 International Hawaii on Think Tech. I'm your host Cindy Matsuki. International Hawaii showcases local import and export businesses to help others new to the industry and trying to get into importing, like what are some of the best best practices, lessons learned. And today my guest is Tony Anthony, founder and owner of Casual Movements. They're a local importing company and also an FTZ tenant. Yay. Thank you so much for joining me, Tony. Thank you. Thank you for having me, yes. Thank you. Maybe can you briefly explain what Casual Movements is, what the business is? Briefly, Casual Movements, the name originated out of casual wear and I was selling a lot of casual clothing and then I came up with that name back in, I think it was 1985, 86, and it just lived with me and then I started importing in the early 90s. And Casual Movements was always the company name and it represented the casual clothing. So now we feature mostly sarongs and perioles and wraps so it's like, it's a perfect name, casual movement. So it fits all occasions and that's the originator of the name, I should say. You're right. How did you start? Like how did you decide to go into the business and when you started to import? Like what made you decide to start importing? Well, when I first came to Hawaii back in the early 80s, I used to go to Los Angeles. I am from Los Angeles and there's a large garment district and we buy it from the garment district and we ship it over to Hawaii and I started wholesaling. And so actually it started like that and so just buying and selling, buying and selling. And then when everybody else that I was selling to start buying directly from Los Angeles, then I decided it was time to find another place to work from and that was Indonesia. And so Indonesia was kind of coming up as the new country of merchandise. When I first came to Hawaii, it was a lot of stuff from the Philippines and then that era went and then now it became Indonesia. So that's how I got started there. And then once I got started, I just bought a lot of miscellaneous things and not knowing specifically what was gonna be the winner. And so what happened in time, sarongs became the mainstay, the bread and butter and it was what I did the most of and continue today. And this started, like I say about 90, 91, something like that. Yeah. And so how did you find your supplier in Indonesia and then do you just have one or do you work for multiple? Just the same way you do in LA or any kind of district, you pound the pavement and just walk around, you observe if you see things you like, in this business though, you gotta have the eyes for what's happening now and what's gonna happen maybe tomorrow. And sometimes you can be too forward where it's like you bring something that's too strange and the community is not ready for that yet but then later in six months, it might be the right item. So it's all about having good eyes for what you can market. And today I would say it's more important to have the market more so than buying because the market is kind of saturated. I mean, there's so many products out there. So you gotta find the right product where yesterday you could just tag along and just be with any product that everybody else was doing and you could still make a living. It's a little bit more tough, you know, I would say. Why is that? Is it because more people are importing or are there just more? I think it's easier to import from that point where it's not easier to import, easier to source where yesterday you couldn't source over the internet. You actually physically or you had to have some connection or something like that. But today you can actually source anything from anywhere, any company, but can you sell it? That's the problem. So it's not so easy to sell. And then at that time, there were more mom and pop stores, more independent stores. Today it's more box stores. It's a little bit, I think it's a little bit tougher in a way, I would say. So when you had first started out, were you wholesaling to like the mom and pop stores? Oh yeah, and still today. I mean, if they are still around, I mean, it increased a lot and now people are selling more online. So it's kind of like it's, we went, we came back 360, you know, where the mom and pops kind of disappeared and then the box stores came in and the box stores are kind of disappearing. And now it is coming, you know, strongly. And I think it's here to stay, you know, so forth, yeah. What was the biggest challenge that you faced when starting your business, especially in Hawaii? I would say in Hawaii, the biggest challenge was more, Hawaii has not been so entrepreneur friendly. And when I say that, meaning there's a lot of restrictions, you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't sell here, you have a store, you can't put stuff outside, you know, that kind of stuff, you know, I mean, so when the few shops I did have, we would put stuff out after a certain hour, you know, when people see a shop and they see, you know, a rack of clothing or something outside or a seating area, they're attracted to, you know, it's like you're being invited, you know, Hawaii has always been pretty strict with that until I would