do others, but the blogging portion is pretty clear. Like a lot of our friends and customers businesses, we are a shining example of a mom and pop business. Our business model is pretty clear, we manufacture and sell Hawaiian shirts on-line and in our retail location in downtown Escondido CA. All in hopes that we will make enough money to pay our day to day bills, and maybe get a few items for the grandchildren, as well as covering a little entertainment for ourselves. Fishing fits the bill for me and my wife.

We primarily we use this blog as a venue to advertise and promote our products, we post for anyone that will read. Promoting a small business in a niche market can be daunting as the market is small and advertising budgets dry up fast, though there are many months where advertising money is non-existent.

But I have to say that in the back of my mind that I am also hoping that a reader or customer will have some Aloha and possibly blog or simply tell their friends about us. I believe that is also referred to as wishful thinking. I am also the first to admit that we don't have the advertising money to compete in the paid advertising arena.

Word of mouth is a powerful tool that shouldn't be taken lightly by any business, it can make you prosper or break you as well. How does your blogging help us? Well it's a multifaceted objective, in one hand doing so give you something to write about, it also exposes our business to your readership (which helps us with new customer acquisition). Your friend my in turn tank you for turning them on to some great products. Secondly, a blog article or webpage with a URL in it pointed to your favorite product page (like the one in this article) helps us somewhat improve our position in search engines.

Admittedly it's a small amount boost (though good karma may come your way), but it all helps. Especially when our survival on the web relies on us bettering the big box stores and goliath shopping sites like Amazon, all of whom could care less about providing things above and beyond customer service. We will even open up the store on days that we were scheduled to be closed, all just to help out the customer with tight time constraints. Even if you just have a minor question you can call our office at 760-294-1765 and we will do whatever it takes to help you. Charles will answer, call in the morning and he will just listen to whatever you have to say, mainly because it takes him forever to wake up and be productive.

Ok so your saying to yourself what do I get out of all of this. Monetary wise you get nothing for your efforts, but in terms of karma and do-gooding brownie points, the reward can be monumental. Your efforts will in a sense bring you even closer to the Wave Shoppe family. There are not enough words in the English language to describe our sincere appreciation for our customers.

Mahalo \m/