Buy A T-Shirt Like This And $10 Goes To A Moncton Area Business
MONCTON – Nathan Jones, the owner of screen printing shop Mercenary Merch, has raised more than $2,500 for local businesses through t-shirt sales that help his own company stay afloat, too.
Mercenary Merch designs and sells merch that can be sold at barbershops, tattoo shops, and other small businesses, as well as clothes to be worn by staff.
“When everything started to happen and all these businesses closed down, I lost my main source of revenue because the businesses just weren’t ordering,” he said.
He found a way to continue selling t-shirts at no cost to his business, and also support his clients at the same time. He launched a website called Moncton Support Local about three weeks ago to sell shirts with designs by local graphic artists like Ghandy and Annelise Dekker, and Jones himself.
So far, people as far as Ontario have pre-ordered 250 shirts at $25 each, with another $5 for shipping cost. For each sale, $10 goes to a local business of the customer’s choosing.
The businesses include All The Pretties, Bend City Yoga, Grady’s Salisbury, Ferme Terre Partagée, Hell or High Water Tattoo, Inspiration Cafe, Laundromat Espresso Bar, Working Class Barbers, The Comic Hunter and many others.
When Jones started off, there were only 10 businesses on the list, mostly from his client list. But customers can now choose from a drop-down menu of 40 local businesses.
Businesses that want to be added to the list can fill out a form on the website or contact him through Mercenary Merch’s social media pages.
Jones will be taking pre-orders for another week or two before he ships the t-shirts to customers.
He started Mercenary Merch 11 years ago when his band needed t-shirts at their shows. Usually, aside from selling t-shirts in bulk to other small businesses, he would also manage and sell musicians’ merch at concerts. He’s managed to build his clientele through word of mouth over the years, he said.
With concerts cancelled, orders slowing down, and supply also slower than normal, Jones said he’s still lucky that he’s a one-man shop and can work from home.
As a sole proprietor, he doesn’t qualify for any of the government programs aimed at helping businesses.
“I’ve spoken to my bank, and without actually having a payroll, then you don’t qualify [for the government’s business aid programs]. Where I’m the only employee, I didn’t,” he said. “A lot of the businesses I’m working with, they’re in the same boat. Whether they’re a single-person shop, or if they have a barbershop but all the barbers are contract workers.”
Relying on the Canada Emergency Response Benefit – $2,000 a month for four months – is not an option because he’d have to stop working to qualify.
“That didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I’d rather trim the fat a little bit and cut down on some bills, and actually do the work. Because a lot of these small businesses, we’re used to doing the work,” he said.
Luckily, with so few cases in New Brunswick and no deaths, the provincial government has slowly started to loosen restrictions and re-open and the economy. Business has been picking up for Jones, too. So once he’s done with the support local project, he’s hoping to go back to fulfilling bulk orders for his clients.
“I’ll go back to behind the scenes and to supplying businesses directly, which I prefer anyway,” he said.