say probably in 2000 when Starbucks and Jamba Juice came, then you saw more outdoor stuff, but unless you go in certain areas like maybe Hawaiiva or Kailua, you might see more outdoor, you know, attraction. Oh, interesting. So you weren't allowed to have like racks outside the store? No, it was always like, you know, you were being regulated in that sense, you know what I mean? So it's not super friendly in that way, you know, they want to keep it a certain way and that's how it is. I mean, today with the pandemic, now you see outdoor, more outdoor seating areas, you know, because it's pandemic has, that's been a plus sign, you know, for the pandemic, you know. Getting more outdoor areas open. Exactly, exactly. And that creates atmosphere, like if you go in Europe or you go in places like, you know, even Florida, California, you see more outdoorsy stuff, activities. So that's good attraction for people. And it makes total sense here, right? I mean, we have the weather. Right. So when you were first starting out, what did your logistics look like? Like was it just you and your car hauling stuff around or how did you manage to? Well, you know, we had the market, the SWAT meet of the flea market. So that was a venue that you could do. And at that time there were two. There was one at Cam and one at Aloha. And you made a choice, depending on what kind of merchant that she was selling. And if you had a good position in the market, you could do quite well. You could make a good, you could make a good living. People make good livings when the market was here. But at that time, there were no box stores. The box stores came, the market kind of shrunk, I would say. So were you wholesaling from the SWAT meet? Yeah, basically, I mean, I didn't start out that way, but eventually yes, you know, you start, because you meet people from other island. So you can't dismiss sometimes even in a shop. I mean, you could be doing retail when somebody comes in and says, well, hey, we want to buy a wholesale. Where can we do that? Or you can do that right here. You know what I mean? And this is what we have, and this is the minimum amount of pieces. So yeah, you never know in wholesale how things happen. It could be a retail customer that wants to open up a store. And they're just looking at what's out there, what's available. They start from you, you know what I mean? It's the same thing in the business. I go into another store and I see something that I like. I might buy that sample, or I try to, oh yeah, let me source that company. You know, as I was saying, we were in Venice Beach one time and everybody was selling these sand pitchers, sand skates, you know, you turn them upside down and the sand just falls and makes pretty much all that. And it seems like every 50 yards or so, there was a crowd of people around somebody else selling the same item. So at the time I told my partner, I said, if we could find the source on this, this would be fantastic. So all of a sudden we're walking around and there's a huddle of people in there, right on the ground was a box with the name of the company. And so today you would take a picture of it. But yesterday we just had a little notebook, everybody had a little notebook and a pen and you just wrote it down and boom, we followed up. And before you know it, boom, we were sending sand pitches to Hawaii and we had a good run with that, maybe a year or 18 months. You know, so that's how it is with the business. You can have an item and you can run with it for a period of time. And then if other people catch on to it, the price that you're selling it is especially gonna start dropping and either you keep selling it cheap or you move on to something else. It sounds like this, what me too. I know like every so many yards, you run into like the same stuff. Oh yeah, everybody's selling very similar things. Exactly. Interesting. Oh, I got a question from a viewer. I guess they wanna know what a sarong is. Like we never really expect, I guess I assume that people know what it was. It's an Indian word, but it's very popular in India. Another word they use is longi. Periyo is I think originally more from Latin, Tahiti, lava lava, they use that in Hawaii. It's a wrap. So basically it's a wrap that is about 45 inches and width and about 72 in length. And it has multi-uses. So we have to look at it. Where did this come from? Well, this is the lion cloth. Basically this particular item originated in the beginning when people started wearing clothes. And so certain cultures held onto it more than others. So you find a lot of your Asian cultures or South Pacific, a woman will go out in this and this is perfectly fashionable, normal, acceptable. And quite nice because you can wrap it so many different ways. One item that you can make it a skirt, a dress, a head wrap, you can use it for basic things like covering a table or a chair. It has multifunctions. Actually it's the most sustainable item in textile that you can buy. I mean, there's nothing that has so many multi-uses. So the most contemporary word for it is really a wrap. Because sarong is kind of like, not everybody knows that, but a wrap, everybody knows. Well, it's not a burrito wrap, but