Wearing branded school items seems mandatory during the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships (Champs) and one of the vendors at the National Stadium has been a key part in continuing that trend.

Since 2000, Laribo Marketing and Consultants Limited has been selling apparel and merchandise featuring the names and crests of the various schools competing at Champs. Managing Director Richard Bowen is always thrilled to be part of high school’s biggest showpiece but says it requires much effort.

“It takes a considerable amount of investment and it’s not just dollar resources but in human resource investment, intellectual rights investment which is very important, investment in securing your concepts and ideas as well,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

However, Bowen has had to deal with several issues including unauthorised vendors, over the years, selling merchandise which has seen the company unable to achieve maximum profits.

“You have, as we speak now, will come in with a scandal bag and come into the grandstand and start to sell under the quiet under the seats. We lose some of the times and we win some of the times but the loss game is there,” he said.

Bowen doesn’t want to be seen as the villain to smaller vendors but wishes for them to do their due diligence.

“[We] do not wish, using our business savvy and our professional take with the schools, to close out anybody,” he said. “What we believe in is proper alliances. [But] they will say you’re fighting against the little man but that’s not the way it is. We’re just trying to say, ‘Align yourself with the schools, associations and federations’,” he said.

Although business has been steady at Champs, it doesn’t always lead to a massive boost in sales.

“Everyone buys emotionally and defends it logically,” Bowen said. “Champs is an emotional roller-coaster. KC or JC will win a race and a person will come down and say they want a new shirt and so on.

“But 2010 for example, we sold [a lot of] Wolmer’s shirts after they won but we overdid it in 2011 because we thought the Wolmer’s cohort would be enough to have soaked up the stock that we would have purchased and presented but it didn’t work out that way. So we had to start looking at long term to look at a return.”

However, being one of the critical apparel and merchandise vendors for over two decades has made Bowen feel special.

“I don’t know if I can put it into words,” he said. “It is a wonderful feeling, especially when you have repeat customers who say they want a new shirt and so on. The selling process is not hard for persons who come to the booth because we build relationships with our clients as well as the schools, students, principals and members of the board.”