Jakroo Bringing Customized Athletic Clothing to the Mainstream

By Jay Hipps, Hacienda Network Staff Writer

Fans of cycling, running, triathlon, or Nordic sports are familiar with seeing custom athletic clothing on top international performers. It is less common, though, to see custom colors, logos, and team names on teams or single participants at local fundraising runs or other events. To be able to fulfill individual custom orders in two weeks is unheard of, but thanks to Hacienda's Jakroo, all of that is changing.

Jakroo has been producing athletic apparel for 20 years and custom clothes for the last six, creating high performance clothing for athletes. The company's most recent innovation takes customization to new levels. Customers can go to express.jakroo.com and find dozens of styles of garments, pick their own main and accent colors, and add features like text and logos, with the finished items delivered in two weeks.

"We provide custom clothing and we do it very quickly. We're very excited about the potential for this," says Michael Hernandez, director of sales for the company. "It's a tool for folks to really have what we hope is a fun, intuitive way to get creative for themselves and we can provide the production side of it with a lightning-quick turnaround at a very affordable price. A 14-day turnaround is pretty much our standard timeframe for almost all of our orders and reorders for our clients. It's the fastest in the world, so we're pretty proud of it."

Hernandez explains that Jakroo's innovation is what sets the company apart, and that includes the ability to produce a single piece of apparel. "We can provide one custom unit for one person at a very affordable price, and that's something no one else can do. It's a tool that anyone can use and we're adding products to that all the time as we expand our domain," he says. "It's inspiring to see some of these people. They may do a triathlon for the first time, or a running or walking event, and they want to have a custom designed garment that celebrates a cause or something that they just designed on their own."

With the technical infrastructure and worldwide team in place - Jakroo also has offices in Vancouver, Beijing, and Rankweil, Austria, in addition to production facilities in China - the company is looking at the potential for additional expansion, thanks largely to the foundation built here in the Tri-Valley. "We're just coming out of our startup period and we're into our growth period. We've really benefited from the quality of the employee in this area," Hernandez says. "For our startup needs, we needed quality staff and we got it here locally. Pleasanton is our corporate headquarters, but we also have our designers here and the majority of our customer service staff is here, too. It's just a great place for us to work. We're really excited about how it's turned out and our growth for the next five years looks just fantastic, and it's all centered around custom apparel that we provide."

For additional information, access the company's web site at jakroo.com or the custom order interface at express.jakroo.com.

Photo: Jakroo Owner Wayne Du

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