it's a... It's like a burrito wrap. It's a clothing wrap. It's nice because you can make changes. You can rate yourself in different ways or you can utilize it how you feel it's the most appropriate. You might get cold and you put it around your shoulders. That's just like a shawl. Right, right. I'm so aware at doing outdoor festivals many years ago, people bought them strictly to put on the grass to sit on. It looks like a map. Right, exactly. So yeah, it's universal. It's very universal. In every country, like in Africa, it's called Kanga. In Brazil, also too, it's called Kanga, but it's spelt a little bit different, you know? Wow, interesting. Yeah, in Kikoi in East Africa, West Africa is Kanga. East Africa is Kikoi. But it's all basically the same thing. All the same, basically. Yeah, it's very similar. Different materials, some is strictly cotton, like Kikoi's are mostly cotton. Indonesia is mostly Rayon. India could be mixed, cotton and Rayon. And even the Scottish, what do they wear? Kelts. It's kind of like a sarong. Polynesian men, you know, sarong, sarong, as they all wear sarong, langi, as they call it, you know, too. And I wonder it's so popular. Yeah, and I think what popularized it for Hawaii was, in the beginning, when the first cruise ships came over, you know, with tourists, they saw the local people doing hula. And I think it was in the combination with the hula and they're wearing the sarongs or the lava-lavas as their dress. It became popular. And they, oh yeah, I like to bring one home. You know, I like a leggy. I want us lava-lava, I want some macadamia nuts. And so that's what popularized, I think, universal. I think in Hawaii, I have to say that, and I've been in several places in my time, there's no other place that has the variety that we have. And it stands out, you know what I mean? You go, I go to other countries and I look at what they, what they're selling as sarongs and it's nothing compared to our variety and that has a lot to do with competition and the tour that came, that's coming here. But I didn't find out until after the pandemic that we got 30,000 tourists a day. You know what I mean? How do you source your designs? Do you design or? We source designs and we pay for them sometimes if somebody's a good artist. I think she does a lot of that because she was a flower arranger back in New York many years ago and she has the talent to arrange and create. You know what I mean? So you might, you might see something and say, well, this could be a good design. How can we, you know, magnify it? How can we improve it? Or sometimes you have something existing and you might say, well, this can work. Different color back. You know what I mean? So a lot of things is transformation. You know what I mean? And some things, you have to go with what's leading. So over here, wood sells as flowers, leaves, sea life. But when I say sea life, turtles run faster than dolphins here. Dolphins don't sell like turtles do here. And that's because of the Hawaiian history with the turtle and so forth. But if you go to Florida, dolphins will be ahead. So sometimes the motifs, they vary on the country or the state, what's the most popular thing. And then if you kind of keep up with that, you'll see where flowers might, all of a sudden they start to wane. Now it's the leaf time. So you got to follow that in a way where... And keep updating your design. Yeah, constantly and colors. So like, we don't have a season, but still we're influenced by the color, the prisms that come in. You got to connect to it in a way. So I know when I go to Costco, you have like a really big rack of sarongs there, which is awesome. And I know a lot of companies want to get their product into Costco. Can you kind of explain how you got into Costco? Well, it started back in the 95. I start selling to Costco during roadshow. And so a roadshow is a 10 day show that Costco allows vendors to come in, once you're approved and everything. And it's also an item that they don't carry. So I can't do a roadshow in Costco if they're selling coffee and I have coffee. Unless I have something a unique coffee. Different. Right, so that's how it started. So then I started doing roadshows. At that time it was, I think it was just one Costco at that time. And we would do roadshows. So you do, we did like every two months, we would do the same Costco. So you do it for 10 days. So the importance of the roadshow is partly psychological for the customer because the roadshow will teach you to buy something when you see it. In other words, because if you didn't buy it and then you come back next week and you would say, well, I wanted to get that sarong. And you're gone. They're gone. So it teaches you, okay, everything in here, I should just, when I see it, I don't get it. It also sources, it gives you the platform to source a new item to test market. It also works that way as well. That's how we did, I did a roadshow for seven years in Costco. Wow, and you got a lot of traction during the roadshows? Yeah, it was fantastic. I mean, it was more fantastic than what I would have even imagined. And so I would say that I was very successful. And I like to use the term, I was lucky, but it