Happy Friday S’well pals and loyal blog readers! I thought you’d like to know a bit about what team S’well has been up to this summer and why I haven’t been posting to the blog often. It has been a very busy summer of attending Gift Shows. The Gift Shows are basically one large store for retailers to shop for their stores. Before this past summer, I didn’t know anything about this world. However, after having S’well bottles in shows all over the US, I am convinced that the next great reality show will be about the shenanigans that go on at these shows and the crazy products that are sold… if you can imagine it, I saw it in a booth at a show this summer!

Meeting the retailers was super fun and rewarding. I am happy to report that S’well bottles can now be found in cool stores from coast to coast- we are in well over 100 stores now and we still have lots of new orders left to ship. It was also great to meet in person many of our happy S’well fans, S’well bottles in hand, and to hear their stories of where they take their S’well bottles and why they agree that they are the best insulated stainless bottles on the planet. I couldn’t agree more, of course!

Gift Show season was mostly hard work but there were some fun times had along the way. Some highlights: Spending time in Atlanta with good pal Ashley and enjoying gourmet food truck night. At the Los Angeles show I learned many new magic tricks, but failed miserably at trying to make balloon animals. I also attended a vendor party where a vacuum cleaner salesman wound up in the swimming pool. Really. While in San Francisco, I met with the curator of the Perils of Plastics exhibit at the Aquarium By the Bay (blog posting on this forthcoming) and had an amazing meal with dear friends Julie and Chris. The New York show was thankfully closer to home, and I enjoyed meeting potential new partners from around the world through an amazing program, Aid for Artisans.

It was also nice to spend time with our S’well sales reps and to meet the other companies exhibiting products. Many new friends were made, and as an added bonus I now have all my ideas for holiday shopping planned out!  Okay, back to processing orders and shipping product over here. Have a S’well weekend, and wishing everyone in the path of hurricane Irene a very safe weekend too.