was really, I won't use the word luck, labor under the correct knowledge. So we can all be lucky in life but we got to work at it. And you got to be consistent and you got to It's so hard work. Yeah, you got to just be persistent and stay in all the main virtues. So that's what would happen. So once I did, I was successful with that. I saw like, okay, I got to keep going with this. And then after seven years, there was some changes that there's always changes in Costco. We want this, we don't want that. And you do this, can you do that? And at that time, I think they wanted an upgrade of fabrics, they didn't want rayon or something. So anyway, I didn't do anything with Costco until later, five years from that time. This was about 2005, I think. And I did a roadshow again for five years with the same product. No, because in the beginning I had dresses, I had shirts, I didn't have that. I just had surrounds and baskets. And it was very successful because we had, I had a good team player, my wife, and I had, there were more Costco stores at that time. It was like five and then now I think it's seven. So we were very successful also too. We had, we customized, we had a certain booth, a wooden booth that was very unique. It was about an eight by eight and it can hold like 2,000 pieces. Wow. It was very impressive. When you came in and you saw nothing but steel and then all this little island in the middle of that steel that was a wooden booth and people loved it. I mean, we got so many compliments on it. It was very successful from the visuals as well. And then how did you transition into becoming a regular product at Costco? Well, what happened is that we kept doing it, we kept doing it and like it was gonna be forever. And then there was a manager in Kona. She says, you guys gotta get this in line. You gotta get this in line. And even my dad used to tell me that too and I just thought it was so far away that they're not gonna accept this because it's not something that they, like a regular item. And I guess I was thinking like that. So finally, we got the connections and we set the samples and then so then it became a six-month ordeal of how it was done. Should it be, because at that time we were selling it on rolls. We were rolling it out. And it was, it was, that was also our complimentary way of selling. It was sold as a gift. Well, as you could see it hanging but you could pick it up. And so people would buy five or six pieces and they can just mail it just like that. And it was a nice little package. And inside the package it had the instructions and all that kind of stuff. So we went back and forth, back and forth. Finally, they said, okay, we want it on hangers. So we decided that we wanted to have some kind of unique type of hanger. And so my wife, she was a very motivating factor. And then she says, let's do a paper hanger cardboard. And so we sourced that and we found that we could do that and it worked great because so many people appreciated that it was at the time of recycling. And you can probably get a lot of product in there too with a thin hanger. It takes up less space. It works perfectly. I wanted to ask you really quick before we're on our way to wrapping up but do you have any advice for anybody that wants to start importing? My advice is that you gotta have passion in what you do. And sometimes people are passionate from the beginning. Sometimes they collectively they are influenced by another person, another thing or maybe a product. And don't dismiss of being small and doing things small. You do things small and then gradually climb, you know what I mean? But you have your eyes on the big prize but at the same time, cover yourself by just working with what you have the possibilities of doing it so it's not, well, I can't do the market because I don't have this or fighting off too much. And I would say in business as an entrepreneur, a lot of us get blocked because, oh, we don't have enough money to do it. We don't have this. I don't have a vehicle, I don't have the right help. These are really just excuses. They're just excuses. You just have to begin and start and just, you know, don't let anything hold you back. You just begin and progress at that time, you know, step in. Good. You know, I think that's... Okay. And where can people find your products? Well, you have casual movements. The website? The website, yeah, casualmovements.com. And we are like you just mentioned, we're in Costco. You could, if there's a Costco nearest to you, then you could buy it from there. Are you in mainland Costco or just Hawaii? No, no, just in Hawaii, yeah, just in Hawaii. Hawaii? Yeah, I think that's the two main sources. And we wholesale, that's what we do. So you can always contact our website for wholesale casualmovements at Yahoo or Gmail. And if I'm allowed, I can leave my phone number. Is that okay? I think so. Sure, if you want. Yeah, I'm Tony at 808-398-8676. I appreciate it. Great. Yeah, and you have so many great products. I think it would be a great addition for a lot of retail stores. So thank you. Thank you so much for joining me on International Hawaii on Think Tech. Mahalo. And we'll see you next time. Thanks, Tony. Okay.